ROASTED COFFEES. 205 



to 60 per cent, of the latter. The distinguishing features 

 of the raw or natural bean being largely altered in the 

 process of roasting, making it a difficult matter for any 

 but experts to detect this most common form of adultera- 

 tion, an acquaintance with the original flavors of the 

 different varieties being the only sure means of detection. 

 Some years since, there was invented a bean resem- 

 bling that of roasted coffee, made from dyed plas- 

 ter of paris, which was intended for admixture with 

 coffee, and at the present time a far more dangerous 

 fraud is being perpetrated in the already too wide field of 

 coffee adulteration. It is that of a bogus or artificial 

 bean, resembling that of whole roasted coffee, which, on 

 analysis, proves to be largely composed of wheat flour, 

 mixed with a glutinous compound of cracker dust, paste 

 and molasses, moulded in the form of the true coffee 

 bean of commerce and flavored with a weak solution of 

 caramel or chocolate. These spurious coffee beans are 

 not, however, intended to supply in themselves a beverage 

 which from any similarity of appearance, taste or effect 

 might form a substitute for coffee and cannot therefore be 

 regarded as such, but are intended solely as an adulterant 

 of whole roasted coffee. It is readily detected by close 

 inspection in the hand, but still more so in the cup, 

 tasting as it does more like a decoction made from burnt 

 dough and molasses. When dissolved in boiling water 

 it yields a blackish, muddy liquor akin to slop, leaving 

 a thick, greasy residue in the bottom of the vessel. 

 The custom of coating or " glazing," now so much in 

 vogue among roasters and dealers, may also be classed 

 among the many, but milder forms of adulteration, which, 

 though ostensibly claimed to protect the pores of the 

 coffee from the oxydizing influences of the atmosphere, 

 preserve its aroma, and at the same time clarify the 



