ANALYSIS AND ADULTERATIONS OF COFFEE. 89 



There are other substitutes for coffee besides roasted seeds of 

 the water-iris : % the chick-pea, beans, rye and other grains, nuts, 

 almonds, and even wheaten bread, the dried and roasted roots 

 of the turnip, carrot, and asparagus. Also, horse-beans roasted 

 with a little honey or sugar ; the nut of the sassafras-tree, or 

 the wood cut into chips ; beet-root, sliced and dried in a kiln 

 or oven ; and many more ; all of which, however, possess little 

 or none of the exhilarating or medicinal properties of real 

 coffee. 



Some years ago, it was scarcely possible to procure a 

 sample of ground coffee that was not largely adulterated, 

 no matter what the price paid for it; and in some instances 

 the coffee, so-called, consisted almost entirely of chiccory. 

 In 1850, a firm in Liverpool actually took out a patent for 

 moulding chiccory into the shape of berries ; they appear 

 to have been induced to do so in consequence of the exis- 

 tence of a Treasury minute, which did not allow the sale of 

 chiccory mixed with coffee, without printing the fact on each 

 package sold. It has been asserted that in France and other 

 continental countries the use of chiccory is almost universal. 

 This statement Hassall regards as incorrect. He says, "We 

 found that in all the good hotels in France and Germany the 

 coffee served up was genuine, and did not contain a particle of 

 chiccory ; but that it was largely employed, either separately or 

 mixed with coffee, by poor persons and amongst domestics, for 

 the sake of economy, chiccory costing less than half the price 

 of coffee." The differences, chemical and physiological, which 

 exist between the two articles are thus given: "Coffee is the 

 seed of a plant, and it contains essential oil, or caffeone, caffeic 

 acid, and a peculiar principle termed caffeine ; each of these 

 constituents possesses different and highly important properties, 

 upon which the value of coffee mainly depends. 



" Chiccory is the root of a plant belonging to the family of the 



