On the introduction of coffee into Constantinople, much prejudice existed against its use. It was pro- 
scribed as an intoxicating beverage, and the shops were ordered to be shut by the Mufti, who complained 
that the Mahommedans forsook the mosques, and crowded the coffee-houses. Its use was also forbidden 
by the Syrian government. But, notwitstanding the most severe prohibitions, it has become, in Turkey, 
almost a necessary of life; indeed, so essential was it one time considered, that the refusal of a husband to 
supply his wife with a reasonable quantity of coffee, was enumerated and admitted amongst the legal causes 
of divorce. 
Such is the history of the first use of coffee and its houses at Paris. We had the use, however, before 
even the time of Thevenot; for an English Turkey merchant brought a Greek servant in 1652, who know- 
ing how to roast and make it, opened a house to sell it publicly. I have also discovered his hand bill, in 
which he sets forth, “ The vertue of the coffee-drink, first publiquely made and sold in England, by Pasqua 
Rosee, in St. Michael’s Alley, Cornhill, at the sign of his own head.” 
For about twenty years after the introduction of coffee in this kingdom, w r e find a continued series of 
invectives against its adoption, both for medicinal and domestic purposes. The use of coffee, indeed, seems 
to have excited more notice, and to have had a greater influence on the manners of the people, than that of 
tea. It seems at first to have been more universally used, and is still on the continent; and its use is con- 
nected with a resort for the idle and the curious; the history of coffee-houses, ere the invention of clubs, 
was that of the manners, the morals, and the politics of a people. Even in its native country, the govern- 
ment discovered that extraordinary fact, and the use of the Arabian berry was more than once forbidden 
where it grows: for Ellis, in his “History of Coffee,” 1774, refers to the Arabian MS. in the King of 
France’s library, which shews that coffee-houses in Asia were sometimes suppressed. The same thing hap- 
pened on its introduction into England. ( Leigh Hunt’s London Journal, from D' Israeli.) 
The appearance of a coffee plantation during the season of flowering, which does not last longer than a 
day or two, is very interesting. In one night the blossoms expand so profusely as to appear like trees in 
England, when a snow-storm has come at the close of Autumn, and loaded them while full of foliage. 
The seeds are known to be ripe by the dark red colour of the berries, and if not then gathered, they will 
drop from the trees. “When the Arabian cultivator,” says Mr. Edwards, “sees that his coffee is ripe, he 
spreads large cloths under his trees, which he shakes from time to time, to make the ripe cherries fall. He 
never pulls one grain of coffee with the hand, whatever appearance it may have of maturity. He considers 
none as ripe, but such as fall on lightly shaking the tree.” The berries are afterwards spread upon mats, and 
exposed to the sun’s rays until perfectly dry, when the husk is broken with large heavy rollers made either 
of stone or of wood. The coffee thus freed from its husk, is again dried thoroughly in the sun, that it may 
not be liable to heat when packed for transportation. 
La Roque says, that in Arabia Felix the coffee-tree is raised from seed, which they sow in nurseries, and 
plant them out as they have occasion. They choose for their plantations a moist shady situation, on a small 
eminence, or at the foot of the mountains, and take great care to conduct from the mountains little rills of 
water, in small gutters or channels, to the roots of the tree, for it is absolutely necessary they should be con- 
stantly watered, in order to produce and ripen the fruit. For that purpose, when they remove or transplant 
the tree, they make a trench of three feet wide, and five feet, which they line or cover with stones, that the 
water may more readily sink deep into the earth, with which the trench is filled, in order to preserve the 
moisture from evaporating. When they observe that there is a good deal of fruit upon the tree, and that it 
is nearly ripe, they turn off the water from the roots, to lessen that succulency in the fruit, which too much 
moisture would occasion. In places much exposed to the south, they plant their coffee-trees in regular 
lines, sheltered by a kind of poplar tree, which extends its branches on every side to a great distance, and 
affords a very thick shade. Without much precaution they suppose the excessive heat of the sun, would 
parch and dry the blossoms so, that they would not be succeeded by any fruit. (Ellis’s History of Coffee.) 
The most remarkable property of coffee, however, is its power of relieving drowsiness, and of retarding 
the access of sleep for 6 or 8 hours. Hence its introduction after dinner to remove the torpor that follows 
repletion. Hence also its more common use as a morning than an evening beverage, and the impropriety of 
taking it late at night, or soon before going to bed, at least if sleep be desired. These properties, which are 
by some persons regarded as infelicitous, prove its chief recommendations to others, especially to literary 
