4 COFFEE I ITS CULTIVATION AND PROFIT. 



probably to the Koranic injunction against its 

 rivals the spirituous liquors, it soon became a 

 popular favourite, and over-rode all opposition 

 from interested pashas and conservative fakirs.* 



In our own country, it was at first regarded 

 with great suspicion as a beverage, from the use 

 of which all sorts of terrible evils might be ex- 

 pected to follow. Mr. Edwards, a merchant of 

 Turkey, was perhaps the first to bring the fragrant 

 preparation under British notice. In the year 

 1650, he imported a Greek youth, named Pasqua 

 Rosee, who was proficient in the art of preparing 

 Coffee; and so greatly did the new drink "take," 

 after the first opposition was over, that in little 



a strong scent." He was thus probably the initiator of the popular 

 fallacy that Coffee is made from " berries." Latham's edition of 

 " Tod's Johnson's Dictionary " says, that " Coffee is an infusion of 

 the berries." It is no more an infusion of berries than it is of leaves 

 the " beans " used are of course seeds'. 



* " Coffee comes to us laden with the fragrance of Oriental bazaars 

 and the romance of the 'Arabian Nights.' Its early history as an 

 economic product is involved in considerable obscurity, the absence 

 of historical fact being compensated for by an unusual profusion of 

 conjectural statements, and by purely mythical stories. Throwing 

 legend aside, the use of Coffee seems to have been introduced from 

 Ethiopia into Persia about the year 875 A.D., and into Arabia from 

 the latter country at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Not- 

 withstanding that its use as a beverage was prohibited by the 

 Koran, it spread rapidly through the Mohammedan nation, and it 

 was publicly sold in Constantinople in 1554. It easily found its 

 way from the Levant to Venice, where Coffee-houses were established 

 as early as 1615. A Jew named Jacob opened the first Coffee-house 

 in England, selling it as a common beverage at Baliol College, 

 Oxford, in the year when the Long Parliament met." American 

 Paper. 



