ANALYSIS AND ADULTERATIONS OF COFFEE. 91 



sold, and employed to make a beverage which, by a fiction, was 

 dignified by the name of coffee; the chief argument, inde- 

 pendent of price, urged in favor of it was its supposed 

 nutritive properties. When it is recollected, however, that 

 the starch of roasted rye is in part reduced to the condition 

 of charcoal, it will at once be perceived that its nutritive 

 qualities cannot be very great, and that a single mouthful of 

 wholesome bread contains more nourishment than a dozen cups 

 of a leverage made from roasted rye. The adulteration of 

 coffee by substances so cheap, and, for the purpose to which 

 they are applied, worthless as these, is a gross fraud, requiring 

 emphatic condemnation, and, when ascertained to be practised, 

 meriting exposure and punishment. The following tests for 

 the detection of adulterations in coffee have been suggested: 

 "The means to be resorted to for this purpose are of three 

 kinds: namely, certain physical characters and appearances 

 presented by adulterated samples ; the microscope ; and 

 chemistry. By the first, we ascertain in some cases the general 

 fact whether the sample is adulterated or not; and by the 

 others, especially by the microscope, we learn the nature of 

 the particular adulteration or adulterations practised. The 

 first means consist in noticing whether the sample in the mass 

 cakes or coheres, whether it floats in water or not, and the color 

 of the infusion. If the ground coffee cakes in the paper in 

 which it is folded, or when pressed between the fingers, there is 

 good reason for believing that it is adulterated, most probably 

 with chiccory. If, when a few pinches of the suspected coffee 

 are placed upon some water in a wine-glass, part floats and 

 part sinks, there is reason to believe that it is adulterated it 

 may be either with chiccory, roasted corn, or some other 

 analogous substances. The coffee does not imbibe the water, 

 but floats on the surface, while the other substances absorb the 

 water, and gradually subside to the bottom to a greater or less 



