Of the Excellent Qualities of Coffee. 619 



There is no culinary ' process that is liable to so 

 much uncertainty in its results as the making of cof- 

 fee ; and there is certainly none in which any small 

 variation in the mode of operation produces more 

 sensible effects. 



With the same materials, and even when used in 

 the same proportions, this liquor is one day good and 

 the next bad, and nobody perhaps can even guess at the 

 cause of this difference ; and what renders these varia- 

 tions of greater importance is this remarkable circum- 

 stance, that when coffee is bad, when it has lost its 

 peculiar aromatic flavour which renders it so very 

 agreeable to the organs of taste and of smell, it has 

 lost its exhilarating qualities, and with them all that 

 was valuable in it. 



Different methods have been employed in making 

 coffee, but the preparation of the grain is nearly the 

 same in all of them. It is first roasted in an iron pan, 

 or in a hollow cylinder made of sheet iron, over a brisk 

 fire ; and when from the colour of the grain and the 

 peculiar fragrance which it acquires in this process it 

 is judged to be sufficiently roasted, it is taken from the 

 fire and suffered to cool. When cold, it is pounded in 

 a mortar, or ground in a handmill to a coarse powder, 

 and preserved for use. 



Great care must be taken in roasting coffee not to 

 roa.st it too much. As soon as it has acquired a deep 

 cinnamon colour, it should be taken from the fire and 

 cooled ; otherwise much of its aromatic flavour will be 

 dissipated, and its taste will become disagreeably bitter. 

 In some parts of Italy coffee is roasted in a thin 

 Florence flask, slightly closed by means of a loose 

 cork. This is held over a clear fire of burning coals, 



