458 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[December i, 1882. 



MS been carefully picked over, and the choicest 

 berries have been subtracted from it. It is 

 only what remains after this proofSs has been 

 again and again gone through that it ever reaches 

 Etigluud. But most of our Moclia cofifee has even less 

 title tlian this to the great name it bt-ars. Mocha coffee, 

 like Havannah cigars, can be grown anywhere", and 

 vpith those who have never tasted the genuine product 

 the imitation will piss. A letter which we printed on 

 Wednesday from Mr. W. J. Hammond, of the San 

 Paulo Railway Company, complains liitterly of the 

 fraud. Brazilian cottee is discredited by it. The b>-st 

 is sold as Mocha coffe-', or Ceylou cnffue, or Java coffee— - 

 honourable jiames all of ihem. What is known iu the 

 market and is ci'nl'essed to as Brazilian coff/e is the 

 inferior sort mixed with tiie inferior coffei-s of other 

 countries, and iL is from this bad compound alone tiiat 

 the coffee-producing cipacities of B-azil are judned. 

 It is the English consumer, we think, and not thf 

 Brazilian producer, that has the more real reason to 

 complain. The producer commands his market and gets 

 his price from the middle man. The consumer pays for 

 what he does not get ; and whether he is put off with 

 good Brazilian coffee as best Mocha, or with refuse 

 coffee as best Brazilian, he is a cheated and an 

 injured man. 



But it is in the art of making uso of his coffee 

 when he has got it that the Englishman is most 

 notoriously wanting. Coffee-making as commonly prac- 

 tised iu this country, combines almost every imagin- 

 able fault. The cottee l.irry has not been freshly 

 roasted. It has very eeldom been freshly ground. 

 Most probably it has been bought in a ground and, 

 therefore, m uu adulterated state. Chieoiy and beans 

 and beetroot are the least objectionable of the many 

 abominations which have been mi.xed with it. The 

 tradesman who sells it may quiet his conscience with 

 the reflection that the man who is capable or buy- 

 ing ground cottee must be so utterly ignorant of the 

 very rudiments of his art that pure matfrial would be 

 wasted upon him. So in the result, it proves. The 

 next stop in English coffee-making is to put a very 

 small amount of coffee into a large pot and to set 

 it on the fire until it boils. Wliatever the original 

 material may have been, boiled coffe" is spoiled cofifee ; 

 and Weak coffee, boiled or unboiled, can never b.i 

 worth drinking. Now, mo^t of the above faults can 

 be avoided with a little care and a little elementary 

 knowledge. We will not be purists enough to insist 

 that the coff-e berry must be bought raw and roasted 

 on each occasion for the daj's use. Tbis is the 

 best plan, of course, but it is a very dificult and 

 very troubles mie plan to follow, and there are very 

 few English servants who could be trusted to succeed 

 in it or even totry it. But grinding,' coffee is a hum- 

 ble art wiibin everybo'ly's power of attainment. This 

 at all events must be done, and the coffee when it 

 has been ground must be used without delay, and 

 must be used liberally. It must not be pressed down 

 and it must not be boiled, but boding water must 

 be poured upon it very slowly, almost drop by drop, 

 and must be allowed to trickle slowly through it into 

 the lower half of the percolator. It is a trouble- 

 some proceps, but it is the only one from which really 

 good cottee will come. Those who are content with 

 what Me. Hammond terms a pint of fluid of the 

 colour of pale ale can go to work in their own way, 

 and can be pretty sure of getting something that will 

 satisfy them. But they must not call the stuff they 

 drink coffee, or at least they must make no attempt 

 o) palm it upon their friends as coffee, tor this most 

 assuredly it is not. The mau who knows wdiai good coffee 

 is will very properly resent beint{ put olf with a 

 counterfeit so bad and so unlike the real thing that 

 the more otter of it is an insult to his uuderstanding 

 or hi3 taste. As for the vari' us mitation coffees 



which are commonly sold or commonly exposed for 

 sale —for we do not know what sale they command 

 — the purchasers, if any, must take them at their 

 own risk. Good coffee extract is a convenient thing, 

 ready and handy for use. It makes an agreeable drink 

 enough, but it does not make coffee. Date coffee, 

 with which Mr. Hammond is more angry than with 

 the rest of its class, scarcely deserves the hard names 

 be has for it. A cheat we cannot call it. It is not 

 made from the coffee berry, and it does not pretend to 

 be. That it has not the properties of coffee is put for- 

 ward as a recommendation for it, and the fact is 

 vouched by respectable medical authorities. The most 

 delicate subjects may use it, we are assured, with 

 perfect safety. No cerebral excitement will come of 

 it ; no attacks of nervousness ; no sleepness nights. 

 It would really seem, on the vendors' own showing, 

 that " except for the glory of the thing " — as the 

 Irishman said abottt bis sedau chair that had no bottom 

 to it — we might just as well not be drinking coffee at all. 

 Coffee and tea are natural allies, but they are also 

 natural rivals. As against alcoholic drinking in any 

 form they are combined. It is over the unoccupied 

 territory, after alcohol has been driven away, that 

 the contention between the two comes. Taking the 

 world through, the general verdict seems to be in 

 favour of tea. Two of the largest empires iu tlie world, 

 Cliina and Russia, are tea drinkers. In Bokhara 

 and 'samarcand, and in most parts of Central Asia, 

 the tea urn is for ever steaming. On the other 

 hand the Arab and the Turk, and with them the 

 whole Weetern part of the Mahomedan world, 

 are coffee drinkers. The decision of Europe is not 

 absolute for either side. It seems to be very much 

 determined by what we may call the accidents of the 

 case. The nations which can get good coffee drink 

 coffee. 'I'hose which can get good tea drink tea. Those 

 which can get both drink both. England claims to be 

 one of these, but the preference of England is beyond 

 all doubt for tea and not for coffee. The unfair choice 

 is very largely compensated for in the United States — 

 the chief coffee-consuming country iu the world. Eng. 

 lishiu 'n, too, would probably make more use of coffee 

 than they do if they could once be induced to overcome 

 the initial difficulties of having it prepared as it ought 

 to be. Tea can be made easily enough. It may be 

 s'.rong or weak according to fancy. It is tea in either 

 case. The right plan, we are assured, is to put plenty 

 of tea into the pot, then to add a little more tea ; and, 

 this done, to leave it to chance whether the liquid 

 comes out strong or weak. But whatever wo may 

 think of weak tea, there is no good word to be 

 said for weak coffee. Coffee must be very strong 

 it it is to deserve the name of coffee at all. It 

 is a generous drink, and it is for generous natures. 

 The little arts which the frug.al housekeeper uses 

 in making tea are not to be thought of in 

 making coffee. There must be no economy in the 

 amount used, no filling up the pot ; no making the 

 same maierials serve twice over. That tea should 

 ever be made like this is bad enough, but there may 

 be tastes so depraved as to put up with it and to 

 see nothing to object to about it. The man has yet 

 to be found who can even make pretence of liking 

 weak coffee, diluted into ten times it proper volume 

 and as deficient in fragrance as in strength. — Sep. 9th. 



♦^ — 



The Coconut Plantation of Mr. Asmus on the 

 Endeavour, Norlh Queensland, looks remarkably fresh 

 and bealthy (says the Cookloum Herald), the trees, 

 although only two years old, averaging 8ft. in height. 

 In five more years ibe spirited proprietor will begin 

 to reap a rich harvest, which, without so much labour 

 as is attached to preparing soil and removing cereals, 

 will be continued for probably forty years. — Melbouruo 

 Argns. 



