BOASTING THE BEAN. 27 



Shrivelled coffee, or that having a shrunken appearance, will not, 

 as a rule, roast nicely, although some such lots will occasionally 

 turn out a bright, handsome roast. When the berry has been 

 sufficiently roasted and the cylinder withdrawn from the fire, the 

 operator throws in a small quantity of cold water. The ra^id 

 vaporizing of the water carries off the heat, and the changes 

 wrought during this part of the process cause the berry to swell, 

 thus giving it a much more sightly and attractive appearance. 

 The addition of water does not, as might be supposed, add to the 

 weight of the coffee, for the heat is so intense as to immediately 

 convert the water into steam, which readily escapes. The coffee, 

 after being removed to the cylinder, is placed in the cooler, a 

 large box having a heavy wire bottom through which currents of 

 air are forced, soon reducing the temperature so that it can be 

 handled. "When cooled it is re-sacked, or put into other packages, 

 and is then ready for shipment. 



The average loss of weight in the process of roasting coffee is 

 reckoned at sixteen per cent., or sixteen pounds upon every one 

 hundred pounds, which accounts for the higher price of roasted 

 coffee as compared with green. This loss sometimes runs as low 

 as fourteen and one-half per cent., and agaia as high as seventeen 

 per cent., and in exceptional cases where coffee has been roasted 

 that was very green, and grown in places not far distant, it has 

 reached twenty to twenty-two per cent. The temperature and 

 season of the year exert some influence, but the difference in loss 

 depends more upon the age and consequent dryness of the coffee 

 than on anything else. The difference in loss made between a light 

 and a dark roast will not usually average over one per cent. It 

 is the custom not to roast as high during the summer as in the 

 winter, because the higher the roast the greater is the tendency 

 to sweat, the high temperature of the summer months causing 

 the oil to exude ; this soon becomes sour or rancid, and injures 

 the flavor of the coffee. 



We present a table of losses made in roasting, compiled from 

 the record of one establishment in New York. During one 

 month a total of 173,056 pounds of all kinds of green coffee roasted 

 showed a loss of 27,385 pounds, or .1582 per cent. 



