them in the sun, in layers of four inches thick, on inclined planes. In a few days, the pulp is discharged by 
fermentation, and in about three weeks the coffee is completely dry. The skin of the berries, already bro- 
ken, is removed by mills, or in wooden mortars. The second method, is to separate the grain from the pulp 
at once, by means of a mill, and the grains are then left to soak in water for twenty-four hours. They are 
afterwards dried, and then stripped of the pellicle, or parchment, as it is called, by means of appropriate 
mills. The grains of coffee are afterwards winnowed, and mingled with the grindings and dust of the parch- 
ment, in which state they are put into bags for sale. 
It appears by Le Grand’s “Vie privee des Francois” that the celebrated Thevenot, in 1658, gave coffee 
after dinner; but it was considered as the whim of a traveller; neither the thing itself nor its appearance was 
inviting, and it was probably attributed by the gay to the humour of a vain philosophical traveller. But ten 
years afterwards a Turkish ambassador at Paris made the beverage highly fashionable. The elegance of the 
equipage recommended it to the eye, and charmed the women ; the brilliant porcelain cups in which it was 
poured; the napkins fringed with gold, and the Turkish slaves on their knees presenting it to the ladies, 
seated on the ground on cushions, turned the heads of the Parisian dames. This elegant introduction made 
the exotic beverage a subject of conversation, and in 1672, an Armenian at Paris, at the fair time, opened a 
Coffee-house. But the custom still prevailed to sell beer and wine, and to smoke and mix with indifferent 
company in their first imperfect coffee-houses. A Florentine, one Procdpe, celebrated in his day as the ar- 
biter of taste in this department, instructed by the error of the Armenian, invented a superior establishment, 
and introduced ices ; a he embellished his apartment, and those who had avoided the offensive coffee-houses, 
repaired to Procope’s, where literary men, artists, and wits resorted, to inhale the fresh and fragrant steam. 
It was at the coffee-house of Du Laurent, that Saurien, La Motte, Danchet, Boindin, Rousseau, &c. met, 
but the mild streams of the aromatic berry, could not mollify the accerbity of so many rivals, and the witty 
malignity of Rousseau gave birth to those famous couplets on all the coffee-drinkers, which occasioned his 
misfortune and his banishment. 
Among a number of poetical satires against the use of coffee, I find a curious exhibition, according to 
the exaggerated notions of that day, in “a cup of coffee, or coffee in its colours,” 1663. The writer, like 
others of his contemporaries, wonders at the odd taste which could make coffee a substitute for canary. 
“ For men and Christians to turn Turks and think 
To excuse the crime, because ’tis in their drink ! 
Pure English apes ! ye may, for aught I know, 
Would it but mode — learn to eat spiders too. h 
Should any of your grandsire’s ghosts appear 
In your wax-candle circles, and but hear 
The name of colfee, so much called upon, 
Then see it drank like scalding Phlegethon ; 
Would they not startle, think ye, all agreed 
’Twas conjuration both in word and deed; 
Or Catiline’s conspirators, as they stood 
Sealing their oaths in draughts of blackest blood, 
The merriest ghost of all your sires would say, 
Your wine’s much worse since his last yesterday. 
He’d wonder how the club had given a hop 
O’er Tavern bars into a Farrier’s shop, 
Where he’d suppose, both by the smoke and stench, 
Each man a horse, and each horse at his drench. 
Sure you’re no poets, nor their friends, for now 
Should Jonson’s strenuous spirit, or the rare 
Beaumont and Fletcher’s in your mind appear, 
They would not find the air perfum’d with one 
Castilian drop, nor dew of Helicon ; 
When they but men would speak as the Gods do, 
They drank pure nectar as the Gods drink too, 
Sublimed with rich canary, — say shall then, 
These less than coffee's self, these coffee men ; 
These sons of nothing, that can hardly make 
Their broth, for laughing how the jest does take ; 
Yet grin, and give ye for the vine’s pure blood 
A loathsome potion, not yet understood, 
Syrup of soot or essence of old shoes, 
Dasht with diurnals and the books of news.” 
Amidst these contests of popular prejudices, between the lovers of forsaken canary, and the terrors of 
our females at the barrenness of an Arabian desert, which lasted for twenty years, at length the custom was 
universally established ; nor were there wanting some reflecting minds desirous of introducing the use of 
this liquid among the labouring classes of society, to wean them from strong liquors. Howel, in noticing 
that curious philosophical traveller, Sir Henry Blount’s “ Organon Salutis,” 1659, observed, that his “coffa 
drink hath caused a great sobriety among all nations; formerly apprentices, clerks, &c., used to take their 
morning draughts in ale, beer, or wine, which often made them unfit for business. Now they play the 
good fellows in this wakeful and civil drink. The worthy gentleman, Sir James Muddiford, who introduced 
the practice hereof in London, deserves much respect of the whole nation.” 
* A most exquisite ice is made at Paris, called ylace au cafe blar.c ■ it has the flavour of the coffee, without its brown hue ; how this is 
managed, we know not, but Tortoni can tell. 
b This witty poet was not without a degree of prescience; the luxury of eating spiders has never indeed become “modish,” but Mons. 
Lalande, the French astronomer, and one or two humble imitators of the modern philosopher, have shewn this triumph over vulgar pre- 
judices, and were epicures of this stamp. 
