SECTION XVI. 



COFFEE AS A BEVERAGE. 



IT is remarkable that, much as coffee is used iu this coun- 

 try, the proper mode of preparing it as a beverage should be 

 so little understood. Perhaps it is that most people consider 

 coffee-making as too easy a process to need any pains at 

 all ; and for this reason the coffee served at nine breakfast- 

 tables out of ten, throughout the kingdom, is a miserable 

 muddy infusion, which people seem to drink only because, as 

 washerwomen say, it is "wet and warm." The right way of 

 making coffee is not less easy than the wrong one ; there is 

 110 mystery about it. All that is required is the observance 

 of a few simple rules : 



1. The nature of coffee is such that it parts very easily 

 with its aromatic, stimulating, and other properties ; a small 

 quantity of water will draw out all the goodness quite as 

 effectually as a large quantity, and it will do this if the coffee- 

 berries be only bruised or very coarsely ground. It is a 

 grave mistake to suppose that coffee should be ground to a 

 fine powder ; extreme fineness is the great cause of " thick 

 coffee" as prepared for breakfast. In Eastern countries, 

 where people know what good coffee means, they always 

 bruise the berries in a mortar. In fact, the . goodness of 

 coffee depends more on the roasting and the method of pre- 

 paring afterwards, than on the quality of the berry, or any 

 other particular. 



2. Buy your coffee ready roasted, but not ground ; that 

 is, buy coffee-berries, and always choose such as are fresh 



G 



