Part 3

Attention was some time ago drawn to the subject of coffee-leaf tea, which is used in Sumatra and other parts of the East, and a good deal of discussion ensued upon the matter, after the leaves were shown for the purpose at the International Exhibition of 1851. An infusion of roasted coffee-leaves is pronounced by those who have had an opportunity of tasting it, as superior to Bohea, and by some enthusiastic admirers is said to rival the flavour of the most delicate Pekoe. That an infusion of roasted coffee-leaves should imitate the flavour of tea is not to be wondered at, as the leaves of both shrubs contain in the main the same leading principles, more particularly theine or caffeine. There is no doubt that coffee-leaf tea would command a sale in England, but the question is how much could be collected to make it profitable, and it involves the necessity of apparatus and skilled labour for parching the leaves.

Coffee-leaves are not quite so thick as those of Vallambrosa, and a Malabar coolie would not in one day collect enough to pay the expense of picking, drying, packing, cartage, warehouse rent, freight, and other charges.

Moreover, no planter of any experience would think of stripping his trees of their breathing organs, and the quantity that might be collected from the suckers and prunings, &c., would never give more than a few bales, even on large plantations. Even were the fallen leaves supposed to be available, their removal would be as detrimental as the practice of raking away withered leaves in plantations, or the application of the sugar-cane trash to the purposes of fuel.

The husks, pulp, and parchment in South America, the West Indies, Ceylon, and the other Indian islands, are regarded as mere waste, and thrown away. In Arabia and some parts of the East, however, this refuse is utilised, as the “miserables,” or husks of the cocoa-seed (_Theobroma cacao_), are in Ireland and the Continent. With it is prepared the famous kisher, or “Café à la Sultane,” a light-coloured, bright infusion, which has all the agreeable flavour of coffee, with little of its strength and none of its bitterness; this is partaken of by the humbler classes in incredible quantities.

When quite dry and ripe these husks are bruised, and roasted in an earthen vessel over a charcoal fire, not as coffee usually is, but only until it assumes a light-brown colour. While hot it is thrown into a pot of boiling water, with a small proportion of the pellicle or parchment skin; all is boiled together for a few minutes, and then served hot and strong, but without sugar. Sometimes a drop of essence of amber is put into each cup; or cloves, aniseed, or cardamoms are boiled with it.

In Brazil, from the sweet pulp which envelopes the berry an excellent spirit has been made.

SECTION VII.

ADULTERANTS.

Great as the consumption of coffee is in Europe and the Americas, it has become so necessary in every household, that the demand continues to increase, and very full prices are maintained. The largely extended plantations in Brazil, in Ceylon, in India, in Java, and in other suitable localities, profitably opened up every day, altogether fail to keep down prices, and will long continue to offer the strong inducement of large profits!

Taking advantage of this great public want, the unscrupulous and fraudulent trader foists upon the easily-duped masses of consumers vast quantities of unwholesome and pernicious stuff, mixed in certain proportions with coffee; and, although the law has interposed in the case of chicory, forbidding, under penalties, its being sold mixed with coffee, unless especially so labelled and declared, yet who can tell the thousand and one mixtures that are still made and sold with it?

It may be said that all this can be prevented by purchasing only unground coffee, in a roasted state, ready for grinding; but there are those (to be reckoned by hundreds of thousands of families) who, having no means of grinding this roasted coffee, are compelled to buy that which is already ground, or go without altogether.

What abominations do these (in too many cases) not drink, then, under the much abused name of _coffee_?

These reflections are forced upon my mind every time I enter a coffee-house, and am called to put faith in the purity of the cup of coffee set before me.

Visitors to the establishments of coffee-grinders speak of bags of the husks of peas, and cobs of Indian corn, wheat, sea-biscuits, and other articles, harmless enough in themselves, and in their right places, where, indeed, they may be useful; but a coffee-mill is the wrong place for these otherwise objectionable articles of consumption. It will not be denied that the husks of peas or the cobs of maize are appropriately placed in the trough from which our pigs feed; they will even add to the delicacy and whiteness of the pork those very useful animals are intended to yield us, but they are essentially out of place in our coffee-cup. These, and various other articles, go to make what in the trade is termed “Boston,” and this preparation the visitor, who has been admitted to the arcana of the grinder, will find mixed in a large bin ready for use. One who has been thus favoured, after describing the mill used for grinding the coffee, speaks of another machine, called the “mixer.” The “mixer” is a wooden cylinder revolving on a spindle at an angle of 45°, and having internal arrangements to mix the coffee with such proportion of adulterating material as the ingenuity or impudence of the grinder may suggest. Here, like Macbeth’s witches over their cauldron, presides the genius of the place, who casts in the ingredients which constitute the villanous compound, which, done up in tins, is finally ornamented with labels such as this:

FINEST PLANTATION COFFEE,

Roasted and ground on the most approved principle by

STEAM MACHINERY.

This coffee is with confidence highly recommended to the public, as the fine aroma, so much appreciated, is entirely preserved by its being

PACKED FRESH FROM THE MILL.

We need scarcely say that the amount of nourishment contained in this abominable _olio_ is infinitesimally small.

The _Scientific American_ of New York, of a recent date, records the following fact: “The editor of the _Baltimore American_ lately visited the commissary department of one of the large military hospitals, and noticed several barrels of dried coffee grounds, the purpose whereof excited his curiosity. The polite commissary informed him that they received twelve dollars a barrel for the grounds. ‘But what is it purchased for?’ he asked. ‘Well,’ said the commissary, hesitatingly, ‘it is re-aromatised by the transforming hand of modern chemistry, and put up in pound papers, which are decorated with attractive labels and high-sounding names.’”

About ten years ago, when the question of coffee adulteration was much agitated, I published a little treatise, entitled, “Coffee, as it is and as it ought to be,” in which, among other particulars, I pointed out the various sophistications practised. A compositor who was engaged in printing the work furnished me with a remarkable statement in confirmation of reports which I had previously heard.

He stated that in various parts of the metropolis, but more especially in the east, are to be found liver bakers. These men take the livers of oxen and horses, bake them, and grind them into a powder, which they sell to the low-priced coffee-shop keepers, at from 4d. to 6d. per pound; horse-liver coffee bearing the highest price. This adulterant may be known by allowing the coffee to stand until cold, when a thick pellicle or skin will be found on the top. It goes farther than coffee, and is generally mixed with chicory and other vegetable imitations of coffee.

According to the investigations of Dr. Hassall (“Food and its Adulterations”), the several adulterations of coffee may be distinguished by the following characters:

Chicory, by the size, form, and ready separation of the component cells of the root, as well as by the presence of an abundance of spiral vessels of the dotted form.

Roasted corn, by the size, form, and other characters of the starch granules, of which the grains are principally composed. Beans, also, by the form, &c., of the constituent granules of starch. Potato, by the large size, rounded form, and ready separation of the cells of the cellulose, as well as by the fibrous markings on their surfaces.

Plate 3 shows a fragment of roasted coffee as seen under the microscope, magnified 140 diameters, and the structures in a sample of coffee adulterated with chicory.

Dr. Normandy, in his evidence before the Parliamentary Committee on the Adulteration of Food, &c., stated that he had met with roasted corn in coffee to an extent of from 25 to 30 per cent.; it is recognised by the size and character of the starch granules; consists of barley and rye, and is generally very easy to detect; it floats up. If coffee has been adulterated with roasted grain, when you pour boiling water upon it you will see rising against the sides of the cup portions of the ground grain, which you sometimes can separate in considerable quantities, by capillary attraction. If you pour such coffee from the coffee-pot, some of those grains will fall with the liquid in the cup, and they will climb up, as it were, the sides of the cup a quarter of an inch, or something of that kind, all round, and you can collect them very easily.

Dr. R. D. Thompson, F.R.S., another witness, stated that a large cargo of lupins from Egypt having been imported, which could not be made any use of in consequence of their bitter taste, he was asked to give a certificate in favour of their being equal to coffee, but declined, and recommended that, after steeping, to remove the bitter principle, they should be sold for cattle. He also added that he had seen an ingenious apparatus for making artificial coffee-berries from chicory and other substances; it was something like a bullet-mould, and patented by Messrs. Duckworth of Liverpool.

The chicory itself sold is not always pure. The Board of Inland Revenue have found, on chemical examination in different samples, beans, rye, oats (roasted and ground), caramel or burnt sugar, oxide of iron and orange berries.

The principle contained in coffee, remarks Dr. Letheby, may be considered as essential to life, inasmuch as all nations

use it; it prevents the wear and tear of the body. Now there is nothing in chicory which can do that. Chemically there is no difference between beetroot chicory and what is called real chicory; microscopically you can discover the difference. If genuine coffee is sprinkled upon the surface of a tumbler of water, it remains a considerable time floating, and when it sinks it only slightly colours the water; chicory, on the other hand, sinks quickly, and colours the water very deeply. Ground coffee is enveloped in an oily substance, which prevents the water absorbing; chicory has no such protection, and sinks immediately.

Mr. Phillips, the chemist to the Inland Board of Revenue, states that the average per-centage of chicory to coffee, when sold mixed, was found to range from 20½ to 16¾ per cent.

At a recent meeting of the British Association of Science, Mr. Horsley called attention to the use of bi-chromate of potash, in analysing adulterated samples of coffee. With diluted solutions of pure coffee, this salt produces an intense deep porter-brown coloration, whilst upon decoctions of chicory no effect is produced. He advised the following procedure: Take equal parts of chicory and coffee, and decoct them in different quantities of water. Filter, bottle, and label the liquids. Take a teaspoonful of the chicory, and dilute till it is of a brown sherry colour; boil it in a porcelain dish, with a fragment of crystallised bi-chrome. The colour will be scarcely deepened. If a similarly diluted solution of coffee is thus treated, a deep-brown tinge is obtained. By operating with mixed liquids a scale of colours may be obtained indicating the properties of the two substances. If a few grains of the sulphate of copper be added, both decoctions yield a precipitate; that from chicory being a clay yellow, and that from coffee a sepia brown. Mixed decoctions yield intermediate tints.

SECTION VIII.

CULTURE IN THE WEST INDIES AND AMERICA.

In 1720, a small coffee-plant, raised in the garden of the King at Paris, was transported to the Antilles by Captain Declieux, who, during a long passage, shared each day his small allowance of water with the young coffee plant. From this tree have sprung all those since cultivated in Martinique, Guadaloupe, Cayenne, St. Domingo, and the other islands. The fall of St. Domingo, in 1789, which formerly furnished 80,000,000 lbs., the disfavour the culture has fallen into in Martinique and Guadaloupe islands, which used to supply 16,000,000 or 17,000,000 lbs., together with the greater attention given to sugar cultivation in the West Indies, have transferred the production of coffee chiefly to Brazil, Ceylon, and Java.

In 1801, 526,000 cwts. of coffee were imported into Great Britain from the West Indies, and the average annual imports in the six years ending 1806 was 364,000 cwts. The decrease of production is shown by the following figures:

+------------+------------+------------ | 1829. | 1850. | 1860. ---------------+------------+------------+------------ | lbs. | lbs. | lbs. Jamaica | 18,690,654 | 4,196,210 | 6,145,362 British Guiana | 7,163,016 | 18,472 | -- Trinidad | 73,667 | 96,376 | -- Dominica | 942,113 | 792 | 10,000 St. Lucia | 303,499 | 39 | -- ---------------+------------+------------+------------

JAMAICA.--The coffee-plant is said to have been first introduced into Jamaica by Sir Nicholas Lawes, in 1728, when it was cultivated on an estate called Temple Hall, on the plains of Liguanea, not far from Kingston. In 1752, 6,000,000 lbs. of coffee were exported, and in the three years ending 1807, the average annual shipment was 28,500,000 lbs. It was not until the island trade was injured by the dismemberment of Honduras that the heavy duties on sugar, and the competition of the French colonies, induced the industrious planters to turn their attention to coffee. They then petitioned for a protecting bounty, and for a considerable time this was the only British colony where its cultivation was much attended to. In 1791 there were 607 coffee-plantations in the island, with 21,000 negroes employed on them. In 1844, there were 671 plantations, and it was calculated that 20,000,000_l._ sterling was invested in them. Some of the finest and most productive plantations were at an elevation of 4700 feet, in the vicinity of the Blue Mountain Peak. Whilst in 1809, 83,250,000 lbs. of coffee were shipped from Jamaica, the average export for ten years past has not exceeded 6,000,000 lbs.

In the West Indies and Central America a nursery of young plants is usually raised from seed. At the age of six months these are transplanted into the field in squares of 8 to 9 feet apart. Beyond keeping the field clear of weeds, giving the plants a slight moulding, and freeing them of suckers or sprouts, they do not require any other attention for the first three years. At the expiry of this time they commence to bear fruit, and the coffee is cured either by drying the entire fruit in the sun, or by passing the fruit through what is called a pulping mill, which separates the outer pulp or covering from the beans. The beans are then subjected to a washing in a tank full of water, in order to remove the glutinous substance which adheres to them; this causes them to cure or dry more rapidly. They are then left in what is called the parchment husk, and exposed to the action of the sun on platforms laid with tiles, until they are perfectly dried, and from this they are, during crop time, spread on the wooden floors of a building called a logie, to the depth, in a heavy crop, of 12 to 18 inches. Whilst thus spread, great attention is necessary to prevent the coffee getting heated and its colour destroyed, by constantly turning it up, and by the use of some dry lime or ashes sprinkled over it. After this the beans are subjected to the operation of what is called a stamping mill, which separates the parchment husk from the beans. This stamping mill is merely two large solid wheels fixed on each end of a beam on an axle, and worked by mules moving round in a circle--the wooden wheels working in a circular trough filled with the coffee beans. After this the whole are submitted to the action of a winnowing machine, which separates the chaff from the beans, and subsequently the beans are passed through copper sieves to separate the perfect from the broken coffee, and finally handpicked and put into bags or casks for shipment.

BRITISH GUIANA.--Coffee was for a length of time almost the only staple of Berbice and Demerara, but the cultivation of the sugar-cane has been substituted for it. The quantity of coffee, the produce of British Guiana, exported in 1830 was, 9,472,756 lbs.; in 1840, 3,357,300 lbs.; in 1849, 100,550 lbs.; and in 1850, 30,000 lbs.; since which it has almost ceased to be exported, scarcely sufficient being produced to supply the demand in the colony.

At one time there were about two hundred coffee plantations in the small island of DOMINICA, and four to five million of pounds of coffee were exported annually to Great Britain.

PORTO RICO.--In proportion to its extent, this island is twice as productive as Cuba, and the quality of its coffee and other produce is of the highest class. There were, in 1862, fifty-three coffee plantations on the island, producing about 100,000 cwt. of coffee. The exports of coffee were, in

lbs. 1855 11,506,283 1856 9,935,000 1857 8,245,000 1858 9,814,000 1859 13,457,000

The exports of coffee from the island of CUBA, which were in 1840 upwards of 2,000,000 arrobas, were in 1858 but 21,000; and in 1859, 5000 or 6000.

BRAZIL.--The coffee-plant has been known in Brazil for many years; it is but about fifty years, however, since the first regular plantation was made by Mr. Moke, a Belgian, who brought the cultivation of coffee to great perfection. His plantation is still in the neighbourhood of the capital, and is carried on by his son with much success. It is astonishing to what an extent coffee has been cultivated since Mr. Moke first made his plantation. Two millions of bags of 160 lbs. each are annually exported from Rio de Janeiro, taking the average of the last seven years; 1862 was, however, short of this about half a million bags. At Barahyba do Sul, which is within a few miles of Rio, there are plantations employing six and seven hundred slaves.

The best plantations are those owned and conducted by foreigners--chiefly English, French, and Belgian--they have an air of neatness and comfort about them of which those owned by Brazilians and Portuguese are totally destitute. The foreigners use improved machinery also in preparing the berry for market, which the Brazilians, with some exceptions, do not. The coffee-berry contains two seeds, covered with a gummy, mucilaginous substance, and enclosed in a skin which is thick, sweet, and dark and red when ripe. The foreigners take off this skin by means of machinery, and the beans are washed until they are divested of the mucilage which covers them. They are then dried and put into bags ready for market. The Brazilians dry the beans with the skin on. In the process of drying, the skin first becomes dark, and finally black, and when crisp, is rubbed off the bean, which is then washed. In this process, however, there is great danger of fermentation. The skin contains a vast amount of saccharine matter, and successful attempts have been made to extract from it sugar and spirit; but either through poor machinery, or other mismanagement, it was found to be unprofitable, and the experiment was abandoned. The skin is exceedingly sweet, almost as much so to the taste as the sugar-cane.

The coffee-plant can be propagated from the seed, but the most prevalent method in Brazil is by young plants, which may be had by the thousand on old plantations. The young shrub is taken up in August--generally when it is about two years old--and planted in good soil. The fourth year it produces coffee, and the fifth year it commences to bear regular crops, the yield being from a pound and a half to three pounds per tree. Trees have been known to last for many years on good rich soil, and some on Mr. Moke’s plantation are still bearing which were planted forty years ago; on hill-sides, however, where the soil is light, the plant decays in the course of eight or ten years. The picking season commences in July, and in the low lands generally concludes by the end of August; among the hills, however, where there are frequent showers, and where there is much shade, the season does not close until some time in September.

The four coffee-growing provinces of Brazil, properly speaking, are Rio de Janeiro, San Paulo, Minas, and Bahia. In the two former the agriculturists have for some time past directed their attention almost exclusively to this article. In Bahia its cultivation is steadily, although slowly, increasing. Coffee is grown in the provinces of Maranham, Parana, and St. Catherine’s, but only to a very small extent, the amount produced being insufficient to meet the demand. The cultivation of coffee is rapidly increasing in St. Paulo, and is promoted by the railroad extending from Santos to Jundiahy. The United States usually takes one-half of the crop of Brazil coffee.

The following figures give the average quantity of coffee exported from the empire of Brazil during the undermentioned years, comprising a period previous and subsequent to the abolition of the slave trade in 1851, and showing a steady increase in the export since 1840:

Annual average. arrobas.

1840-43 5,507,367 1843-46 6,519,380 1846-49 9,301,967 1849-52 8,542,965 1852-55 10,549,847 1855-58 11,465,719 1858-61 10,501,665

The yearly shipments from Rio in the last four years have been as follows:

bags. 1859 2,064,837 1860 2,150,188 1861 2,085,974 1862 1,477,904

besides 200,000 to 300,000 bags annually from Santos. The bags contain rather more than six arrobas, or one cwt. and a half.

COSTA RICA.--The quality of this coffee is recognised as excellent. In order to place it in a proper degree of estimation in foreign markets, some proprietors of plantations have not omitted getting it chemically analysed in Europe; the result of which examination has classed it in the third degree, among those kinds generally esteemed as the best.

The following figures show the production of coffee in Costa Rica; the bulk of the crop is sent to Great Britain:

cwts. 1854 70,000 1855 70,709 1856 83,000 1857 95,000

VENEZUELA.--Within the last thirty years Venezuela has made great progress in coffee culture. The exports, which were not more than 13,000,000 lbs. in 1833, had risen to 15,000,000 lbs. in 1850; but since then the culture has been much interfered with by civil war. The exports from La Guayra were, in 1855, 17,375,000 lbs.; in 1856, 12,357,000 lbs.; and in 1857, 16,031,000 lbs. Washed coffee sells there at 8s. per cwt. higher than the unwashed.