A book could be written on the subject of this chapter. We shall have to be content to touch briefly upon the important developments in the devices employed. The changes that have taken place in the preparation of the drink itself will be discussed in [chapter XXXVI].
In the beginning, that is, in Ethiopia, about 800 A.D., coffee was looked upon as a food. The whole ripe berries, beans and hulls, were crushed, and molded into food balls held in shape with fat. Later, the dried berries were so treated. So the primitive stone mortar and pestle were the original coffee grinder.
The dried hulls and the green beans were first roasted, some time between 1200 and 1300, in crude burnt clay dishes or in stone vessels, over open fires. These were the original roasting utensils.
Next, the coffee beans were ground between little mill-stones, one turning above the other. Then came the mill used by the Greeks and Romans for grain. This mill consisted of two conical mill stones, one hollow and fitted over the other, specimens of which have been found in Pompeii. The idea is the same as that employed in the most modern metal grinder.
Between 1400 and 1500, individual earthenware and metal coffee-roasting plates appeared. These were circular, from four to six inches in diameter, about 3⁄16 inch thick, slightly concave and pierced with small holes, something like the modern kitchen skimmer. They were used in Turkey and Persia for roasting a few beans at a time over braziers (open pans, or basins, for holding live coals). The braziers were usually mounted on feet and richly ornamented.
About the same time we notice the first appearance of the familiar Turkish pocket cylinder coffee mill and the original Turkish ibrik, or coffee boiler, made of metal. Little drinking cups of Chinese porcelain completed the service.
The original coffee boiler was not unlike the English ale mug with no cover, smaller at the top than at the bottom, fitted with a grooved lip for pouring, and a long straight handle. They were made of brass, and in sizes to hold from one to six tiny cupfuls. A later improvement was of the ewer design, with bulbous body, collar top, and cover.
The Turkish coffee grinder seems to have suggested the individual cylinder roaster which later (1650) became common, and from which developed the huge modern cylinder commercial roasting machines.
