All About Coffee

by William H. Ukers

Coffee Making in Europe in the Nineteenth Century

England. We have noted Count Rumford's efforts to reform coffee making in England in the early part of the nineteenth century. Many other scientific men joined the movement. Among them was Professor Donovan, who in the Dublin Philosophical Journal for May, 1826, told of his experiments "to ascertain the best methods for extracting all the virtues inherent in the berry." The Penny Magazine for June 14, 1834, after deploring "the straw-colored fluid commonly introduced under the misnomer of coffee in England", thus digests Professor Donovan's findings:

Mr. Donovan found, that what we shall call the medicinal quality of coffee resides in it independent of its aromatic flavor,—that it is possible to obtain the exhilarating effect of the beverage without gratifying the palate,—and, on the other hand, that all the aromatic quality may be enjoyed without its producing any effect upon the animal economy. His object was to combine the two.

The roasting of coffee is requisite for the production of both these qualities; but, to secure them in their full degree, it is necessary to conduct the process with some skill. The first thing to be done is to expose the raw coffee to the heat of a gentle fire, in an open vessel, stirring it continually until it assumes a yellowish colour. It should then be roughly broken,—a thing very easily done,—so that each berry is divided into about four or five pieces, when it must be put into the roasting apparatus. This, as most commonly used, is made of sheet-iron, and is of a cylindrical shape: it no doubt answers the purpose well, and is by no means a costly machine, but coffee may be very well roasted in a common iron or earthenware pot, the main circumstances to be observed being the degree to which the process is carried, and the prevention of partial burning, by constant stirring. One of the requisites for having good coffee is that it shall have been recently roasted.

Coffee should be ground very fine for use, and only at the moment when it is wanted, or the aromatic flavour will in some measure be lost. To extract all its good qualities, the powder requires two separate and somewhat opposite modes of treatment, but which do not offer any difficulty when explained. On the one hand, the fine flavour would be lost by boiling, while, on the other, it is necessary to subject the coffee to that degree of heat in order to extract its medicinal quality. The mode of proceeding, which, after many experiments, Mr. Donovan found to be the most simple and efficacious for attaining both these ends, was the following:—

The whole water to be used must be divided into two equal parts. One half must be put first to the coffee "cold", and this must be placed over the fire until it "just comes to a boil", when it must be immediately removed. Allowing it then to subside for a few moments the liquid must be poured off as clear as it will run. The remaining half of the water, which during this time should have been on the fire, must then be added "at a boiling heat" to the grounds, and placed on the fire, where it must be kept "boiling" for about three minutes. This will extract the medicinal virtue, and if then the liquid be allowed again to subside, and the clear fluid be added to the first portion, the preparation will be found to combine all the good properties of the berry in as great perfection as they can be obtained. If any fining ingredient is used it should be mixed with the powder at the beginning of the process.

Several kinds of apparatus, some of them very ingenious in their construction, have been proposed for preparing coffee, but they are all made upon the principle of extracting only the aromatic flavour, while Professor Donovan's suggestions not only enable us to accomplish that desirable object, but superadd the less obvious but equally essential matter of extracting and making our own all the medicinal virtues.

When Webster and Parkes published their Encyclopedia of Domestic Economy, London, 1844, they gave the following as "the most usual method of making coffee in England":

Put fresh ground coffee into a coffee-pot, with a sufficient quantity of water, and set this on the fire till it boils for a minute or two; then remove it from the fire, pour out a cupful, which is to be returned into the coffee-pot to throw down the grounds that may be floating; repeat this, and let the coffee-pot stand near the fire, but not on too hot a place, until the grounds have subsided to the bottom; in a few minutes the coffee will be clear without any other preparation, and may be poured into cups; in this manner, with good materials in sufficient quantity, and proper care, excellent coffee may be made. The most valuable part of the coffee is soon extracted, and it is certain that long boiling dissipates the fine aroma and flavour. Some make it a rule not to suffer the coffee to boil, but only to bring it just to the boiling point; but it is said by Mr. Donovan that it requires boiling for a little time to extract the whole of the bitter, in which he conceives much of the exhilarating qualities of the coffee reside.

This work had also the following to say on the clearing of coffee, which was then a much-mooted question: