THE HISTORY OP COFFEE. 23 



understand pretty well how to make and drink coffee, and 

 never hesitate to avail themselves of its invigorating influence. 

 "When dwellers in the tropics not only in this delightful island 

 but wherever coffee is grown once learn how to make coffee 

 in perfection, which can only be done by steam-heat, a new 

 impetus will be given to the growth of the bean, for, like all 

 discoveries of value, the better an article is produced, the more 

 universally is it used. 



Coffee was first regularly introduced into England about the 

 middle of the seventeenth century, as we learn from the fol- 

 lowing extract from Sir Henry Blount, who visited Turkey in 

 1634 : " The Turks have a drink," he writes, " called Cauphe, 

 made of a berry as big as a small bean, dried in a furnace, and 

 beat to a powder of- a sooty color, in taste a little bitterish, that 

 they seethe and drink, hot as may be endured. It is good at all 

 hours of the day, but especially at morning and evening, when 

 to that purpose they entertain themselves two or three hours in 

 cauphe-houses, which, in Turkey, abound more than Inns and 

 ale-houses with us." Notwithstanding the opposition and pre- 

 judice which prevailed against the beverage for nearly a score 

 of years after its first introduction, the coffee-houses continued 

 to increase in London and other large cities of England. All 

 classes resorted to them ; literary men and artists, mercantile 

 men and the votaries of fashion, all had their respective coffee- 

 houses. Thus 



" Mocha's berry, from Arabia pure, 

 In small, fine, china cups came in at last." 



The English and French dispute the honor of being the first 

 introducers of coffee into "Western Europe. Coffee was not 

 used at Rome until long after it had been known to, and 

 tasted by, Italian travellers at Constantinople ; the Church, 

 however, looked with favor upon a beverage, one effect of 



