Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Feb.,  1S92 
Coffee-leaf  lea. 
89 
has  taken  the  trouble  to  cultivate.  During  the  march  of  the  last 
half-century  (in  science,  medicine,  mechanics,  steam  and  electricity) 
how  little  has  been  the  gain  from  Nature's  stores.  The  artificial 
culture  of  cinchona  is,  perhaps,  the  most  noted  of  the  few.  Again, 
any  step  in  eating,  drinking,  or  dress,  is  so  governed  by  habit  or 
fashion  that  he  must  be  a  bold  man  who  tries  to  turn  the  current. 
This  is  illustrated  in  tea  drinking.  Perhaps  there  is  no  one  habit 
so  universal ;  each  people  has  its  peculiar  tea  or  closely  allied  bev- 
erage, and  most  of  these  have  continued  the  same  for  many  ages. 
In  one  it  is  cacao,  in  others  coffee,  and  in  many  tea  ;  in  a  few 
special  quarters  of  the  globe  nothing  but  mate  is  thought  fit  to 
drink,  but  in  only  one  small  district  is  coffee-leaf  tea  used.  Now 
we  all  know  that  these  beverages  are  found  by  man  to  be  pleasant 
and  agreeable  to  him  by  reason  of  their  containing  a  peculiar  prin- 
ciple called  theine;  but  yet  we  do  not  always  select  for  our  use  the 
part  of  the  plant  containing  the  largest  percentage  of  theine,  or 
cultivate  the  special  plant  with  a  view  to  afford  us  the  most  valu- 
able part.  For  example,  in  coffee  the  leaves  are  said  to  contain 
1-26  of  theine  and  the  berries  only  ro  per  cent.,  and  yet  over  110,- 
000,000  of  men  use  the  berries  and  only  2,000,000  the  leaves  of 
coffee,  although  500,000,000  use  the  leaves  of  tea.  Now  the  culti- 
vation of  coffee  berries  is  very  trying,  precarious,  subject  to  attacks 
of  blight  and  unfruitfulness — in  fact  it  follows  the  general  line  that 
the  produce  of  fruit  by  cultivation  is  far  more  open  to  accident  than 
that  of  leaves,  and  very  probably  good  crops  of  coffee  leaves  could 
be  obtained  at  small  cost  in  countries  and  localities  where  it  would 
be  risky  or  even  impossible  to  produce  berries.  Here  is  a  case 
open  'to  a  vast  variety  of  peoples  to  solve,  for  there  can  be  no 
reason  why  coffee  leaves  may  not  become  a  valuable  item  of  culture 
in  our  warmer  colonies  and  many  parts  of  the  world.  The  one 
most  difficult  item  to  move  is  to  create  the  demand.  Once  start 
the  fashion  for  •<  5  o'clock  coffee-leaf  tea,"  and  the  thing  is  done 
and  many  a  fortune  made.  As  to  the  peculiar  flavor  of  coffee-leaf 
tea,  much  depends  on  the  manipulation  of  the  leaf  after  it  is  taken 
from  the  plant.  At  the  Botanic  Gardens  a  variety  of  flavors  have 
by  treatment  been  produced  from  leaves  off  of  one  plant,  the  gen- 
eral flavor  being  a  kind  of  combination  of  coffee  and  tea  so  as  to 
get  both  in  one  cup.  This  is  much  the  same  flavor  as  kola  nut  — 
Quart.  Therap.  Review,  January,  1892. 
