OTHER VARIETIES. 139 



the berry and enhance its value to the exclusion of 

 increased quantity. After being picked and cured, it is 

 stored in " go-downs " or storehouses for a number of 

 years, frequently seven, before being offered for sale, 

 the go-downs being erected expressly for the purpose, 

 being open at the sides so as to admit the sun and air in 

 order to mature and season the coffee, which, like wine, 

 improves with age, the bean assuming with time a dark- 

 brown color and the flavor becoming richer and more 

 mellow by the development of the volatile or essential oil 

 contained in the beans. By prolonged keeping in the 

 raw state it is found that the richness of any seeds in 

 this peculiar oil is increased, and with increased aroma 

 the coffee yields a blander and more mellow beverage. 

 Stored coffees, for this reason, loses weight at first with 

 great rapidity, sometimes as much as 8 per cent having 

 been found to dissipate in the first year of keeping, 5 per 

 cent, in the second and 2 per cent, in the third ; but 

 such loss of weight is more than compensated for by. the 

 improvement in quality and consequent enhancement oi 

 value. Old Government Java is for this reason celebrated 

 for its superior excellence, and justly deserving of its high 

 repute. Latterly, however, the term has been indis- 

 criminately used and applied to all Java coffees of a brown 

 color, irrespective of age, grade or district of production 

 and has thereby ceased to possess any real significance as 

 implying any extra merit or superiority over the average 

 run of Java coffees. The natural bean of the true Old 

 Government Java Coffee is large, round and well devel- 

 oped, of a rich brown color, exceedingly regular and 

 uniform in general appearance and entirely free from 

 defects of any kind, while the infusion is round and heavy 

 in body, creamy, mellow and fragrant in flavor, surpassing 

 in general " cup qualities " that of any other variety grown. 



