12 
COFFEE. 
BY BABON LIEBIG. 
W HEN a boy I bad lessons in French of a Frenchwoman, 
whose husband was confectioner in the grand ducal 
kitchen at Darmstadt. One of the sons — he became after- 
wards a brave and distinguished officer — was a great crony of 
mine, and with him I often paid a visit to the said ducal 
kitchen, which for me was not merely a source of material 
enjoyment. 
The steaming, roasting, and boiling which were going on 
there, excited in me the greatest interest, and I could unin- 
terruptedly watch the process of roasting a joint from the first 
when it was put raw on the spit, till that consummating 
moment when the fire had imparted to it a rich brown covering 
and of sweetest savour. 
I observed how the roast-veal was sprinkled with salt, the 
capons wrapped in slices of bacon ; nothing escaped my eager 
boyish attention. 
Hence I have retained a taste for cooking, and in leisure 
hours occupy myself with the mysteries of the kitchen ; with 
the preparation of articles of human food, and all thereto 
belonging ; in which are not unfrequently included matters of 
which chemistry knows next to nothing. 
Young chemists do not devote their attention to such things 
inasmuch as they are little fitted to afford proof of their skill 
and ingenuity, or to found a claim to recognition in the domain 
of science. It therefore is left for the older ones to do so. 
On the best method of preparing our common beverage, 
coffee, the opinions both of cooks and connoisseurs consi- 
derably diverge ; and the difficulty of a decision cannot fail to 
be appreciated by him who knows that our tinmen and other 
artificers are yearly adding to the improvement of the half- 
hundred biggins or coffee-pots which we already possess. 
As my recipe for the preparation of coffee threatens to 
make all these inventions unnecessary, I risk, of course, 
making all manufacturers as such my adversaries. 
