CHAPTEE IX. 



THE MOCHA EEEEY. 



In popular estimation Arabian coffee, known as Mocha, ranks as 

 the finest. For more than fom- centuries coffee-culture has been 

 carried on in Arabia, and for two centuries that country furnished 

 the world with its supply, which was, however, limited. As stated 

 elsewhere, while Abyssinia claims the honor of giving the coffee- 

 tree to the world, Arabia furnished to Java the first plants grown 

 in the East Indies, and Java, in turn, transmitted the tree to 

 Europe, whence the West Indies and Brazil obtained it, so that 

 virtually Arabia gave to the world the far-famed plant. 



The coffee-production of Arabia, however, cannot be said to 

 have, at the present day, any real importance in the world's 

 supply. The quantities of genuine Arabian coffee which reach 

 Europe and America are very small, and it is estimated that only 

 about four thousand tons of coffee are now annually exported from 

 Arabia, although thirty years ago the exports reached 10,000 tons. 

 East India coffee is now freely imported into Arabia, and even 

 the product of Brazil finds its way to the Arabian coffee-pot. 



The plant is mostly cultivated on terraces in the hiUs of Yemen, 

 toward the districts of Aden and Mocha. The excessively hot, 

 dry, and sandy character of the region renders irrigation and 

 shade indispensable, and these peculiarities of soil and climate are 

 said to account for the smallness and the acrid flavor of the Mocha 

 bean. Certain it is that Mocha seeds planted in Brazil produce 

 trees which in a short time give Brazil, and not Mocha coffee. In 

 Arabia the berries are dried in the pulp, and the processes em- 

 ployed in preparing the bean for market are most primitive. The 

 product, especially in the lower grades, remains very imperfectly 

 cured, and generally mixed with fragments of hull, small stones, 



