14 SHADE IN" COFFEE CULTURE. 



rivers. We are thus obliged, for reasons to be elaborated in the future, to regard 

 these alkaloids as preserving a sort of balance of moisture by which the plant stores 

 up during the wet weather a concentrated supply of water which may be very slowly 

 yielded up during a time of need. 



This proposition appears to be entirely applicable to the culture of 

 coffee grown at low elevations and with too much moisture. In con- 

 nection with the previous quotation it also suggests that there may be 

 physiological reasons why coffee produced in the shade or in humid 

 situations can not contain a maximum of alkaloids and aromatic prop- 

 erties, though it is not, of course, certain that the parallel with coca 

 will prove to be complete. 



Coffee, like some other stimulating substances, is used for two rea- 

 sons, (1) the pleasing flavor and (2) the subsequent physiological effects. 

 The latter are now known to result from the alkaloid caffein, a nearly 

 tasteless, slightly bitter substance, the presence or absence of which 

 would probably change but little the flavor or the aroma of the coffee. 

 These latter qualities are probably dependent upon a variety of essen- 

 tial oils and other organic compounds, the number and composition of 

 which, as with the ''sweet alkaloids" of coca, are not known. The 

 character and amount of these may also have no direct connection with 

 the caffein content, though the greater functional activity of sun-grown 

 plants may be expected to result in larger amounts of the various 

 special products, as in the above-described instance of the coca. 



FERMENTATION OF COFFEE. 



Investigations of the effect of shade on quality are likely to be com- 

 plicated and hindered by our equally great ignorance of the influence 

 of the various processes of curing and fermenting coffee. The import- 

 ance of the changes now known to take place in the curing of tobacco, 

 tea, cacao, vanilla, and other products depending for their value upon 

 the development of an aromatic flavor indicates that the same question 

 should not be neglected in the case of coffee. Doubtless the wrong 

 methods of curing would cause deterioration in the very best natural 

 product. It is easy to understand that the condition and composition 

 of coffee which is picked as soon as the berries become red, run through 

 a pulping machine and then dried as rapidly as possible in the sun or 

 by artificial heat may be quite different from the condition of that 

 which is allowed to become fully ripe on the tree, then falls to the 

 ground, and there slowly completes the process of drying, as is said 

 to be the case with the genuine Mocha coffee of Arabia. To further 

 facilitate the rapid drying of the coffee it is customary on large estates 

 to ferment the pulped coffee from forty to sixty hours for the avowed 

 purpose of disintegrating the saccharine mucilaginous pulp which 

 remains adherent to the outside of the parchment. What other changes 

 may go on during this period is not known. Possibly the rapid t'crmen- 



