COFFEE 



1463 



COFFEE 



more serious results, such as headache, palpi- 

 tation of the heart and indigestion. So, with 

 coffee drinking, as with everything else, the 

 medical injunction is, "Be moderate." 



"He knows to live who keeps the middle state, 

 And neither leans on this side nor on that." 



The Story of Coffee Drinking. There are 

 several legends about the discovery of coffee 

 and its use. Some say that a long, long time 

 ago an Arab chief was taken ill in Persia. 

 A wise Persian cured him with a drink brewed 

 from some berries growing wild in the fields, 

 and the Arab carried home with him some 

 of those wonderful berries and planted them, 

 so introducing coffee into Arabia. Another 

 story is that a flock of sheep in Abyssinia fed 

 one day on coffee berries and were restless at 

 night. The shepherds, noticing this wakeful- 

 ness, investigated and experimented ; they liked 

 the taste of the berry and started to use it 

 themselves. 



So down the ages from the long ago the 

 use of coffee spread from country to country 

 around the globe, each people preparing the 

 drink to suit its individual tastes. It was 

 discovered that roasting the seed of the coffee 

 berry to a light-brown color brings out the 

 aroma and other desirable qualities. So the 

 drink is prepared from roasted, ground seeds, 

 usually by infusion, like tea. Boiling water is 

 poured over the ground coffee. Some people 

 then let the mixture come just to the boiling 

 point, then settle or clear it with a little cold 

 water. Some prepare coffee by having boiling 

 water slowly drip over the ground coffee, 

 through strainers, to the bottom of the pot. 

 Others find mixing a raw egg with the ground 

 coffee before infusion produces a better result. 

 However, egg in coffee is quite likely to pro- 

 duce sleeplessness. Special pots were designed 

 for the brewing of this favorite beverage, and 

 the percolator, with the clear, brown fluid bub- 

 bling in its glass dome, is now a familiar sight 

 in homes. Coffee so prepared is clearer than 

 that prepared in the ordinary way; no 

 "grounds" can enter the drinking cup. 



In the seventeenth century the coffee houses 

 of London played a very real part in the life 

 of the day. In them were organized many of 

 the social, political and literary clubs to which 

 most of the illustrious men of the nation be- 

 longed; and from them went out judgments 

 from which there was no appeal. 



How Coffee Grows. When wild, the coffee 

 tree grows from fifteen to thirty feet high, but 

 under cultivation it is seldom allowed to grow 



higher than six feet. The tree is an evergreen, 

 with dark-green -leaves having a waxy upper 

 surface, and both stamens and pistils are borne 

 on the same tree. The flowers are white and 

 fragrant, but rarely last more than a day. 

 The fruit is cherrylike, dark red when ripe. 

 Each berry has two cells, each cell a single 



BRANCH OF COFFEE TREE 

 Showing coffee berries as they grow. 



seed, which is the coffee nib or bean. The 

 name "bean" comes from the Arabic bunn, 

 meaning coffee. These beans are light green 

 before roasting. 



The coffee plant thrives in sandy or gravelly 

 soil on high lands where the temperature 

 throughout the year ranges from 60 to 90 F. 

 The plants are cultivated both from seeds and 

 from shoots. The trees need shade at first and 

 plenty of water,, but less and less water as 

 the fruit begins to ripen. The average yearly 

 yield of a tree is one and one-half to two 

 pounds of seeds, but there are usually two or 

 three crops, and some trees produce two to 

 five pounds. Fruit is borne from the third 

 year; and a tree usually produces for about 

 twenty to fifty years, but in some cases the 

 fruit-bearing period lasts 100 years. 



Preparation for the Market. When ripe, the 

 fruit is shaken from the trees upon canvas 

 placed below, or sometimes is picked by hand. 

 The berries are dried in the sun, then passed 

 between rollers which crush the dried pulp 

 but do not crush the seeds. The pulp is then 

 blown away from the seed by a current of 

 wind passed over them. When thoroughly 

 dried the seeds are packed in large burlap 

 sacks and shipped to market. Roasting is 

 done when desired for use. In Brazil the pick- 



