The Project Gutenberg EBook of All About Coffee, by William H. Ukers This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: All About Coffee Author: William H. Ukers Release Date: April 4, 2009 [EBook #28500] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALL ABOUT COFFEE *** Produced by K.D. Thornton, Suzanne Lybarger, Greg Bergquist and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's Note The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been faithfully preserved. Only obvious typographical errors have been corrected. _All About Coffee_ [Illustration] ALL ABOUT COFFEE [Illustration: COFFEE BRANCHES, FLOWERS, AND FRUIT SHOWING THE BERRY IN ITS VARIOUS RIPENING STAGES FROM FLOWER TO CHERRY (Inset: 1, green bean; 2, silver skin; 3, parchment; 4, fruit pulp.) Painted from life by Blendon Campbell] _ALL ABOUT COFFEE_ _By_ _WILLIAM H. UKERS, M.A._ _Editor_ THE TEA AND COFFEE TRADE JOURNAL [Illustration] NEW YORK THE TEA AND COFFEE TRADE JOURNAL COMPANY 1922 COPYRIGHT 1922 BY THE TEA AND COFFEE TRADE JOURNAL COMPANY NEW YORK _International Copyright Secured_ _All Rights Reserved in U.S.A. and Foreign Countries_ PRINTED IN U.S.A. _To My Wife_ _HELEN DE GRAFF UKERS_ PREFACE Seventeen years ago the author of this work made his first trip abroad to gather material for a book on coffee. Subsequently he spent a year in travel among the coffee-producing countries. After the initial surveys, correspondents were appointed to make researches in the principal European libraries and museums; and this phase of the work continued until April, 1922. Simultaneous researches were conducted in American libraries and historical museums up to the time of the return of the final proofs to the printer in June, 1922. Ten years ago the sorting and classification of the material was begun. The actual writing of the manuscript has extended over four years. Among the unique features of the book are the Coffee Thesaurus; the Coffee Chronology, containing 492 dates of historical importance; the Complete Reference Table of the Principal Kinds of Coffee Grown in the World; and the Coffee Bibliography, containing 1,380 references. The most authoritative works on this subject have been Robinson's _The Early History of Coffee Houses in England_, published in London in 1893; and Jardin's _Le Café_, published in Paris in 1895. The author wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to both for inspiration and guidance. Other works, Arabian, French, English, German, and Italian, dealing with particular phases of the subject, have been laid under contribution; and where this has been done, credit is given by footnote reference. In all cases where it has been possible to do so, however, statements of historical facts have been verified by independent research. Not a few items have required months of tracing to confirm or to disprove. There has been no serious American work on coffee since Hewitt's _Coffee: Its History, Cultivation and Uses_, published in 1872; and Thurber's _Coffee from Plantation to Cup_, published in 1881. Both of these are now out of print, as is also Walsh's _Coffee: Its History, Classification and Description_, published in 1893. The chapters on The Chemistry of Coffee and The Pharmacology of Coffee have been prepared under the author's direction by Charles W. Trigg, industrial fellow of the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research. The author wishes to acknowledge, with thanks, valuable assistance and numerous courtesies by the officials of the following institutions: British Museum, and Guildhall Museum, London; Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris; Congressional Library, Washington; New York Public Library, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and New York Historical Society, New York; Boston Public Library, and Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Smithsonian Institution, Washington; State Historical Museum, Madison, Wis.; Maine Historical Society, Portland; Chicago Historical Society; New Jersey Historical Society, Newark; Harvard University Library; Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.; Peabody Institute, Baltimore. Thanks and appreciation are due also to: Charles James Jackson, London, for permission to quote from his _Illustrated History of English Plate_; Francis Hill Bigelow, author; and The Macmillan Company, publishers, for permission to reproduce illustrations from _Historic Silver of the Colonies_; H.G. Dwight, author; and Charles Scribner's Sons, publishers, for permission to quote from _Constantinople, Old and New_, and from the article on "Turkish Coffee Houses" in _Scribner's Magazine_; Walter G. Peter, Washington, D.C., for permission to photograph and reproduce pictures of articles in the Peter collection at the United States National Museum; Mary P. Hamlin and George Arliss, authors, and George C. Tyler, producer, for permission to reproduce the Exchange coffee-house setting of the first act of _Hamilton_; Judge A.T. Clearwater, Kingston N.Y.; R.T. Haines Halsey, and Francis P. Garvan, New York, for permission to publish pictures of historic silver coffee pots in their several collections; The secretaries of the American Chambers of Commerce in London, Paris, and Berlin; Charles Cooper, London, for his splendid co-operation and for his special contribution to chapter XXXV; Alonzo H. De Graff, London, for his invaluable aid and unflagging zeal in directing the London researches; To the Coffee Trade Association, London, for assistance rendered; To G.J. Lethem, London, for his translations from the Arabic; Geoffrey Sephton, Vienna, for his nice co-operation; L.P. de Bussy of the Koloniaal Institute, Amsterdam, Holland, for assistance rendered; Burton Holmes and Blendon R. Campbell, New York, for courtesies; John Cotton Dana, Newark, N.J., for assistance rendered; Charles H. Barnes, Medford, Mass., for permission to publish the photograph of Peregrine White's Mayflower mortar and pestle; Andrew L. Winton, Ph.D., Wilton, Conn., for permission to quote from his _The Microscopy of Vegetable Foods_ in the chapter on The Microscopy of Coffee and to reprint Prof. J. Moeller's and Tschirch and Oesterle's drawings; F. Hulton Frankel, Ph.D., Edward M. Frankel, Ph.D., and Arno Viehoever, for their assistance in preparing the chapters on The Botany of Coffee and The Microscopy of Coffee; A.L. Burns, New York, for his assistance in the correction and revision of chapters XXV, XXVI, XXVII, and XXXIV, and for much historical information supplied in connection with chapters XXX and XXXI; Edward Aborn, New York, for his help in the revision of chapter XXXVI; George W. Lawrence, former president, and T.S.B. Nielsen, president, of the New York Coffee and Sugar Exchange, for their assistance in the revision of chapter XXXI; Helio Lobo, Brazilian consul general, New York; Sebastião Sampaio, commercial attaché of the Brazilian Embassy, Washington; and Th. Langgaard de Menezes, American representative of the Sociedade Promotora da Defeza do Café; Felix Coste, secretary and manager, the National Coffee Roasters Association; and C.B. Stroud, superintendent, the New York Coffee and Sugar Exchange, for information supplied and assistance rendered in the revision of several chapters; F.T. Holmes, New York, for his help in the compilation of chronological and descriptive data on coffee-roasting machinery; Walter Chester, New York, for critical comments on chapter XXVIII. The author is especially indebted to the following, who in many ways have contributed to the successful compilation of the Complete Reference Table in chapter XXIV, and of those chapters having to do with the early history and development of the green coffee and the wholesale coffee-roasting trades in the United States: George S. Wright, Boston; A.E. Forbes, William Fisher, Gwynne Evans, Jerome J. Schotten, and the late Julius J. Schotten, St. Louis; James H. Taylor, William Bayne, Jr., A.J. Dannemiller, B.A. Livierato, S.A. Schonbrunn, Herbert Wilde, A.C. Fitzpatrick, Charles Meehan, Clarence Creighton, Abram Wakeman, A.H. Davies, Joshua Walker, Fred P. Gordon, Alex. H. Purcell, George W. Vanderhoef, Col. William P. Roome, W. Lee Simmonds, Herman Simmonds, W.H. Aborn, B. Lahey, John C. Loudon, J.R. Westfal, Abraham Reamer, R.C. Wilhelm, C.H. Stewart, and the late August Haeussler, New York; John D. Warfield, Ezra J. Warner, S.O. Blair, and George D. McLaughlin, Chicago; W.H. Harrison, James Heekin, and Charles Lewis, Cincinnati; Albro Blodgett and A.M. Woolson, Toledo; R.V. Engelhard and Lee G. Zinsmeister, Louisville; E.A. Kahl, San Francisco; S. Jackson, New Orleans; Lewis Sherman, Milwaukee; Howard F. Boardman, Hartford; A.H. Devers, Portland, Ore.; W. James Mahood, Pittsburgh; William B. Harris, East Orange, N.J. New York, June 17, 1922. [Illustration] FOREWORD _Some introductory remarks on the lure of coffee, its place in a rational dietary, its universal psychological appeal, its use and abuse_ Civilization in its onward march has produced only three important non-alcoholic beverages--the extract of the tea plant, the extract of the cocoa bean, and the extract of the coffee bean. Leaves and beans--these are the vegetable sources of the world's favorite non-alcoholic table-beverages. Of the two, the tea leaves lead in total amount consumed; the coffee beans are second; and the cocoa beans are a distant third, although advancing steadily. But in international commerce the coffee beans occupy a far more important position than either of the others, being imported into non-producing countries to twice the extent of the tea leaves. All three enjoy a world-wide consumption, although not to the same extent in every nation; but where either the coffee bean or the tea leaf has established itself in a given country, the other gets comparatively little attention, and usually has great difficulty in making any advance. The cocoa bean, on the other hand, has not risen to the position of popular favorite in any important consuming country, and so has not aroused the serious opposition of its two rivals. Coffee is universal in its appeal. All nations do it homage. It has become recognized as a human necessity. It is no longer a luxury or an indulgence; it is a corollary of human energy and human efficiency. People love coffee because of its two-fold effect--the pleasurable sensation and the increased efficiency it produces. Coffee has an important place in the rational dietary of all the civilized peoples of earth. It is a democratic beverage. Not only is it the drink of fashionable society, but it is also a favorite beverage of the men and women who do the world's work, whether they toil with brain or brawn. It has been acclaimed "the most grateful lubricant known to the human machine," and "the most delightful taste in all nature." No "food drink" has ever encountered so much opposition as coffee. Given to the world by the church and dignified by the medical profession, nevertheless it has had to suffer from religious superstition and medical prejudice. During the thousand years of its development it has experienced fierce political opposition, stupid fiscal restrictions, unjust taxes, irksome duties; but, surviving all of these, it has triumphantly moved on to a foremost place in the catalog of popular beverages. But coffee is something more than a beverage. It is one of the world's greatest adjuvant foods. There are other auxiliary foods, but none that excels it for palatability and comforting effects, the psychology of which is to be found in its unique flavor and aroma. Men and women drink coffee because it adds to their sense of well-being. It not only smells good and tastes good to all mankind, heathen or civilized, but all respond to its wonderful stimulating properties. The chief factors in coffee goodness are the caffein content and the caffeol. Caffein supplies the principal stimulant. It increases the capacity for muscular and mental work without harmful reaction. The caffeol supplies the flavor and the aroma--that indescribable Oriental fragrance that wooes us through the nostrils, forming one of the principal elements that make up the lure of coffee. There are several other constituents, including certain innocuous so-called caffetannic acids, that, in combination with the caffeol, give the beverage its rare gustatory appeal. The year 1919 awarded coffee one of its brightest honors. An American general said that coffee shared with bread and bacon the distinction of being one of the three nutritive essentials that helped win the World War for the Allies. So this symbol of human brotherhood has played a not inconspicuous part in "making the world safe for democracy." The new age, ushered in by the Peace of Versailles and the Washington Conference, has for its hand-maidens temperance and self-control. It is to be a world democracy of right-living and clear thinking; and among its most precious adjuncts are coffee, tea, and cocoa--because these beverages must always be associated with rational living, with greater comfort, and with better cheer. Like all good things in life, the drinking of coffee may be abused. Indeed, those having an idiosyncratic susceptibility to alkaloids should be temperate in the use of tea, coffee, or cocoa. In every high-tensioned country there is likely to be a small number of people who, because of certain individual characteristics, can not drink coffee at all. These belong to the abnormal minority of the human family. Some people can not eat strawberries; but that would not be a valid reason for a general condemnation of strawberries. One may be poisoned, says Thomas A. Edison, from too much food. Horace Fletcher was certain that over-feeding causes all our ills. Over-indulgence in meat is likely to spell trouble for the strongest of us. Coffee is, perhaps, less often abused than wrongly accused. It all depends. A little more tolerance! Trading upon the credulity of the hypochondriac and the caffein-sensitive, in recent years there has appeared in America and abroad a curious collection of so-called coffee substitutes. They are "neither fish nor flesh, nor good red herring." Most of them have been shown by official government analyses to be sadly deficient in food value--their only alleged virtue. One of our contemporary attackers of the national beverage bewails the fact that no palatable hot drink has been found to take the place of coffee. The reason is not hard to find. There can be no substitute for coffee. Dr. Harvey W. Wiley has ably summed up the matter by saying, "A substitute should be able to perform the functions of its principal. A substitute to a war must be able to fight. A bounty-jumper is not a substitute." It has been the aim of the author to tell the whole coffee story for the general reader, yet with the technical accuracy that will make it valuable to the trade. The book is designed to be a work of useful reference covering all the salient points of coffee's origin, cultivation, preparation, and development, its place in the world's commerce and in a rational dietary. Good coffee, carefully roasted and properly brewed, produces a natural beverage that, for tonic effect, can not be surpassed, even by its rivals, tea and cocoa. Here is a drink that ninety-seven percent of individuals find harmless and wholesome, and without which life would be drab indeed--a pure, safe, and helpful stimulant compounded in nature's own laboratory, and one of the chief joys of life! CONTENTS A COFFEE THESAURUS Encomiums and descriptive phrases applied to the plant, the berry, and the beverage Page XXVII THE EVOLUTION OF A CUP OF COFFEE Showing the various steps through which the bean passes from plantation to cup Page XXIX CHAPTER I DEALLING WITH THE ETYMOLOGY OF COFFEE Origin and translation of the word from the Arabian into various languages--Views of many writers Page 1 CHAPTER II HISTORY OF COFFEE PROPAGATION A brief account of the cultivation of the coffee plant in the Old World, and of its introduction into the New--A romantic coffee adventure Page 5 CHAPTER III EARLY HISTORY OF COFFEE DRINKING Coffee in the Near East in the early centuries--Stories of its origin--Discovery by physicians and adoption by the Church--Its spread through Arabia, Persia, and Turkey--Persecutions and Intolerances--Early coffee manners and customs Page 11 CHAPTER IV INTRODUCTION OF COFFEE INTO WESTERN EUROPE When the three great temperance beverages, cocoa, tea, and coffee, came to Europe--Coffee first mentioned by Rauwolf in 1582--Early days of coffee in Italy--How Pope Clement VIII baptized it and made it a truly Christian beverage--The first European coffee house, in Venice, 1645--The famous Caffè Florian--Other celebrated Venetian coffee houses of the eighteenth century--The romantic story of Pedrocchi, the poor lemonade-vender, who built the most beautiful coffee house in the world Page 25 CHAPTER V THE BEGINNINGS OF COFFEE IN FRANCE What French travelers did for coffee--the introduction of coffee by P. de la Roque into Marseilles in 1644--The first commercial importation of coffee from Egypt--The first French coffee house--Failure of the attempt by physicians of Marseilles to discredit coffee--Soliman Aga introduces coffee into Paris--Cabarets à caffè--Celebrated works on coffee by French writers Page 31 CHAPTER VI THE INTRODUCTION OF COFFEE INTO ENGLAND The first printed reference to coffee in English--Early mention of coffee by noted English travelers and writers--The Lacedæmonian "black broth" controversy--How Conopios introduced coffee drinking at Oxford--The first English coffee house in Oxford--Two English botanists on coffee Page 35 CHAPTER VII THE INTRODUCTION OF COFFEE INTO HOLLAND How the enterprising Dutch traders captured the first world's market for coffee--Activities of the Netherlands East India Company--The first coffee house at the Hague--The first public auction at Amsterdam in 1711, when Java coffee brought forty-seven cents a pound, green Page 43 CHAPTER VIII THE INTRODUCTION OF COFFEE INTO GERMANY The contributions made by German travelers and writers to the literature of the early history of coffee--The first coffee house in Hamburg opened by an English merchant--Famous coffee houses of old Berlin--The first coffee periodical and the first kaffee-klatsch--Frederick the Great's coffee roasting monopoly--Coffee persecutions--"Coffee-smellers"--The first coffee king Page 45 CHAPTER IX TELLING HOW COFFEE CAME TO VIENNA The romantic adventure of Franz George Kolschitzky, who carried "a message to Garcia" through the enemy's lines and won for himself the honor of being the first to teach the Viennese the art of making coffee, to say nothing of falling heir to the supplies of the green beans left behind by the Turks; also the gift of a house from a grateful municipality, and a statue after death--Affectionate regard in which "Brother-heart" Kolschitzky is held as the patron saint of the Vienna _Kaffee-sieder_--Life in the early Vienna café's Page 49 CHAPTER X THE COFFEE HOUSES OF OLD LONDON One of the most picturesque chapters in the history of coffee--The first coffee house in London--The first coffee handbill, and the first newspaper advertisement for coffee--Strange coffee mixtures--Fantastic coffee claims--Coffee prices and coffee licenses--Coffee club of the Rota--Early coffee-house manners and customs--Coffee-house keepers' tokens--Opposition to the coffee house--"Penny universities"--Weird coffee substitutes--The proposed coffee-house newspaper monopoly--Evolution of the club--Decline and fall of the coffee house--Pen pictures of coffee-house life--Famous coffee houses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries--Some Old World pleasure gardens--Locating the notable coffee houses Page 53 CHAPTER XI HISTORY OF THE EARLY PARISIAN COFFEE HOUSES The introduction of coffee into Paris by Thévenot in 1657--How Soliman Aga established the custom of coffee drinking at the court of Louis XIV--Opening of the first coffee houses--How the French adaptation of the Oriental coffee house first appeared in the real French café of François Procope--Important part played by the coffee houses in the development of French literature and the stage--Their association with the Revolution and the founding of the Republic--Quaint customs and patrons--Historic Parisian café's Page 91 CHAPTER XII INTRODUCTION OF COFFEE INTO NORTH AMERICA Captain John Smith, founder of the Colony of Virginia, is the first to bring to North America a knowledge of coffee in 1607--The coffee grinder on the Mayflower--Coffee drinking in 1668--William Penn's coffee purchase in 1683--Coffee in colonial New England--The psychology of the Boston "tea party," and why the United States became a nation of coffee drinkers instead of tea drinkers, like England--The first coffee license to Dorothy Jones in 1670--The first coffee house in New England--Notable coffee houses of old Boston--A skyscraper coffee-house Page 105 CHAPTER XIII HISTORY OF COFFEE IN OLD NEW YORK The burghers of New Amsterdam begin to substitute coffee for "must," or beer, for breakfast in 1668--William Penn makes his first purchase of coffee in the green bean from New York merchants in 1683--The King's Arms, the first coffee house--The historic Merchants, sometimes called the "Birthplace of our Union"--The coffee house as a civic forum--The Exchange, Whitehall, Burns, Tontine, and other celebrated coffee houses--The Vauxhall and Ranelagh pleasure gardens Page 115 CHAPTER XIV COFFEE HOUSES OF OLD PHILADELPHIA Ye Coffee House, Philadelphia's first coffee house, opened about 1700--The two London coffee houses--The City tavern, or Merchants coffee house--How these, and other celebrated resorts, dominated the social, political, and business life of the Quaker City in the eighteenth century Page 125 CHAPTER XV THE BOTANY OF THE COFFEE PLANT Its complete classification by class, sub-class, order, family, genus, and species--How the Coffea arabica grows, flowers, and bears--Other species and hybrids described--Natural caffein-free coffee--Fungoid diseases of coffee Page 131 CHAPTER XVI THE MICROSCOPY OF THE COFFEE FRUIT How the beans may be examined under the microscope, and what is revealed--Structure of the berry, the green, and the roasted beans--The coffee-leaf disease under the microscope--Value of microscopic analysis in detecting adulteration Page 149 CHAPTER XVII THE CHEMISTRY OF THE COFFEE BEAN _By Charles W. Trigg._ Chemistry of the preparation and treatment of the green bean--Artificial aging--Renovating damaged coffees--Extracts--"Caffetannic acid"--Caffein, caffein-free coffee--Caffeol--Fats and oils--Carbohydrates--Roasting--Scientific aspects of grinding and packaging--The coffee brew--Soluble coffee--Adulterants and substitutes--Official methods of analysis Page 155 CHAPTER XVIII PHARMACOLOGY OF THE COFFEE DRINK _By Charles W. Trigg_ General physiological action--Effect on children--Effect on longevity--Behavior in the alimentary régime--Place in dietary--Action on bacteria--Use in medicine--Physiological action of "caffetannic acid"--Of caffeol--Of caffein--Effect of caffein on mental and motor efficiency--Conclusions Page 174 CHAPTER XIX THE COMMERCIAL COFFEES OF THE WORLD The geographical distribution of the coffees grown in North America, Central America, South America, the West India Islands, Asia, Africa, the Pacific Islands, and the East Indies--A statistical study of the distribution of the principal kinds--A commercial coffee chart of the world's leading growths, with market names and general trade characteristics Page 189 CHAPTER XX CULTIVATION OF THE COFFEE PLANT The early days of coffee culture in Abyssinia and Arabia--Coffee cultivation in general--Soil, climate, rainfall, altitude, propagation, preparing the plantation, shade, wind breaks, fertilizing, pruning, catch crops, pests, and diseases--How coffee is grown around the world--Cultivation in all the principal producing countries Page 197 CHAPTER XXI PREPARING GREEN COFFEE FOR MARKET Early Arabian methods of preparation--How primitive devices were replaced by modern methods--A chronological story of the development of scientific plantation machinery, and the part played by English and American inventors--The marvelous coffee package, one of the most ingenious in all nature--How coffee is harvested--Picking--Preparation by the dry and the wet methods--Pulping--Fermentation and washing--Drying--Hulling, or peeling, and polishing--Sizing, or grading--Preparation methods of different countries Page 245 CHAPTER XXII THE PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION OF COFFEE A statistical study of world production of coffee by countries--Per capita figures of the leading consuming countries--Coffee-consumption figures compared with tea-consumption figures in the United States and the United Kingdom--Three centuries of coffee trading--Coffee drinking in the United States, past and present--Reviewing the 1921 trade in the United States Page 273 CHAPTER XXIII HOW GREEN COFFEES ARE BOUGHT AND SOLD Buying coffee in the producing countries--Transporting coffee to the consuming markets--Some record coffee cargoes shipped to the United States--Transport over seas--Java coffee "ex-sailing vessels"--Handling coffee at New York, New Orleans, and San Francisco--The coffee exchanges of Europe and the United States--Commission men and brokers--Trade and exchange contracts for delivery--Important rulings affecting coffee trading--Some well-known green coffee marks Page 303 CHAPTER XXIV GREEN AND ROASTED COFFEE CHARACTERISTICS The trade values, bean characteristics, and cup merits of the leading coffees of commerce, with a "Complete Reference Table of the Principal Kinds of Coffee Grown in the World"--Appearance, aroma, and flavor in cup-testing--How experts test coffee--A typical sample-roasting and cup-testing outfit Page 341 CHAPTER XXV FACTORY PREPARATION OF ROASTED COFFEE Coffee roasting as a business--Wholesale coffee-roasting machinery--Separating, milling, and mixing or blending green coffee, and roasting by coal, coke, gas, and electricity--Facts about coffee roasting--Cost of roasting--Green-coffee shrinkage table--"Dry" and "wet" roasts--On roasting coffee efficiently--A typical coal roaster--Cooling and stoning--Finishing or glazing--Blending roasted coffees--Blends for restaurants--Grinding and packaging--Coffee additions and fillers--Treated coffees, and dry extracts Page 379 CHAPTER XXVI WHOLESALE MERCHANDISING OF COFFEE How coffees are sold at wholesale--The wholesale salesman's place in merchandising--Some coffee costs analyzed--Handy coffee-selling chart--Terms and credits--About package coffees--Various types of coffee containers--Coffee package labels--Coffee package economies--Practical grocer helps--Coffee sampling--Premium method of sales promotion Page 407 CHAPTER XXVII RETAIL MERCHANDISING OF ROASTED COFFEE How coffees are sold at retail--The place of the grocer, the tea and coffee dealer, the chain store, and the wagon-route distributer in the scheme of distribution--Starting in the retail coffee business--Small roasters for retail dealers--Model coffee departments--Creating a coffee trade--Meeting competition--Splitting nickels--Figuring costs and profits--A credit policy for retailers--Premiums Page 415 CHAPTER XXVIII A SHORT HISTORY OF COFFEE ADVERTISING Early coffee advertising--The first coffee advertisement in 1587 was frank propaganda for the legitimate use of coffee--The first printed advertisement in English--The first newspaper advertisement--Early advertisements in colonial America--Evolution of advertising--Package coffee advertising--Advertising to the trade--Advertising by means of newspapers, magazines, billboards, electric signs, motion pictures, demonstrations, and by samples--Advertising for retailers--Advertising by government propaganda--The Joint Coffee Trade publicity campaign in the United States--Coffee advertising efficiency Page 431 CHAPTER XXIX THE COFFEE TRADE IN THE UNITED STATES The coffee business started by Dorothy Jones of Boston--Some early sales--Taxes imposed by Congress in war and peace--The first coffee-plantation-machine, coffee-roaster, coffee-grinder, and coffee-pot patents--Early trade marks for coffee--Beginnings of the coffee urn, the coffee container, and the soluble-coffee business--Chronological record of the most important events in the history of the trade from the eighteenth century to the twentieth Page 467 CHAPTER XXX DEVELOPMENT OF THE GREEN AND ROASTED COFFEE BUSINESS IN THE UNITED STATES A brief history of the growth of coffee trading--Notable firms and personalities that have played important parts in green coffee in the principal coffee centers--Green coffee trade organizations--Growth of the wholesale coffee-roasting trade, and names of those who have made history in it--The National Coffee Roasters Association--Statistics of distribution of coffee-roasting establishments in the United States Page 475 CHAPTER XXXI SOME BIG MEN AND NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENTS B.G. Arnold, the first, and Hermann Sielcken, the last of the American "coffee kings"--John Arbuckle, the original package-coffee man--Jabez Burns, the man who revolutionized the roasted-coffee business by his contributions as inventor, manufacturer, and writer--Coffee trade booms and panics--Brazil's first valorization enterprise--War-time government control of coffee--The story of soluble coffee Page 517 CHAPTER XXXII A HISTORY OF COFFEE IN LITERATURE The romance of coffee, and its influence on the discourse, poetry, history, drama, philosophic writing, and fiction of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and on the writers of today--Coffee quips and anecdotes Page 541 CHAPTER XXXIII COFFEE IN RELATION TO THE FINE ARTS How coffee and coffee drinking have been celebrated in painting, engraving, sculpture, caricature, lithography, and music--Epics, rhapsodies, and cantatas in praise of coffee--Beautiful specimens of the art of the potter and the silversmith as shown in the coffee service of various periods in the world's history--Some historical relics Page 587 CHAPTER XXXIV THE EVOLUTION OF COFFEE APPARATUS Showing the development of coffee-roasting, coffee-grinding, coffee-making, and coffee-serving devices from the earliest time to the present day--The original coffee grinder, the first coffee roaster, and the first coffee pot--The original French drip pot, the De Belloy percolator--Count Rumford's improvement--How the commercial coffee roaster was developed--The evolution of filtration devices--The old Carter "pull-out" roaster--Trade customs in New York and St. Louis in the sixties and seventies--The story of the evolution of the Burns roaster--How the gas roaster was developed in France, Great Britain, and the United States Page 615 CHAPTER XXXV WORLD'S COFFEE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS How coffee is roasted, prepared, and served in all the leading civilized countries--The Arabian coffee ceremony--The present-day coffee houses of Turkey--Twentieth century improvements in Europe and the United States Page 655 CHAPTER XXXVI PREPARATION OF THE UNIVERSAL BEVERAGE The evolution of grinding and brewing methods--Coffee was first a food, then a wine, a medicine, a devotional refreshment, a confection, and finally a beverage--Brewing by boiling, infusion, percolation, and filtration--Coffee making in Europe in the nineteenth century--Early coffee making in the United States--Latest developments in better coffee making--Various aspects of scientific coffee brewing--Advice to coffee lovers on how to buy coffee, and how to make it in perfection Page 693 A COFFEE CHRONOLOGY Giving dates and events of historical interest in legend, travel, literature, cultivation, plantation treatment, trading, and in the preparation and use of coffee from the earliest time to the present Page 725 A COFFEE BIBLIOGRAPHY A list of references gathered from the principal general and scientific libraries--Arranged in alphabetic order of topics Page 738 INDEX Page 769 [Illustration] ILLUSTRATIONS _Color Plates_ _Facing page_ Coffee branches, flowers, and fruit (painted by Blendon Campbell) _Frontispiece_ v _Coffea arabica_; leaves, flowers, and fruit (painted by M.E. Eaton) 1 The coffee tree bears fruit, leaf, and blossom at the same time 16 A close-up of ripe coffee berries 32 Coffee under the Stars and Stripes 144 Coffee scenes in British India 160 Picking and sacking coffee in Brazil 176 Mild-coffee culture and preparation 192 Coffee scenes in Java 200 Coffee scenes in Sumatra 216 Coffee preparation in Central and South America 248 Typical coffee scenes in Costa Rica 336 Principal varieties of green-coffee beans, natural size and color 352 Coal-roasting plant, New York 408 Coffee scenes in the Near and Far East 544 Primitive transportation methods, Arabia 640 Hulling coffee in Aden, Arabia 656 _Black and White Illustrations_ _Page_ Coffee tree in flower 4 De Clieu and his coffee plant 7 Legendary discovery of coffee drink 10 Title page of Dufour's book 13 Frontispiece from Dufour's book 15 Turkish coffee house, 17th century 21 Serving coffee to a guest, Arabia 23 First printed reference to coffee 24 An 18th-century Italian coffee house 26 Nobility in an early Venetian café 27 Goldoni in a Venetian coffee house 28 Florian's famous coffee house 29 Title page of La Roque's work 32 Coffee tree as pictured by La Roque 32 Coffee branch in La Roque's work 33 First printed reference in English 37 Reference in Sherley's travels 39 References in Biddulph's travels 40 Mol's coffee house at Exeter 41 Reference in Sandys' travels 42 Richter's coffee house, Leipsic 46 Coffee house, Germany, 17th century 47 Kolschitzky in his Blue Bottle coffee house 48 First coffee house in Leopoldstadt 50 Statue of Kolschitzky 51 First advertisement for coffee 55 First newspaper advertisement 57 Coffee house, time of Charles II 60 London coffee house, 17th century 61 Coffee house, Queen Anne's time 62 Coffee-house keepers' tokens (plate 1) 63 A broadside of 1663 64 Coffee-house keepers' tokens (plate 2) 65 A broadside of 1667 68 A broadside of 1670 70 A broadside of 1672 70 A broadside of 1674 71 White's and Brooke's coffee houses 78 London coffee-house politicians 78 Great Fair on the frozen Thames 79 Lion's head at Button's 80 Trio of notables at Button's 81 Vauxhall Gardens on a gala night 82 Rotunda in Ranelagh Gardens 83 Garraway's coffee house 84 Button's coffee house 84 Slaughter's coffee house 85 Tom's coffee house 85 Lloyd's coffee house 86 Dick's coffee house 87 Grecian coffee house 87 Don Saltero's coffee house 88 British coffee house 88 French coffee house in London 89 Ramponaux' Royal Drummer café 90 La Foire St.-Germain 92 Street coffee vender of Paris 92 Armenian decorations in Paris café 93 Corner of historic Café de Procope 93 Café de Procope, Paris 95 Cashier's desk in coffee house, Paris 96 Café Foy 97 Café des Mille Colonnes 99 Café de Paris 101 Interior of a typical Parisian café 103 Chess at the Café de la Régence 104 Types of colonial coffee roasters 106 Early family coffee roaster 106 Historic relics, early New England 107 Mayflower "coffee grinder" 108 Crown coffee house, Boston 108 Coffee devices, Massachusetts colony 109 Coffee devices of western pioneers 110 Coffee pots of colonial days 110 Green Dragon tavern, Boston 111 Metal coffee pots, New York colony 112 Exchange coffee house, Boston 113 President-elect Washington's official welcome at Merchants Coffee House 114 King's Arms coffee house, New York 116 Burns coffee house 117 Merchants coffee house 119 Tontine coffee house 121 Tontine building of 1850 122 Niblo's Garden 122 Coffee relics, Dutch New York 122 New York's Vauxhall Garden of 1803 123 Tavern and grocers' signs, old New York 124 Second London coffee house, Philadelphia 127 Selling slaves, old London coffee house 128 City tavern, Philadelphia 129 Coffee-house scene in "Hamilton" 130 Coffee tree, flowers and fruit 132 Germination of the coffee plant 133 Brazil coffee plantation in flower 134 _Coffea arabica_, Porto Rico 135 _Coffea arabica_, flower and fruit, Costa Rica 135 Young _Coffea arabica_, Kona, Hawaii 136 Survivors of first Liberian trees in Java 136 _Coffea arabica_ in flower, Java 137 Liberian coffee tree, Lamoa, P.I. 138 _Coffea congensis_, 2-1/2 years old 138 Flowering of 5-year-old _Coffea excelsa_ 139 Branches of _Coffea excelsa_ 140 _Coffea stenophylla_ 140 Near view of _Coffea arabica_ berries 141 Wild caffein-free coffee tree 142 Coffee bean characteristics 142 _Coffea arabica_ berries 143 _Robusta_ coffee in flower 144 One-year-old _robusta_ estate 145 _Coffea Quillou_ flowers 146 _Quillou_ coffee tree in blossom 147 _Coffea Ugandæ_ 148 _Coffea arabica_ under the microscope 149 Cross-section of coffee bean 150 Cross-section of hull and bean 150 Epicarp and pericarp under microscope 151 Endocarp and endosperm under microscope 152 Spermoderm under microscope 152 Tissues of embryo under microscope 152 Coffee-leaf disease under microscope 153 Green and roasted coffee under microscope 153 Green and roasted Bogota under microscope 154 Cross-section of endosperm 156 Portion of the investing membrane 157 Structure of the green bean 157 Ground coffee under microscope 167 Coffee tree in bearing, Lamoa, P.I. 196 Early coffee implements 198 Cross-section of mountain slope, Yemen 198 First steps in coffee-growing 199 Coffee nursery, Guatemala 200 Coffee under shade, Porto Rico 201 Boekit Gompong estate, Sumatra 202 Estate in Antioquia, Colombia 203 Weeding and harrowing, São Paulo 204 Fazenda Dumont, São Paulo 205 Fazenda Guatapara, São Paulo 206 Picking coffee, São Paulo 207 Intensive cultivation, São Paulo 207 Private railroad, São Paulo 208 Coffee culture in São Paulo 209 Heavily laden coffee tree, Bogota 210 Picking coffee, Bogota 211 Altamira Hacienda, Venezuela 212 Carmen Hacienda, Venezuela 213 Heavy fruiting, _Coffea robusta_, Java 214 Road through coffee estate, Java 215 Native picking coffee, Sumatra 216 Administrator's bungalow, Java 216 Administrator's bungalow, Sumatra 217 Coffee culture in Guatemala 218 Indians picking coffee, Guatemala 219 Bungalow, coffee estate, Guatemala 220 Thirty-year-old coffee trees, Mexico 221 Mexican coffee picker 222 Receiving coffee, Mexico 223 Heavily laden coffee tree, Porto Rico 224 Coffee cultivation, Costa Rica 225 Picking Costa Rica coffee 226 Mountain coffee estate, Costa Rica 226 Mysore coffee estate 227 Coffee growing under shade, India 228 Coffee estate at Harar 229 Wild coffee near Adis Abeba 231 Mocha coffee growing on terraces 232 Picking Blue Mountain berries, Jamaica 233 Coffee pickers, Guadeloupe 234 Coffee in blossom, Panama 235 _Robusta_ coffee, Cochin-China 237 Bourbon trees, French Indo-China 238 Picking coffee in Queensland 239 Coffee in bloom, Kona, Hawaii 240 Coffee at Hamakua, Hawaii 241 Coffee trees, South Kona, Hawaii 242 Plantation near Sagada, P.I. 243 Coffee preparation, São Paulo 244 Walker's original disk pulper 246 Early English coffee peeler 246 Group of English cylinder pulpers 247 Copper covers for pulper cylinders 248 Granada unpulped coffee separator 249 Hand-power double-disk pulper 249 Tandem coffee pulper 250 Horizontal coffee washer 251 Vertical coffee washer 251 Cobán pulper, Venezuela 252 Niagara power coffee huller 252 British and American coffee driers 253 American Guardiola drier 254 Smout peeler and polisher 254 Smout peeler and polisher, exposed 255 O'Krassa's coffee drier 255 Six well-known hullers and separators 256 El Monarca coffee classifier 257 Hydro-electric installation, Guatemala 258 Preparing Brazil coffee for market 259 Working coffee on the drying flats 260 Fermenting and washing tanks, São Paulo 260 Drying grounds, Fazenda Schmidt 261 Preparing Colombian coffee for market 262 Old-fashioned ox-power huller 263 Street-car coffee transport, Orizaba 264 Coffee on drying floors, Porto Rico 264 Sun-drying coffee 265 Drying patio, Costa Rica 266 Early Guardiola steam drier 266 Indian women cleaning Mocha coffee 267 Cleaning-and-grading machinery, Aden 268 Drying coffee at Harar 269 Preparing Java coffee for market 270 Coffee transport in Java 271 Meeting of Amsterdam coffee brokers, 1820 291 Bill of public sale of coffee, 1790 292 Last sample before export, Santos 304 Stamping bags for export 304 Preparing Brazil coffee for export 305 Grading coffee at Santos 306 The test by the cups, Santos 306 New York importers' warehouse, Santos 307 Pack-mule transport in Venezuela 308 Coffee-carrying cart, Guatemala 308 Pack-oxen fording stream, Colombia 308 Coffee transport, Mexico and South America 309 Donkey coffee-transport at Harar 310 Coffee camels at Harar 310 Selling coffee by tapping hands, Aden 310 Packing and transporting coffee, Aden 311 Coffee camel train at Hodeida 312 Methods of loading coffee, Santos 313 Coffee freighter, Cauca River, Colombia 314 Coffee steamers on the Magdalena 314 Loading heavy cargo on Santa Cecilia 315 Unloading Java coffee from sailing vessel 317 Receiving piers for coffee, New York 318 Unloading coffee, covered pier, New York 319 Receiving and storing coffee, New York 320 Tester at work, Bush Terminal, New York 321 Loading lighters, Bush Docks, Brooklyn 321 New Terminal system on Staten Island 322 Motor tractor, Bush piers 322 Unloading with modern conveyor 323 Coffee handling, New Orleans piers 324 Coffee in steel-covered sheds, New Orleans 325 Unloading and storing coffee, San Francisco 326 Modern device for handling green coffee 327 Handling green coffee at European ports 328 New York Coffee and Sugar Exchange 329 Coffee section, Coffee and Sugar Exchange 330 Blackboards, Coffee Exchange 331 "Coffee afloat" blackboard 332 Well known green-coffee marks 339 Bourbon-Santos beans, roasted 343 Flat and Bourbon-Santos beans, roasted 343 Rio beans, roasted 343 Mexican beans, roasted 347 Guatemala beans, roasted 347 Bogota (Colombia) beans, roasted 348 Maracaibo beans, roasted 349 Mocha beans, roasted 351 Washed Java beans, roasted 353 Sample-roasting and cup-testing outfit 357 Modern gas coffee-roasting plant 380 Sixteen-cylinder coal roasting plant 382 Green-coffee separating and milling machines 384 English gas coffee-roasting plant 385 German gas coffee-roasting plant 386 French gas coffee-roasting plant 387 Jumbo coffee roaster, Arbuckle plant 388 Roasting plant of Reid, Murdoch & Co. 389 Complete gas coffee-plant installation 390 Burns Jubilee gas roaster 391 Burns coal roaster 392 Open perforated cylinder with flexible back head 392 Trying the roast 394 Monitor gas roaster 394 A group of roasting-room accessories 394 Dumping the roast 395 A four-bag coffee finisher 396 Burns sample-coffee roaster 396 Lambert coal coffee-roasting outfit 397 Coles No. 22 grinding mill 398 Monitor coffee-granulating machine 398 Challenge pulverizer 398 Burns No. 12 grinding mill 399 Monitor steel-cut grinder, separator, etc 399 Johnson carton-filling, weighing, and sealing machine 400 Ideal steel-cut mill 400 Smyser package-making and filling machine 401 Automatic coffee-packing machine 402 Complete coffee-cartoning outfit 403 Automatic coffee-weighing machines 404 Units in manufacture of soluble coffee 405 Types of coffee containers 411 Fresh-roasted-coffee idea in retailing 414 Premium tea and coffee dealer's display 416 Chain-store interior 417 Familiar A & P store front 418 Specialist idea in coffee merchandising 419 Monitor gas roaster, cooler, and stoner 420 Royal gas coffee roaster for retailers 420 Burns half-bag roaster, cooler, and stoner 421 Lambert Jr. roasting outfit for retailers 421 Faulder and Simplex gas roasters 422 Coffee roasters used in Paris shops 423 Small German roasters 424 Popular French retail roaster 424 Uno cabinet gas roaster and cooler 424 Educational window exhibit 425 Better-class American grocery, interior 426 Prize-winning window display 427 Americanized English grocer's shop 429 Famous package coffees 430 First coffee advertisement in U.S. 433 Coffee advertisement of 1790 434 First colored handbill for package coffee 435 Reverse side of colored handbill 435 St. Louis handbill of 1854 436 Advertising-card copy, 1873 437 Handbill copy of the seventies 437 Box-end sticker, 1833 438 Chase & Sanborn advertisement, 1888 438 A Goldberg cartoon, 1910 439 Copy used by Chase & Sanborn, 1900 439 An effective cut-out 442 How coffee is advertised to the trade 443 Joint Coffee Trade Publicity Committee 447 Magazine and newspaper copy, 1919 449 Copy that stressed helpfulness of coffee, 1919-20 450 Joint Committee's house organ 451 Introductory medical-journal copy 451 Telling the doctors the truth, 1920 452 Joint Committee's attractive booklets 453 More medical journal copy, 1920 454 Magazine and newspaper copy, 1921 455 Educating the doctor, 1922 456 Magazine and newspaper copy, 1922 457 Specimen of early Yuban copy 459 Historical association in advertising 459 Package coffee advertising in 1922 460 The social distinction argument 461 Drawing upon history for atmosphere 461 An impressive electric sign, Chicago 462 How coffee is advertised outdoors 463 Attractive car cards, spring of 1922 464 Effective iced-coffee copy 465 European advertising novelty, New York 465 Coenties Slip, in days of sailing vessels 466 First U.S. coffee-grinder patent 469 Carter's Pull-out roaster patent 469 First registered trade mark for coffee 470 Original Arbuckle coffee packages 471 Merchants coffee house tablet 473 Departed dominant figures in New York green coffee trade 476 "Their association with New York green coffee trade dates back nearly fifty years" 477 Green coffee trade-builders who have passed on 478 "Their race is run, their course is done" 479 112 Front Street, New York, 1879 480 At 87 Wall Street, New York, years ago 480 Wall and Front Streets, New York, 1922 481 Front Street, New York, 1922 483 In the New Orleans coffee district 486 Green coffee district, New Orleans 487 California Street, San Francisco 488 San Francisco's coffee district 489 Pioneer coffee roasters, New York City 493 Oldtime New York coffee roasters 495 Pioneer coffee roasters of the North and East, U.S. 500 Pioneer coffee roasters of the South and West, U.S. 504 Ground coffee price list of 1862 507 Organization convention, N.C.R.A., 1911 510 Former presidents, N.C.R.A. 512 Earliest coffee manuscript 540 Song from "The Coffee House" 555 Dr. Johnson's seat, the Cheshire Cheese 567 Original coffee room, old Cock Tavern 568 Morning gossip in the coffee room 569 "His Warmest Welcome at an Inn" 571 Alexander Pope at Button's, 1730 577 Dutch coffee house, 1650 (by Van Ostade) 586 White's coffee house, 1733 (by Hogarth) 588 Tom King's, 1738 (by Hogarth) 589 Petit Déjeuner (by Boucher) 590 Coffee service in the home of Madame de Pompadour (by Van Loo) 590 Madame Du Barry (by Decreuse) 591 Coffee house at Cairo (by Gérôme) 592 Kaffeebesuch (by Philippi) 593 Coffee comes to the aid of the Muse (by Ruffio) 593 Mad dog in a coffee house (by Rowlandson) 594 Napoleon and the Curé (by Charlet) 595 Coffee, a chanson (music by Colet) 596 Statue of Kolschitzky 597 Betty's Aria, Bach's coffee cantata 598 Café Pedrocchi, Padua 599 Coffee grinder set with jewels 600 Italian wrought-iron coffee roaster 600 Seventeenth-century tea and coffee pots 601 Lantern coffee pot, 1692 602 Folkingham pot, 1715-16 602 Wastell pot, 1720-21 603 Dish of coffee-boy design, 1692 603 Chinese porcelain coffee pot 604 Silver coffee pots, early 18th century 604 Silver coffee pots, 18th century 605 Pottery and porcelain pots 606 Silver coffee pots, late 18th century 607 Porcelain pots, Metropolitan Museum 608 Vienna coffee pot, 1830 609 Spanish coffee pot, 18th century 609 Silver coffee pots in American collections 610 Coffee pot by Win. Shaw and Wm. Priest 611 Pot of Sheffield plate, 18th century 611 Pot by Ephraim Brasher 611 French silver coffee pot 612 Green Dragon tavern coffee urn 612 Coffee pots by American silversmiths 613 Twentieth-century American coffee service 613 Turkish coffee set, Peter collection 614 Oldest coffee grinder 616 Grain mill used by Greeks and Romans 616 First coffee roaster 616 First cylinder roaster, 1650 616 Historical relics, U.S. National Museum 617 Turkish coffee mill 618 Early French wall and table grinders 618 Bronze and brass mortars, 17th century 619 Early American coffee roasters 619 Roaster with three-sided hood 620 Roasting, making, and serving devices, 17th century 620 English and French coffee grinders 621 Eighteenth-century roaster 621 Original French drip pot 621 Belgian, Russian, and French pewter pots 622 17th and 18th century pewter pots 623 Count Rumford's percolator 623 Drawings of early French coffee makers 624 Early French filtration devices 624 Early American coffee-maker patents 625 French coffee makers, 19th century 625 First English commercial roaster patent 626 Early French coffee-roasting machines 627 Battery of Carter pull-out machines 628 Early English and American roasters 630 Early Foreign and American coffee-making devices 632 Dakin roasting machine of 1848 633 Globe stove roaster of 1860 634 Hyde's combined roaster and stove 634 Original Burns roaster, 1864 635 Burns granulating mill, 1872-74 636 Napier's vacuum machine 637 German gas and coal roasting machines 638 Other German coffee roasters 639 Original Enterprise mill 640 Max Thurmer's quick gas roaster 640 An English gas coffee-roasting plant 641 French globular roaster 642 Sirocco machine (French) 642 English roasting and grinding equipment 643 Magic gas machine (French) 644 Burns Jubilee gas machine 644 Double gas roasting outfit (French) 645 Lambert's Victory gas machine 646 One of the first electric mills 647 English electric-fuel roaster 648 Ben Franklin electric coffee roaster 648 Enterprise hand store mill 649 Latest types electric store mills 650 Italian rapid coffee-making machines 651 Working of Italian rapid machines 652 La Victoria Arduino Mignonne 652 N.C.R.A. Home coffee mill 653 Manthey-Zorn rapid infuser and dispenser 653 Tricolette, single-cup filter device 654 Moorish coffee house in Algiers 656 Coffee house in Cairo 656 Coffee service in Cairo barber shop 657 Coffee-laden camels, Arabia 658 Arabian coffee house 658 Mahommedan brewing coffee for guest 659 Native café, Harar 661 Early coffee, tea, and chocolate service 661 Nubian slave girl with coffee service 662 Persian coffee service, 1737 663 In a Turkish coffee house 664 Roasting coffee outside a Turkish café 664 Turkish caffinet, early 19th century 665 Coffee-making in Turkey 666 Street coffee vender in the Levant 666 A coffee house in Syria 667 Cafetan--garb of oriental café-keeper 668 Street coffee service in Constantinople 668 Riverside café in Damascus 669 Coffee _al fresco_ in Jerusalem 671 Café Schrangl, Vienna 672 Favorite English way of making coffee 673 A café of Ye Mecca Company, London 673 Groom's coffee house, London 674 Café Monico, Piccadilly Circus, London 674 Gatti's, The Strand, London 675 Tea lounge, Hotel Savoy, London 675 Two popular places for coffee in London 676 Temple Bar restaurant, London 677 Tea balcony, Hotel Cecil, London 677 One of Slater's chain-shops, London 677 St. James's restaurant, Picadilly, London 678 An A.B.C. shop, London 678 Halt of caravaners at a serai, Bulgaria 678 Café de la Paix, Paris 679 Sidewalk annex, Café de la Paix 680 Café de la Régence, Paris 681 Café de la Régence in 1922 682 One of the Biard cafés, Paris 683 Restaurant Procope, 1922 683 Morning coffee at a Boulevard café 684 Café Bauer, Unter den Linden, Berlin 684 Café Bauer, exterior 685 Kranzler's Unter den Linden, Berlin 685 Swedish coffee boilers 687 Sidewalk café, Lisbon 687 Coffee rooms replacing hotel bars, U.S. 688 Britannia coffee pot--a Lincoln relic 690 Coffee service, Hotel Astor, New York 691 Early coffee-making in Persia 694 Napier vacuum coffee maker 700 Napier-List steam coffee machine 700 Finley Acker's filter-paper coffee pot 700 Kin-Hee pot in operation 701 Tricolator in operation 701 King percolator 701 Three American coffee-making machines in operation 702 How the Tru-Bru pot operates 702 Coffee-making devices used in U.S. 703 English hotel coffee-making machines 706 Well-known makes of large coffee urns 707 Popular German drip pot 708 Section of roasted bean, magnified 719 Cross-section of roasted bean, magnified 720 Coarse grind under the microscope 720 Medium grind under the microscope 721 Fine-meal grind under the microscope 721 _Portraits_ Ach, F.J. 447, 512 Akers, Fred 495 Ames, Allan P. 447 Arbuckle, John 523 Arnold, Benjamin Greene 476, 517 Arnold, F.B. 476 Bayne, William 479 Bayne, William, Jr. 447 Beard, Eli 493 Beard, Samuel 493 Bennett, William H. 479 Bickford, C.E. 478 Boardman, Thomas J. 500 Boardman, William 500 Brand, Carl W. 512 Brandenstein, M.J. 504 Burns, Jabez 527 Canby, Edward 500 Casanas, Ben C. 512 Cauchois. F.A. 493 Chase, Caleb 500 Cheek, J.O. 504, 515 Closset, Joseph 504 Coste, Felix 447 Crossman, Geo. W. 479 Devers, A.H. 504 Dwinell, James F. 500 Eppens, Fred 495 Eppens, Julius A. 495, 497 Eppens, W.H. 493, 495 Evans, David G. 504 Fischer, Benedickt 493 Flint, J.G. 500 Folger, J.A., Jr. 504 Folger, J.A., Sr. 504 Forbes, A.E. 504 Forbes, Jas. H. 504 Geiger, Frank J. 500 Gillies, Jas. W. 493 Gillies, Wright 493 Grossman, William 500 Harrison, D.Y. 500 Harrison, W.H. 500 Haulenbeek, Peter 493 Hayward, Martin 500 Heekin, James 500 Jones, W.T. 504 Kimball, O.G. 478 Kinsella, W.J. 504 Kirkland, Alexander 495 Kolschitzky, Franz George 50 McLaughlin, W.F. 500 Mahood, Samuel 500 Mayo, Henry 495 Meehan, P.C. 477 Menezes, Th. Langgaard de 446 Meyer, Robert 511 Peck, Edwin H. 477 Phyfe, Jas. W. 478 Pierce, O.W., Sr. 500 Pupke, John F. 495 Purcell, Joseph 476 Reid, Fred 495 Reid, Thomas 493, 495 Roome, Col. William P. 499 Russell, James C. 478 Sanborn, James S. 500 Schilling, A. 504 Schotten, Julius J. 504, 512 Schotten, William 504 Seelye, Frank R. 512 Sielcken, Hermann 476, 519 Simmonds, H. 477 Sinnot, J.B. 504 Smith, L.B. 493 Smith, M.E. 504 Sprague, Albert A. 500 Stephens, Henry A. 500 Stoffregen, Charles 504 Stoffregen, C.H. 447 Taylor, James H. 477 Thomson, A.M. 500 Van Loan, Thomas 498 Weir, Ross W. 447, 512 Westfeldt, George 479 Widlar, Francis 500 Wilde, Samuel 493 Withington, Elijah 493 Woolson, Alvin M. 500 Wright, George C. 500 Wright, George S. 447 Young, Samuel 500 Zinsmeister, J. 504 _Maps, Charts, and Diagrams_ Map of London coffee-house district, 1748 76 Formula for Caffein 160 Commercial coffee chart 191 Eiffel and Woolworth towers in coffee 272 World's coffee cup and largest ship 275 Coffee exports, 1850-1920 277 Coffee exports, 1916-1920 277 Brazil coffee exports, 1850-1920 278 World's coffee consumption, 1850 286 Coffee imports, 1916-1920 286 World trend of consumption of tea and coffee, 1860-1920 288 Coffee map of World (folded insert) _facing_ 288 Pre-war annual average production of coffee by continents 294 Pre-war annual average production of coffee by countries 294 Pre-war average annual imports of coffee into U.S. by continents 295 Pre-war average annual imports of coffee into U.S. by countries 295 Pre-war coffee-imports chart 297 Pre-war consumption and price chart 297 Coffee map, Brazil 342 Coffee map, São Paulo, Minãs, and Rio 344 Mild-coffee map, 1 346 Coffee map, Africa and Arabia 352 Mild-coffee map, 2 354 Complete reference table (21 pp.) 358 Plan of milling-machine connections 381 Plan of green-coffee-mixer connections 383 Layout for coffee and tea department 418 Chart, advertising of coffee and coffee substitutes, 1911-20 440 Charts, per capita consumption of coffee, and coffee and substitute advertising 441 Chart, plan of advertising campaign 448 Chart, private-brand advertising, 1921 458 A COFFEE THESAURUS _Encomiums and descriptive phrases applied to the plant, the berry, and the beverage_ _The Plant_ The precious plant This friendly plant Mocha's happy tree The gift of Heaven The plant with the jessamine-like flowers The most exquisite perfume of Araby the blest Given to the human race by the gift of the Gods _The Berry_ The magic bean The divine fruit Fragrant berries Rich, royal berry Voluptuous berry The precious berry The healthful bean The Heavenly berry The marvelous berry This all-healing berry Yemen's fragrant berry The little aromatic berry Little brown Arabian berry Thought-inspiring bean of Arabia The smoking, ardent beans Aleppo sends That wild fruit which gives so beloved a drink _The Beverage_ Nepenthe Festive cup Juice divine Nectar divine Ruddy mocha A man's drink Lovable liquor Delicious mocha The magic drink This rich cordial Its stream divine The family drink The festive drink Coffee is our gold Nectar of all men The golden mocha This sweet nectar Celestial ambrosia The friendly drink The cheerful drink The essential drink The sweet draught The divine draught The grateful liquor The universal drink The American drink The amber beverage The convivial drink The universal thrill King of all perfumes The cup of happiness The soothing draught Ambrosia of the Gods The intellectual drink The aromatic draught The salutary beverage The good-fellow drink The drink of democracy The drink ever glorious Wakeful and civil drink The beverage of sobriety A psychological necessity The fighting man's drink Loved and favored drink The symbol of hospitality This rare Arabian cordial Inspirer of men of letters The revolutionary beverage Triumphant stream of sable Grave and wholesome liquor The drink of the intellectuals A restorative of sparkling wit Its color is the seal of its purity The sober and wholesome drink Lovelier than a thousand kisses This honest and cheering beverage A wine which no sorrow can resist The symbol of human brotherhood At once a pleasure and a medicine The beverage of the friends of God The fire which consumes our griefs Gentle panacea of domestic troubles The autocrat of the breakfast table The beverage of the children of God King of the American breakfast table Soothes you softly out of dull sobriety The cup that cheers but not inebriates[1] Coffee, which makes the politician wise Its aroma is the pleasantest in all nature The sovereign drink of pleasure and health[2] The indispensable beverage of strong nations The stream in which we wash away our sorrows The enchanting perfume that a zephyr has brought Favored liquid which fills all my soul with delight The delicious libation we pour on the altar of friendship This invigorating drink which drives sad care from the heart EVOLUTION OF A CUP OF COFFEE _Showing the various steps through which the bean passes from plantation to cup_ 1 Planting the seed in nursery 2 Transplanting into rows 3 Cultivating and pruning 4 Picking the cherries 5 Pulping 6 Fermenting 7 Washing 8 Drying in the parchment 9 Hulling 10 Polishing 11 Grading 12 Transporting to the seaport 13 Buying and selling for export 14 Transhipment overseas 15 Buying and selling at wholesale 16 Shipment to the point of manufacture 17 Separating 18 Milling 19 Mixing or blending 20 Roasting 21 Cooling and stoning 22 Buying and selling at retail 23 Grinding 24 Making the beverage [Illustration: COFFEE ARABICA; LEAVES, FLOWERS AND FRUIT Painted from nature by M.E. Eaton--Detail sketches show anther, pistil, and section of corolla] CHAPTER I DEALING WITH THE ETYMOLOGY OF COFFEE _Origin and translation of the word from the Arabian into various languages--Views of many writers_ The history of the word coffee involves several phonetic difficulties. The European languages got the name of the beverage about 1600 from the original Arabic [Arabic] _qahwah_, not directly, but through its Turkish form, _kahveh_. This was the name, not of the plant, but the beverage made from its infusion, being originally one of the names employed for wine in Arabic. Sir James Murray, in the _New English Dictionary_, says that some have conjectured that the word is a foreign, perhaps African, word disguised, and have thought it connected with the name Kaffa, a town in Shoa, southwest Abyssinia, reputed native place of the coffee plant, but that of this there is no evidence, and the name _qahwah_ is not given to the berry or plant, which is called [Arabic] _bunn_, the native name in Shoa being _bun_. Contributing to a symposium on the etymology of the word coffee in _Notes and Queries_, 1909, James Platt, Jr., said: The Turkish form might have been written _kahvé_, as its final _h_ was never sounded at any time. Sir James Murray draws attention to the existence of two European types, one like the French _café_, Italian _caffè_, the other like the English _coffee_, Dutch _koffie_. He explains the vowel _o_ in the second series as apparently representing _au_, from Turkish _ahv_. This seems unsupported by evidence, and the _v_ is already represented by the _ff_, so on Sir James's assumption _coffee_ must stand for _kahv-ve_, which is unlikely. The change from _a_ to _o_, in my opinion, is better accounted for as an imperfect appreciation. The exact sound of a in Arabic and other Oriental languages is that of the English short U, as in "cuff." This sound, so easy to us, is a great stumbling-block to other nations. I judge that Dutch _koffie_ and kindred forms are imperfect attempts at the notation of a vowel which the writers could not grasp. It is clear that the French type is more correct. The Germans have corrected their _koffee_, which they may have got from the Dutch, into _kaffee_. The Scandinavian languages have adopted the French form. Many must wonder how the _hv_ of the original so persistently becomes _ff_ in the European equivalents. Sir James Murray makes no attempt to solve this problem. Virendranath Chattopádhyáya, who also contributed to the _Notes and Queries_ symposium, argued that the _hw_ of the Arabic _qahwah_ becomes sometimes _ff_ and sometimes only _f_ or _v_ in European translations because some languages, such as English, have strong syllabic accents (stresses), while others, as French, have none. Again, he points out that the surd aspirate _h_ is heard in some languages, but is hardly audible in others. Most Europeans tend to leave it out altogether. Col. W.F. Prideaux, another contributor, argued that the European languages got one form of the word coffee directly from the Arabic _qahwah_, and quoted from Hobson-Jobson in support of this: _Chaoua_ in 1598, _Cahoa_ in 1610, _Cahue_ in 1615; while Sir Thomas Herbert (1638) expressly states that "they drink (in Persia) ... above all the rest, _Coho_ or _Copha_: by Turk and Arab called _Caphe_ and _Cahua_." Here the Persian, Turkish, and Arabic pronunciations are clearly differentiated. Col. Prideaux then calls, as a witness to the Anglo-Arabic pronunciation, one whose evidence was not available when the _New English Dictionary_ and Hobson-Jobson articles were written. This is John Jourdain, a Dorsetshire seaman, whose _Diary_ was printed by the Hakluyt Society in 1905. On May 28, 1609, he records that "in the afternoone wee departed out of Hatch (Al-Hauta, the capital of the Lahej district near Aden), and travelled untill three in the morninge, and then wee rested in the plaine fields untill three the next daie, neere unto a cohoo howse in the desert." On June 5 the party, traveling from Hippa (Ibb), "laye in the mountaynes, our camells being wearie, and our selves little better. This mountain is called Nasmarde (Nakil Sumara), where all the cohoo grows." Farther on was "a little village, where there is sold cohoo and fruite. The seeds of this cohoo is a greate marchandize, for it is carried to grand Cairo and all other places of Turkey, and to the Indias." Prideaux, however, mentions that another sailor, William Revett, in his journal (1609) says, referring to Mocha, that "Shaomer Shadli (Shaikh 'Ali bin 'Omar esh-Shadil) was the fyrst inventour for drynking of coffe, and therefor had in esteemation." This rather looks to Prideaux as if on the coast of Arabia, and in the mercantile towns, the Persian pronunciation was in vogue; whilst in the interior, where Jourdain traveled, the Englishman reproduced the Arabic. Mr. Chattopádhyáya, discussing Col. Prideaux's views as expressed above, said: Col. Prideaux may doubt "if the worthy mariner, in entering the word in his log, was influenced by the abstruse principles of phonetics enunciated" by me, but he will admit that the change from _kahvah_ to _coffee_ is a phonetic change, and must be due to the operation of some phonetic principle. The average man, when he endeavours to write a foreign word in his own tongue, is handicapped considerably by his inherited and acquired phonetic capacity. And, in fact, if we take the quotations made in "Hobson-Jobson," and classify the various forms of the word _coffee_ according to the nationality of the writer, we obtain very interesting results. Let us take Englishmen and Dutchmen first. In Danvers's _Letters_ (1611) we have both "_coho_ pots" and "_coffao_ pots"; Sir T. Roe (1615) and Terry (1616) have _cohu_; Sir T. Herbert (1638) has _coho_ and _copha_; Evelyn (1637), _coffee_; Fryer (1673) _coho_; Ovington (1690), _coffee_; and Valentijn (1726), _coffi_. And from the two examples given by Col. Prideaux, we see that Jourdain (1609) has _cohoo_, and Revett (1609) has _coffe_. To the above should be added the following by English writers, given in Foster's _English Factories in India_ (1618-21, 1622-23, 1624-29): cowha (1619), cowhe, couha (1621), coffa (1628). Let us now see what foreigners (chiefly French and Italian) write. The earliest European mention is by Rauwolf, who knew it in Aleppo in 1573. He has the form _chaube_. Prospero Alpini (1580) has _caova_; Paludanus (1598) _chaoua_; Pyrard de Laval (1610) _cahoa_; P. Della Valle (1615) _cahue_; Jac. Bontius (1631) _caveah_; and the _Journal d'Antoine Galland_ (1673) _cave_. That is, Englishmen use forms of a certain distinct type, _viz._, cohu, coho, coffao, coffe, copha, coffee, which differ from the more correct transliteration of foreigners. In 1610 the Portuguese Jew, Pedro Teixeira (in the Hakluyt Society's edition of his _Travels_) used the word _kavàh_. The inferences from these transitional forms seem to be: 1. The word found its way into the languages of Europe both from the Turkish and from the Arabic. 2. The English forms (which have strong stress on the first syllable) have _o_ instead of _a_, and _f_ instead of _h_. 3. The foreign forms are unstressed and have no _h_. The original _v_ or _w_ (or labialized _u_) is retained or changed into _f_. It may be stated, accordingly, that the chief reason for the existence of two distinct types of spelling is the omission of _h_ in unstressed languages, and the conversion of _h_ into _f_ under strong stress in stressed languages. Such conversion often takes place in Turkish; for example, _silah dar_ in Persian (which is a highly stressed language) becomes _zilif dar_ in Turkish. In the languages of India, on the other hand, in spite of the fact that the aspirate is usually very clearly sounded, the word _qahvah_ is pronounced _kaiva_ by the less educated classes, owing to the syllables being equally stressed. Now for the French viewpoint. Jardin[3] opines that, as regards the etymology of the word coffee, scholars are not agreed and perhaps never will be. Dufour[4] says the word is derived from _caouhe_, a name given by the Turks to the beverage prepared from the seed. Chevalier d'Arvieux, French consul at Alet, Savary, and Trevoux, in his dictionary, think that coffee comes from the Arabic, but from the word _cahoueh_ or _quaweh_, meaning to give vigor or strength, because, says d'Arvieux, its most general effect is to fortify and strengthen. Tavernier combats this opinion. Moseley attributes the origin of the word coffee to Kaffa. Sylvestre de Sacy, in his _Chréstomathie Arabe_, published in 1806, thinks that the word _kahwa_, synonymous with _makli_, roasted in a stove, might very well be the etymology of the word coffee. D'Alembert in his encyclopedic dictionary, writes the word _caffé_. Jardin concludes that whatever there may be in these various etymologies, it remains a fact that the word coffee comes from an Arabian word, whether it be _kahua_, _kahoueh_, _kaffa_ or _kahwa_, and that the peoples who have adopted the drink have all modified the Arabian word to suit their pronunciation. This is shown by giving the word as written in various modern languages: French, _café_; Breton, _kafe_; German, _kaffee_ (coffee tree, _kaffeebaum_); Dutch, _koffie_ (coffee tree, _koffieboonen_); Danish, _kaffe_; Finnish, _kahvi_; Hungarian, _kavé_; Bohemian, _kava_; Polish, _kawa_; Roumanian, _cafea_; Croatian, _kafa_; Servian, _kava_; Russian, _kophe_; Swedish, _kaffe_; Spanish, _café_; Basque, _kaffia_; Italian, _caffè_; Portuguese, _café_; Latin (scientific), _coffea_; Turkish, _kahué_; Greek, _kaféo_; Arabic, _qahwah_ (coffee berry, _bun_); Persian, _qéhvé_ (coffee berry, _bun_[5]); Annamite, _ca-phé_; Cambodian, _kafé_; Dukni[6], _bunbund_[7]; Teluyan[8], _kapri-vittulu_; Tamil[9], _kapi-kottai_ or _kopi_; Canareze[10], _kapi-bija_; Chinese, _kia-fey_, _teoutsé_; Japanese, _kéhi_; Malayan, _kawa_, _koppi_; Abyssinian, _bonn_[11]; Foulak, _legal café_[12]; Sousou, _houri caff_[13]; Marquesan, _kapi_; Chinook[14], _kaufee_; Volapuk, _kaf_; Esperanto, _kafva_. [Illustration: THE FAIRY BEAUTY OF A COFFEE TREE IN FLOWER] CHAPTER II HISTORY OF COFFEE PROPAGATION _A brief account of the cultivation of the coffee plant in the Old World and its introduction into the New--A romantic coffee adventure_ The history of the propagation of the coffee plant is closely interwoven with that of the early history of coffee drinking, but for the purposes of this chapter we shall consider only the story of the inception and growth of the cultivation of the coffee tree, or shrub, bearing the seeds, or berries, from which the drink, coffee, is made. Careful research discloses that most authorities agree that the coffee plant is indigenous to Abyssinia, and probably Arabia, whence its cultivation spread throughout the tropics. The first reliable mention of the properties and uses of the plant is by an Arabian physician toward the close of the ninth century A.D., and it is reasonable to suppose that before that time the plant was found growing wild in Abyssinia and perhaps in Arabia. If it be true, as Ludolphus writes,[15] that the Abyssinians came out of Arabia into Ethiopia in the early ages, it is possible that they may have brought the coffee tree with them; but the Arabians must still be given the credit for discovering and promoting the use of the beverage, and also for promoting the propagation of the plant, even if they found it in Abyssinia and brought it to Yemen. Some authorities believe that the first cultivation of coffee in Yemen dates back to 575 A.D., when the Persian invasion put an end to the Ethiopian rule of the negus Caleb, who conquered the country in 525. Certainly the discovery of the beverage resulted in the cultivation of the plant in Abyssinia and in Arabia; but its progress was slow until the 15th and 16th centuries, when it appears as intensively carried on in the Yemen district of Arabia. The Arabians were jealous of their new found and lucrative industry, and for a time successfully prevented its spread to other countries by not permitting any of the precious berries to leave the country unless they had first been steeped in boiling water or parched, so as to destroy their powers of germination. It may be that many of the early failures successfully to introduce the cultivation of the coffee plant into other lands was also due to the fact, discovered later, that the seeds soon lose their germinating power. However, it was not possible to watch every avenue of transport, with thousands of pilgrims journeying to and from Mecca every year; and so there would appear to be some reason to credit the Indian tradition concerning the introduction of coffee cultivation into southern India by Baba Budan, a Moslem pilgrim, as early as 1600, although a better authority gives the date as 1695. Indian tradition relates that Baba Budan planted his seeds near the hut he built for himself at Chickmaglur in the mountains of Mysore, where, only a few years since, the writer found the descendants of these first plants growing under the shade of the centuries-old original jungle trees. The greater part of the plants cultivated by the natives of Kurg and Mysore appear to have come from the Baba Budan importation. It was not until 1840 that the English began the cultivation of coffee in India. The plantations extend now from the extreme north of Mysore to Tuticorin. _Early Cultivation by the Dutch_ In the latter part of the 16th century, German, Italian, and Dutch botanists and travelers brought back from the Levant considerable information regarding the new plant and the beverage. In 1614 enterprising Dutch traders began to examine into the possibilities of coffee cultivation and coffee trading. In 1616 a coffee plant was successfully transported from Mocha to Holland. In 1658 the Dutch started the cultivation of coffee in Ceylon, although the Arabs are said to have brought the plant to the island prior to 1505. In 1670 an attempt was made to cultivate coffee on European soil at Dijon, France, but the result was a failure. In 1696, at the instigation of Nicolaas Witsen, then burgomaster of Amsterdam, Adrian Van Ommen, commander at Malabar, India, caused to be shipped from Kananur, Malabar, to Java, the first coffee plants introduced into that island. They were grown from seed of the _Coffea arabica_ brought to Malabar from Arabia. They were planted by Governor-General Willem Van Outshoorn on the Kedawoeng estate near Batavia, but were subsequently lost by earthquake and flood. In 1699 Henricus Zwaardecroon imported some slips, or cuttings, of coffee trees from Malabar into Java. These were more successful, and became the progenitors of all the coffees of the Dutch East Indies. The Dutch were then taking the lead in the propagation of the coffee plant. In 1706 the first samples of Java coffee, and a coffee plant grown in Java, were received at the Amsterdam botanical gardens. Many plants were afterward propagated from the seeds produced in the Amsterdam gardens, and these were distributed to some of the best known botanical gardens and private conservatories in Europe. While the Dutch were extending the cultivation of the plant to Sumatra, the Celebes, Timor, Bali, and other islands of the Netherlands Indies, the French were seeking to introduce coffee cultivation into their colonies. Several attempts were made to transfer young plants from the Amsterdam botanical gardens to the botanical gardens at Paris; but all were failures. In 1714, however, as a result of negotiations entered into between the French government and the municipality of Amsterdam, a young and vigorous plant about five feet tall was sent to Louis XIV at the chateau of Marly by the burgomaster of Amsterdam. The day following, it was transferred to the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, where it was received with appropriate ceremonies by Antoine de Jussieu, professor of botany in charge. This tree was destined to be the progenitor of most of the coffees of the French colonies, as well as of those of South America, Central America, and Mexico. _The Romance of Captain Gabriel de Clieu_ Two unsuccessful attempts were made to transport to the Antilles plants grown from the seed of the tree presented to Louis XIV; but the honor of eventual success was won by a young Norman gentleman, Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu, a naval officer, serving at the time as captain of infantry at Martinique. The story of de Clieu's achievement is the most romantic chapter in the history of the propagation of the coffee plant. His personal affairs calling him to France, de Clieu conceived the idea of utilizing the return voyage to introduce coffee cultivation into Martinique. His first difficulty lay in obtaining several of the plants then being cultivated in Paris, a difficulty at last overcome through the instrumentality of M. de Chirac, royal physician, or, according to a letter written by de Clieu himself, through the kindly offices of a lady of quality to whom de Chirac could give no refusal. The plants selected were kept at Rochefort by M. Bégon, commissary of the department, until the departure of de Clieu for Martinique. Concerning the exact date of de Clieu's arrival at Martinique with the coffee plant, or plants, there is much conflict of opinion. Some authorities give the date as 1720, others 1723. Jardin[16] suggests that the discrepancy in dates may arise from de Clieu, with praiseworthy perseverance, having made the voyage twice. The first time, according to Jardin, the plants perished; but the second time de Clieu had planted the seeds when leaving France and these survived, "due, they say, to his having given of his scanty ration of water to moisten them." No reference to a preceding voyage, however, is made by de Clieu in his own account, given in a letter written to the _Année Littéraire_[17] in 1774. There is also a difference of opinion as to whether de Clieu arrived with one or three plants. He himself says "one" in the letter referred to. According to the most trustworthy data, de Clieu embarked at Nantes, 1723.[18] He had installed his precious plant in a box covered with a glass frame in order to absorb the rays of the sun and thus better to retain the stored-up heat for cloudy days. Among the passengers one man, envious of the young officer, did all in his power to wrest from him the glory of success. Fortunately his dastardly attempt failed of its intended effect. "It is useless," writes de Clieu in his letter to the _Année Littéraire_, "to recount in detail the infinite care that I was obliged to bestow upon this delicate plant during a long voyage, and the difficulties I had in saving it from the hands of a man who, basely jealous of the joy I was about to taste through being of service to my country, and being unable to get this coffee plant away from me, tore off a branch." [Illustration: CAPTAIN DE CLIEU SHARES HIS DRINKING WATER WITH THE COFFEE PLANT HE IS CARRYING TO MARTINIQUE] The vessel carrying de Clieu was a merchantman, and many were the trials that beset passengers and crew. Narrowly escaping capture by a corsair of Tunis, menaced by a violent tempest that threatened to annihilate them, they finally encountered a calm that proved more appalling than either. The supply of drinking water was well nigh exhausted, and what was left was rationed for the remainder of the voyage. "Water was lacking to such an extent," says de Clieu, "that for more than a month I was obliged to share the scanty ration of it assigned to me with this my coffee plant upon which my happiest hopes were founded and which was the source of my delight. It needed such succor the more in that it was extremely backward, being no larger than the slip of a pink." Many stories have been written and verses sung recording and glorifying this generous sacrifice that has given luster to the name of de Clieu. Arrived in Martinique, de Clieu planted his precious slip on his estate in Prêcheur, one of the cantons of the island; where, says Raynal, "it multiplied with extraordinary rapidity and success." From the seedlings of this plant came most of the coffee trees of the Antilles. The first harvest was gathered in 1726. De Clieu himself describes his arrival as follows: Arriving at home, my first care was to set out my plant with great attention in the part of my garden most favorable to its growth. Although keeping it in view, I feared many times that it would be taken from me; and I was at last obliged to surround it with thorn bushes and to establish a guard about it until it arrived at maturity ... this precious plant which had become still more dear to me for the dangers it had run and the cares it had cost me. Thus the little stranger thrived in a distant land, guarded day and night by faithful slaves. So tiny a plant to produce in the end all the rich estates of the West India islands and the regions bordering on the Gulf of Mexico! What luxuries, what future comforts and delights, resulted from this one small talent confided to the care of a man of rare vision and fine intellectual sympathy, fired by the spirit of real love for his fellows! There is no instance in the history of the French people of a good deed done by stealth being of greater service to humanity. De Clieu thus describes the events that followed fast upon the introduction of coffee into Martinique, with particular reference to the earthquake of 1727: Success exceeded my hopes. I gathered about two pounds of seed which I distributed among all those whom I thought most capable of giving the plants the care necessary to their prosperity. The first harvest was very abundant; with the second it was possible to extend the cultivation prodigiously, but what favored multiplication, most singularly, was the fact that two years afterward all the cocoa trees of the country, which were the resource and occupation of the people, were uprooted and totally destroyed by horrible tempests accompanied by an inundation which submerged all the land where these trees were planted, land which was at once made into coffee plantations by the natives. These did marvelously and enabled us to send plants to Santo Domingo, Guadeloupe, and other adjacent islands, where since that time they have been cultivated with the greatest success. By 1777 there were 18,791,680 coffee trees in Martinique. De Clieu was born in Angléqueville-sur-Saane, Seine-Inférieure (Normandy), in 1686 or 1688.[19] In 1705 he was a ship's ensign; in 1718 he became a chevalier of St. Louis; in 1720 he was made a captain of infantry; in 1726, a major of infantry; in 1733 he was a ship's lieutenant; in 1737 he became governor of Guadeloupe; in 1746 he was a ship's captain; in 1750 he was made honorary commander of the order of St. Louis; in 1752 he retired with a pension of 6000 francs; in 1753 he re-entered the naval service; in 1760 he again retired with a pension of 2000 francs. In 1746 de Clieu, having returned to France, was presented to Louis XV by the minister of marine, Rouillé de Jour, as "a distinguished officer to whom the colonies, as well as France itself, and commerce generally, are indebted for the cultivation of coffee." Reports to the king in 1752 and 1759 recall his having carried the first coffee plant to Martinique, and that he had ever been distinguished for his zeal and disinterestedness. In the _Mercure de France_, December, 1774, was the following death notice: Gabriel d'Erchigny de Clieu, former Ship's Captain and Honorary Commander of the Royal and Military Order of Saint Louis, died in Paris on the 30th of November in the 88th year of his age. A notice of his death appeared also in the _Gazette de France_ for December 5, 1774, a rare honor in both cases; and it has been said that at this time his praise was again on every lip. One French historian, Sidney Daney,[20] records that de Clieu died in poverty at St. Pierre at the age of 97; but this must be an error, although it does not anywhere appear that at his death he was possessed of much, if any, means. Daney says: This generous man received as his sole recompense for a noble deed the satisfaction of seeing this plant for whose preservation he had shown such devotion, prosper throughout the Antilles. The illustrious de Clieu is among those to whom Martinique owes a brilliant reparation. Daney tells also that in 1804 there was a movement in Martinique to erect a monument upon the spot where de Clieu planted his first coffee plant, but that the undertaking came to naught. Pardon, in his _La Martinique_ says: Honor to this brave man! He has deserved it from the people of two hemispheres. His name is worthy of a place beside that of Parmentier who carried to France the potato of Canada. These two men have rendered immense service to humanity, and their memory should never be forgotten--yet alas! Are they even remembered? Tussac, in his _Flora de las Antillas_, writing of de Clieu, says, "Though no monument be erected to this beneficent traveler, yet his name should remain engraved in the heart of every colonist." In 1774 the _Année Littéraire_ published a long poem in de Clieu's honor. In the feuilleton of the _Gazette de France_, April 12, 1816, we read that M. Donns, a wealthy Hollander, and a coffee connoisseur, sought to honor de Clieu by having painted upon a porcelain service all the details of his voyage and its happy results. "I have seen the cups," says the writer, who gives many details and the Latin inscription. That singer of navigation, Esménard, has pictured de Clieu's devotion in the following lines: Forget not how de Clieu with his light vessel's sail, Brought distant Moka's gift--that timid plant and frail. The waves fell suddenly, young zephyrs breathed no more, Beneath fierce Cancer's fires behold the fountain store, Exhausted, fails; while now inexorable need Makes her unpitying law--with measured dole obeyed. Now each soul fears to prove Tantalus torment first. De Clieu alone defies: While still that fatal thirst, Fierce, stifling, day by day his noble strength devours, And still a heaven of brass inflames the burning hours. With that refreshing draught his life he will not cheer; But drop by drop revives the plant he holds more dear. Already as in dreams, he sees great branches grow, One look at his dear plant assuages all his woe. The only memorial to de Clieu in Martinique is the botanical garden at Fort de France, which was opened in 1918 and dedicated to de Clieu, "whose memory has been too long left in oblivion.[21]" In 1715 coffee cultivation was first introduced into Haiti and Santo Domingo. Later came hardier plants from Martinique. In 1715-17 the French Company of the Indies introduced the cultivation of the plant into the Isle of Bourbon (now Réunion) by a ship captain named Dufougeret-Grenier from St. Malo. It did so well that nine years later the island began to export coffee. The Dutch brought the cultivation of coffee to Surinam in 1718. The first coffee plantation in Brazil was started at Pará in 1723 with plants brought from French Guiana, but it was not a success. The English brought the plant to Jamaica in 1730. In 1740 Spanish missionaries introduced coffee cultivation into the Philippines from Java. In 1748 Don José Antonio Gelabert introduced coffee into Cuba, bringing the seed from Santo Domingo. In 1750 the Dutch extended the cultivation of the plant to the Celebes. Coffee was introduced into Guatemala about 1750-60. The intensive cultivation in Brazil dates from the efforts begun in the Portuguese colonies in Pará and Amazonas in 1752. Porto Rico began the cultivation of coffee about 1755. In 1760 João Alberto Castello Branco brought to Rio de Janeiro a coffee tree from Goa, Portuguese India. The news spread that the soil and climate of Brazil were particularly adapted to the cultivation of coffee. Molke, a Belgian monk, presented some seeds to the Capuchin monastery at Rio in 1774. Later, the bishop of Rio, Joachim Bruno, became a patron of the plant and encouraged its propagation in Rio, Minãs, Espirito Santo, and São Paulo. The Spanish voyager, Don Francisco Xavier Navarro, is credited with the introduction of coffee into Costa Rica from Cuba in 1779. In Venezuela the industry was started near Caracas by a priest, José Antonio Mohedano, with seed brought from Martinique in 1784. Coffee cultivation in Mexico began in 1790, the seed being brought from the West Indies. In 1817 Don Juan Antonio Gomez instituted intensive cultivation in the State of Vera Cruz. In 1825 the cultivation of the plant was begun in the Hawaiian Islands with seeds from Rio de Janeiro. As previously noted, the English began to cultivate coffee in India in 1840. In 1852 coffee cultivation was begun in Salvador with plants brought from Cuba. In 1878 the English began the propagation of coffee in British Central Africa, but it was not until 1901 that coffee cultivation was introduced into British East Africa from Réunion. In 1887 the French introduced the plant into Tonkin, Indo-China. Coffee growing in Queensland, introduced in 1896, has been successful in a small way. In recent years several attempts have been made to propagate the coffee plant in the southern United States, but without success. It is believed, however, that the topographic and climatic conditions in southern California are favorable for its cultivation. [Illustration] [Illustration: OMAR AND THE MARVELOUS COFFEE BIRD] [Illustration: KALDI AND HIS DANCING GOATS] [Illustration: THE LEGENDARY DISCOVERY OF THE COFFEE DRINK From drawings by a modern French artist] CHAPTER III EARLY HISTORY OF COFFEE DRINKING _Coffee in the Near East in the early centuries--Stories of its origin--Discovery by physicians and adoption by the Church--Its spread through Arabia, Persia and Turkey--Persecutions and intolerances--Early coffee manners and customs_ The coffee drink had its rise in the classical period of Arabian medicine, which dates from Rhazes (Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya El Razi) who followed the doctrines of Galen and sat at the feet of Hippocrates. Rhazes (850-922) was the first to treat medicine in an encyclopedic manner, and, according to some authorities, the first writer to mention coffee. He assumed the poetical name of Razi because he was a native of the city of Raj in Persian Irak. He was a great philosopher and astronomer, and at one time was superintendent of the hospital at Bagdad. He wrote many learned books on medicine and surgery, but his principal work is _Al-Haiwi_, or _The Continent_, a collection of everything relating to the cure of disease from Galen to his own time. Philippe Sylvestre Dufour (1622-87)[22], a French coffee merchant, philosopher, and writer, in an accurate and finished treatise on coffee, tells us (see the early edition of the work translated from the Latin) that the first writer to mention the properties of the coffee bean under the name of _bunchum_ was this same Rhazes, "in the ninth century after the birth of our Saviour"; from which (if true) it would appear that coffee has been known for upwards of 1000 years. Robinson[23], however, is of the opinion that _bunchum_ meant something else and had nothing to do with coffee. Dufour, himself, in a later edition of his _Traitez Nouveaux et Curieux du Café_ (the Hague, 1693) is inclined to admit that _bunchum_ may have been a root and not coffee, after all; however, he is careful to add that there is no doubt that the Arabs knew coffee as far back as the year 800. Other, more modern authorities, place it as early as the sixth century. _Wiji Kawih_ is mentioned in a Kavi (Javan) inscription A.D. 856; and it is thought that the "bean broth" in David Tapperi's list of Javanese beverages (1667-82) may have been coffee[24]. While the true origin of coffee drinking may be forever hidden among the mysteries of the purple East, shrouded as it is in legend and fable, scholars have marshaled sufficient facts to prove that the beverage was known in Ethiopia "from time immemorial," and there is much to add verisimilitude to Dufour's narrative. This first coffee merchant-prince, skilled in languages and polite learning, considered that his character as a merchant was not inconsistent with that of an author; and he even went so far as to say there were some things (for instance, coffee) on which a merchant could be better informed than a philosopher. Granting that by _bunchum_ Rhazes meant coffee, the plant and the drink must have been known to his immediate followers; and this, indeed, seems to be indicated by similar references in the writings of Avicenna (Ibn Sina), the Mohammedan physician and philosopher, who lived from 980 to 1037 A.D. Rhazes, in the quaint language of Dufour, assures us that "_bunchum_ (coffee) is hot and dry and very good for the stomach." Avicenna explains the medicinal properties and uses of the coffee bean (_bon_ or _bunn_), which he, also, calls _bunchum_, after this fashion: As to the choice thereof, that of a lemon color, light, and of a good smell, is the best; the white and the heavy is naught. It is hot and dry in the first degree, and, according to others, cold in the first degree. It fortifies the members, it cleans the skin, and dries up the humidities that are under it, and gives an excellent smell to all the body. The early Arabians called the bean and the tree that bore it, _bunn_; the drink, _bunchum_. A. Galland[25] (1646-1715), the French Orientalist who first analyzed and translated from the Arabic the Abd-al-Kâdir manuscript[26], the oldest document extant telling of the origin of coffee, observes that Avicenna speaks of the _bunn_, or coffee; as do also Prospero Alpini and Veslingius (Vesling). Bengiazlah, another great physician, contemporary with Avicenna, likewise mentions coffee; by which, says Galland, one may see that we are indebted to physicians for the discovery of coffee, as well as of sugar, tea, and chocolate. Rauwolf[27] (d. 1596), German physician and botanist, and the first European to mention coffee, who became acquainted with the beverage in Aleppo in 1573, telling how the drink was prepared by the Turks, says: In this same water they take a fruit called _Bunnu_, which in its bigness, shape, and color is almost like unto a bayberry, with two thin shells surrounded, which, as they informed me, are brought from the _Indies_; but as these in themselves are, and have within them, two yellowish grains in two distinct cells, and besides, being they agree in their virtue, figure, looks, and name with the _Bunchum_ of Avicenna and _Bunco_, of _Rasis ad Almans_ exactly: therefore I take them to be the same. In Dr. Edward Pocoke's translation (Oxford, 1659) of _The Nature of the Drink Kauhi, or Coffee, and the Berry of which it is Made, Described by an Arabian Phisitian_, we read: _Bun_ is a plant in _Yaman_ [Yemen], which is planted in _Adar_, and groweth up and is gathered in _Ab_. It is about a cubit high, on a stalk about the thickness of one's thumb. It flowers white, leaving a berry like a small nut, but that sometimes it is broad like a bean; and when it is peeled, parteth in two. The best of it is that which is weighty and yellow; the worst, that which is black. It is hot in the first degree, dry in the second: it is usually reported to be cold and dry, but it is not so; for it is bitter, and whatsoever is bitter is hot. It may be that the scorce is hot, and the Bun it selfe either of equall temperature, or cold in the first degree. That which makes for its coldnesse is its stipticknesse. In summer it is by experience found to conduce to the drying of rheumes, and flegmatick coughes and distillations, and the opening of obstructions, and the provocation of urin. It is now known by the name of _Kohwah_. When it is dried and thoroughly boyled, it allayes the ebullition of the blood, is good against the small poxe and measles, the bloudy pimples; yet causeth vertiginous headheach, and maketh lean much, occasioneth waking, and the Emrods, and asswageth lust, and sometimes breeds melancholly. He that would drink it for livelinesse sake, and to discusse slothfulnesse, and the other properties that we have mentioned, let him use much sweat meates with it, and oyle of pistaccioes, and butter. Some drink it with milk, but it is an error, and such as may bring in danger of the leprosy. Dufour concludes that the coffee beans of commerce are the same as the _bunchum_ (_bunn_) described by Avicenna and the _bunca_ (_bunchum_) of Rhazes. In this he agrees, almost word for word, with Rauwolf, indicating no change in opinion among the learned in a hundred years. Christopher Campen thinks Hippocrates, father of medicine, knew and administered coffee. Robinson, commenting upon the early adoption of coffee into materia medica, charges that it was a mistake on the part of the Arab physicians, and that it originated the prejudice that caused coffee to be regarded as a powerful drug instead of as a simple and refreshing beverage. _Homer, the Bible, and Coffee_ In early Grecian and Roman writings no mention is made of either the coffee plant or the beverage made from the berries. Pierre (Pietro) Delia Valle[28] (1586-1652), however, maintains that the _nepenthe_, which Homer says Helen brought with her out of Egypt, and which she employed as surcease for sorrow, was nothing else but coffee mixed with wine.[29] This is disputed by M. Petit, a well known physician of Paris, who died in 1687. Several later British authors, among them, Sandys, the poet; Burton; and Sir Henry Blount, have suggested the probability of coffee being the "black broth" of the Lacedæmonians. George Paschius, in his Latin treatise of the _New Discoveries Made since the Time of the Ancients_, printed at Leipsic in 1700, says he believes that coffee was meant by the five measures of parched corn included among the presents Abigail made to David to appease his wrath, as recorded in the _Bible_, 1 Samuel, xxv, 18. The _Vulgate_ translates the Hebrew words _sein kali_ into _sata polentea_, which signify wheat, roasted, or dried by fire. [Illustration: TITLE PAGE OF DUFOUR'S BOOK, EDITION OF 1693] Pierre Étienne Louis Dumant, the Swiss Protestant minister and author, is of the opinion that coffee (and not lentils, as others have supposed) was the red pottage for which Esau sold his birthright; also that the parched grain that Boaz ordered to be given Ruth was undoubtedly roasted coffee berries. Dufour mentions as a possible objection against coffee that "the use and eating of beans were heretofore forbidden by Pythagoras," but intimates that the coffee bean of Arabia is something different. Scheuzer,[30] in his _Physique Sacrée_, says "the Turks and the Arabs make with the coffee bean a beverage which bears the same name, and many persons use as a substitute the flour of roasted barley." From this we learn that the coffee substitute is almost as old as coffee itself. _Some Early Legends_ After medicine, the church. There are several Mohammedan traditions that have persisted through the centuries, claiming for "the faithful" the honor and glory of the first use of coffee as a beverage. One of these relates how, about 1258 A.D., Sheik Omar, a disciple of Sheik Abou'l hasan Schadheli, patron saint and legendary founder of Mocha, by chance discovered the coffee drink at Ousab in Arabia, whither he had been exiled for a certain moral remissness. Facing starvation, he and his followers were forced to feed upon the berries growing around them. And then, in the words of the faithful Arab chronicle in the Bibliothéque Nationale at Paris, "having nothing to eat except coffee, they took of it and boiled it in a saucepan and drank of the decoction." Former patients in Mocha who sought out the good doctor-priest in his Ousab retreat, for physic with which to cure their ills, were given some of this decoction, with beneficial effect. As a result of the stories of its magical properties, carried back to the city, Sheik Omar was invited to return in triumph to Mocha where the governor caused to be built a monastery for him and his companions. Another version of this Oriental legend gives it as follows: The dervish Hadji Omar was driven by his enemies out of Mocha into the desert, where they expected he would die of starvation. This undoubtedly would have occurred if he had not plucked up courage to taste some strange berries which he found growing on a shrub. While they seemed to be edible, they were very bitter; and he tried to improve the taste by roasting them. He found, however, that they had become very hard, so he attempted to soften them with water. The berries seemed to remain as hard as before, but the liquid turned brown, and Omar drank it on the chance that it contained some of the nourishment from the berries. He was amazed at how it refreshed him, enlivened his sluggishness, and raised his drooping spirits. Later, when he returned to Mocha, his salvation was considered a miracle. The beverage to which it was due sprang into high favor, and Omar himself was made a saint. A popular and much-quoted version of Omar's discovery of coffee, also based upon the Abd-al-Kâdir manuscript, is the following: In the year of the Hegira 656, the mollah Schadheli went on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Arriving at the mountain of the Emeralds (Ousab), he turned to his disciple Omar and said: "I shall die in this place. When my soul has gone forth, a veiled person will appear to you. Do not fail to execute the command which he will give you." The venerable Schadheli being dead, Omar saw in the middle of the night a gigantic specter covered by a white veil. "Who are you?" he asked. The phantom drew back his veil, and Omar saw with surprise Schadheli himself, grown ten cubits since his death. The mollah dug in the ground, and water miraculously appeared. The spirit of his teacher bade Omar fill a bowl with the water and to proceed on his way and not to stop till he reached the spot where the water would stop moving. "It is there," he added, "that a great destiny awaits you." Omar started his journey. Arriving at Mocha in Yemen, he noticed that the water was immovable. It was here that he must stop. The beautiful village of Mocha was then ravaged by the plague. Omar began to pray for the sick and, as the saintly man was close to Mahomet, many found themselves cured by his prayers. The plague meanwhile progressing, the daughter of the King of Mocha fell ill and her father had her carried to the home of the dervish who cured her. But as this young princess was of rare beauty, after having cured her, the good dervish tried to carry her off. The king did not fancy this new kind of reward. Omar was driven from the city and exiled on the mountain of Ousab, with herbs for food and a cave for a home. "Oh, Schadheli, my dear master," cried the unfortunate dervish one day; "if the things which happened to me at Mocha were destined, was it worth the trouble to give me a bowl to come here?" To these just complaints, there was heard immediately a song of incomparable harmony, and a bird of marvelous plumage came to rest in a tree. Omar sprang forward quickly toward the little bird which sang so well, but then he saw on the branches of the tree only flowers and fruit. Omar laid hands on the fruit, and found it delicious. Then he filled his great pockets with it and went back to his cave. As he was preparing to boil a few herbs for his dinner, the idea came to him of substituting for this sad soup, some of his harvested fruit. From it he obtained a savory and perfumed drink; it was coffee. The Italian _Journal of the Savants_ for the year 1760 says that two monks, Scialdi and Ayduis, were the first to discover the properties of coffee, and for this reason became the object of special prayers. "Was not this Scialdi identical with the Sheik Schadheli?" asks Jardin.[31] The most popular legend ascribes the discovery of the drink to an Arabian herdsman in upper Egypt, or Abyssinia, who complained to the abbot of a neighboring monastery that the goats confided to his care became unusually frolicsome after eating the berries of certain shrubs found near their feeding grounds. The abbot, having observed the fact, determined to try the virtues of the berries on himself. He, too, responded with a new exhilaration. Accordingly, he directed that some be boiled, and the decoction drunk by his monks, who thereafter found no difficulty in keeping awake during the religious services of the night. The abbé Massieu in his poem, _Carmen Caffaeum_, thus celebrates the event: The monks each in turn, as the evening draws near, Drink 'round the great cauldron--a circle of cheer! And the dawn in amaze, revisiting that shore, On idle beds of ease surprised them nevermore! According to the legend, the news of the "wakeful monastery" spread rapidly, and the magical berry soon "came to be in request throughout the whole kingdom; and in progress of time other nations and provinces of the East fell into the use of it." The French have preserved the following picturesque version of this legend: A young goatherd named Kaldi noticed one day that his goats, whose deportment up to that time had been irreproachable, were abandoning themselves to the most extravagant prancings. The venerable buck, ordinarily so dignified and solemn, bounded about like a young kid. Kaldi attributed this foolish gaiety to certain fruits of which the goats had been eating with delight. The story goes that the poor fellow had a heavy heart; and in the hope of cheering himself up a little, he thought he would pick and eat of the fruit. The experiment succeeded marvelously. He forgot his troubles and became the happiest herder in happy Arabia. When the goats danced, he gaily made himself one of the party, and entered into their fun with admirable spirit. One day, a monk chanced to pass by and stopped in surprise to find a ball going on. A score of goats were executing lively pirouettes like a ladies' chain, while the buck solemnly _balancé-ed_, and the herder went through the figures of an eccentric pastoral dance. The astonished monk inquired the cause of this saltatorial madness; and Kaldi told him of his precious discovery. Now, this poor monk had a great sorrow; he always went to sleep in the middle of his prayers; and he reasoned that Mohammed without doubt was revealing this marvelous fruit to him to overcome his sleepiness. [Illustration: ARAB DRINKING COFFEE; CHINAMAN, TEA; AND INDIAN, CHOCOLATE Frontispiece from Dufour's work] Piety does not exclude gastronomic instincts. Those of our good monk were more than ordinary; because he thought of drying and boiling the fruit of the herder. This ingenious concoction gave us coffee. Immediately all the monks of the realm made use of the drink, because it encouraged them to pray and, perhaps, also because it was not disagreeable. In those early days it appears that the drink was prepared in two ways; one in which the decoction was made from the hull and the pulp surrounding the bean, and the other from the bean itself. The roasting process came later and is an improvement generally credited to the Persians. There is evidence that the early Mohammedan churchmen were seeking a substitute for the wine forbidden to them by the Koran, when they discovered coffee. The word for coffee in Arabic, _qahwah_, is the same as one of those used for wine; and later on, when coffee drinking grew so popular as to threaten the very life of the church itself, this similarity was seized upon by the church-leaders to support their contention that the prohibition against wine applied also to coffee. La Roque,[32] writing in 1715, says that the Arabian word _cahouah_ signified at first only wine; but later was turned into a generic term applied to all kinds of drink. "So there were really three sorts of coffee; namely, wine, including all intoxicating liquors; the drink made with the shells, or cods, of the coffee bean; and that made from the bean itself." Originally, then, the coffee drink may have been a kind of wine made from the coffee fruit. In the coffee countries even today the natives are very fond, and eat freely, of the ripe coffee cherries, voiding the seeds. The pulp surrounding the coffee seeds (beans) is pleasant to taste, has a sweetish, aromatic flavor, and quickly ferments when allowed to stand. Still another tradition (was the wish father to the thought?) tells how the coffee drink was revealed to Mohammed himself by the Angel Gabriel. Coffee's partisans found satisfaction in a passage in the _Koran_ which, they said, foretold its adoption by the followers of the Prophet: They shall be given to drink an excellent wine, sealed; its seal is that of the musk. The most diligent research does not carry a knowledge of coffee back beyond the time of Rhazes, two hundred years after Mohammed; so there is little more than speculation or conjecture to support the theory that it was known to the ancients, in Bible times or in the days of The Praised One. Our knowledge of tea, on the other hand, antedates the Christian era. We know also that tea was intensively cultivated and taxed under the Tang dynasty in China, A.D. 793, and that Arab traders knew of it in the following century. _The First Reliable Coffee Date_ About 1454 Sheik Gemaleddin Abou Muhammad Bensaid, mufti of Aden, surnamed Aldhabani, from Dhabhan, a small town where he was born, became acquainted with the virtues of coffee on a journey into Abyssinia.[33] Upon his return to Aden, his health became impaired; and remembering the coffee he had seen his countrymen drinking in Abyssinia, he sent for some in the hope of finding relief. He not only recovered from his illness; but, because of its sleep-dispelling qualities, he sanctioned the use of the drink among the dervishes "that they might spend the night in prayers or other religious exercises with more attention and presence of mind.[34]" It is altogether probable that the coffee drink was known in Aden before the time of Sheik Gemaleddin; but the endorsement of the very learned imam, whom science and religion had already made famous, was sufficient to start a vogue for the beverage that spread throughout Yemen, and thence to the far corners of the world. We read in the Arabian manuscript at the Bibliothéque Nationale that lawyers, students, as well as travelers who journeyed at night, artisans, and others, who worked at night, to escape the heat of the day, took to drinking coffee; and even left off another drink, then becoming popular, made from the leaves of a plant called _khat_ or _cat_ (_catha edulis_). Sheik Gemaleddin was assisted in his work of spreading the gospel of this the first propaganda for coffee by one Muhammed Alhadrami, a physician of great reputation, born in Hadramaut, Arabia Felix. A recently unearthed and little known version of coffee's origin shows how features of both the Omar tradition and the Gemaleddin story may be combined by a professional Occidental tale-writer[35]: Toward the middle of the fifteenth century, a poor Arab was traveling in Abyssinia. Finding himself weak and weary, he stopped near a grove. For fuel wherewith to cook his rice, he cut down a tree that happened to be covered with dried berries. His meal being cooked and eaten, the traveler discovered that these half-burnt berries were fragrant. He collected a number of them and, on crushing them with a stone, found that the aroma was increased to a great extent. While wondering at this, he accidentally let the substance fall into an earthen vessel that contained his scanty supply of water. A miracle! The almost putrid water was purified. He brought it to his lips; it was fresh and agreeable; and after a short rest the traveler so far recovered his strength and energy as to be able to resume his journey. The lucky Arab gathered as many berries as he could, and having arrived at Aden, informed the mufti of his discovery. That worthy was an inveterate opium-smoker, who had been suffering for years from the influence of the poisonous drug. He tried an infusion of the roasted berries, and was so delighted at the recovery of his former vigor that in gratitude to the tree he called it _cahuha_ which in Arabic signifies "force". Galland, in his analysis of the Arabian manuscript, already referred to, that has furnished us with the most trustworthy account of the origin of coffee, criticizes Antoine Faustus Nairon, Maronite professor of Oriental languages at Rome, who was the author of the first printed treatise on coffee only,[36] for accepting the legends relating to Omar and the Abyssinian goatherd. He says they are unworthy of belief as facts of history, although he is careful to add that there is _some_ truth in the story of the discovery of coffee by the Abyssinian goats and the abbot who prescribed the use of the berries for his monks, "the Eastern Christians being willing to have the honor of the invention of coffee, for the abbot, or prior, of the convent and his companions are only the mufti Gemaleddin and Muhammid Alhadrami, and the monks are the dervishes." Amid all these details, Jardin reaches the conclusion that it is to chance we must attribute the knowledge of the properties of coffee, and that the coffee tree was transported from its native land to Yemen, as far as Mecca, and possibly into Persia, before being carried into Egypt. Coffee, being thus favorably introduced into Aden, it has continued there ever since, without interruption. By degrees the cultivation of the plant and the use of the beverage passed into many neighboring places. Toward the close of the fifteenth century (1470-1500) it reached Mecca and Medina, where it was introduced, as at Aden, by the dervishes, and for the same religious purpose. About 1510 it reached Grand Cairo in Egypt, where the dervishes from Yemen, living in a district by themselves, drank coffee on the nights they intended to spend in religious devotion. They kept it in a large red earthen vessel--each in turn receiving it, respectfully, from their superior, in a small bowl, which he dipped into the jar--in the meantime chanting their prayers, the burden of which was always: "There is no God but one God, the true King, whose power is not to be disputed." [Illustration: A BOUQUET OF RIPE FRUIT] [Illustration: FLOWERS, FRUIT, AND LEAVES] [Illustration: THE COFFEE TREE BEARS FRUIT, LEAF, AND BLOSSOM AT THE SAME TIME] After the dervishes, the bowl was passed to lay members of the congregation. In this way coffee came to be so associated with the act of worship that "they never performed a religious ceremony in public and never observed any solemn festival without taking coffee." Meanwhile, the inhabitants of Mecca became so fond of the beverage that, disregarding its religious associations, they made of it a secular drink to be sipped publicly in _kaveh kanes_, the first coffee houses. Here the idle congregated to drink coffee, to play chess and other games, to discuss the news of the day, and to amuse themselves with singing, dancing, and music, contrary to the manners of the rigid Mahommedans, who were very properly scandalized by such performances. In Medina and in Cairo, too, coffee became as common a drink as in Mecca and Aden. _The First Coffee Persecution_ At length the pious Mahommedans began to disapprove of the use of coffee among the people. For one thing, it made common one of the best psychology-adjuncts of their religion; also, the joy of life, that it helped to liberate among those who frequented the coffee houses, precipitated social, political, and religious arguments; and these frequently developed into disturbances. Dissensions arose even among the churchmen themselves. They divided into camps for and against coffee. The law of the Prophet on the subject of wine was variously construed as applying to coffee. About this time (1511) Kair Bey was governor of Mecca for the sultan of Egypt. He appears to have been a strict disciplinarian, but lamentably ignorant of the actual conditions obtaining among his people. As he was leaving the mosque one evening after prayers, he was offended by seeing in a corner a company of coffee drinkers who were preparing to pass the night in prayer. His first thought was that they were drinking wine; and great was his astonishment when he learned what the liquor really was and how common was its use throughout the city. Further investigation convinced him that indulgence in this exhilarating drink must incline men and women to extravagances prohibited by law, and so he determined to suppress it. First he drove the coffee drinkers out of the mosque. The next day, he called a council of officers of justice, lawyers, physicians, priests, and leading citizens, to whom he declared what he had seen the evening before at the mosque; and, "being resolved to put a stop to the coffee-house abuses, he sought their advice upon the subject." The chief count in the indictment was that "in these places men and women met and played tambourines, violins, and other musical instruments. There were also people who played chess, mankala, and other similar games, for money; and there were many other things done contrary to our sacred law--may God keep it from all corruption until the day when we shall all appear before him![37]" The lawyers agreed that the coffee houses needed reforming; but as to the drink itself, inquiry should be made as to whether it was in any way harmful to mind or body; for if not, it might not be sufficient to close the places that sold it. It was suggested that the opinion of the physicians be sought. Two brothers, Persian physicians named Hakimani, and reputed the best in Mecca, were summoned, although we are told they knew more about logic than they did about physic. One of them came into the council fully prejudiced, as he had already written a book against coffee, and filled with concern for his profession, being fearful lest the common use of the new drink would make serious inroads on the practise of medicine. His brother joined with him in assuring the assembly that the plant _bunn_, from which coffee was made, was "cold and dry" and so unwholesome. When another physician present reminded them that Bengiazlah, the ancient and respected contemporary of Avicenna, taught that it was "hot and dry," they made arbitrary answer that Bengiazlah had in mind another plant of the same name, and that anyhow, it was not material; for, if the coffee drink disposed people to things forbidden by religion, the safest course for Mahommedans was to look upon it as unlawful. The friends of coffee were covered with confusion. Only the mufti spoke out in the meeting in its favor. Others, carried away by prejudice or misguided zeal, affirmed that coffee clouded their senses. One man arose and said it intoxicated like wine; which made every one laugh, since he could hardly have been a judge of this if he had not drunk wine, which is forbidden by the Mohammedan religion. Upon being asked whether he had ever drunk any, he was so imprudent as to admit that he had, thereby condemning himself out of his own mouth to the bastinado. The mufti of Aden, being both an officer of the court and a divine, undertook, with some heat, a defense of coffee; but he was clearly in an unpopular minority. He was rewarded with the reproaches and affronts of the religious zealots. So the governor had his way, and coffee was solemnly condemned as thing forbidden by the law; and a presentment was drawn up, signed by a majority of those present, and dispatched post-haste by the governor to his royal master, the sultan, at Cairo. At the same time, the governor published an edict forbidding the sale of coffee in public or private. The officers of justice caused all the coffee houses in Mecca to be shut, and ordered all the coffee found there, or in the merchants' warehouses, to be burned. Naturally enough, being an unpopular edict, there were many evasions, and much coffee drinking took place behind closed doors. Some of the friends of coffee were outspoken in their opposition to the order, being convinced that the assembly had rendered a judgment not in accordance with the facts, and above all, contrary to the opinion of the mufti who, in every Arab community, is looked up to as the interpreter, or expounder, of the law. One man, caught in the act of disobedience, besides being severely punished, was also led through the most public streets of the city seated on an ass. However, the triumph of the enemies of coffee was short-lived; for not only did the sultan of Cairo disapprove the "indiscreet zeal" of the governor of Mecca, and order the edict revoked; but he read him a severe lesson on the subject. How dared he condemn a thing approved at Cairo, the capital of his kingdom, where there were physicians whose opinions carried more weight than those of Mecca, and who had found nothing against the law in the use of coffee? The best things might be abused, added the sultan, even the sacred waters of Zamzam, but this was no reason for an absolute prohibition. The fountain, or well, of Zamzam, according to the Mohammedan teaching, is the same which God caused to spring up in the desert to comfort Hagar and Ishmael when Abraham banished them. It is in the enclosure of the temple at Mecca; and the Mohammedans drink of it with much show of devotion, ascribing great virtues to it. It is not recorded whether the misguided governor was shocked at this seeming profanity; but it is known that he hastened to obey the orders of his lord and master. The prohibition was recalled, and thereafter he employed his authority only to preserve order in the coffee houses. The friends of coffee, and the lovers of poetic justice, found satisfaction in the governor's subsequent fate. He was exposed as "an extortioner and a public robber," and "tortured to death," his brother killing himself to avoid the same fate. The two Persian physicians who had played so mean a part in the first coffee persecution, likewise came to an unhappy end. Being discredited in Mecca they fled to Cairo, where, in an unguarded moment, having cursed the person of Selim I, emperor of the Turks, who had conquered Egypt, they were executed by his order. Coffee, being thus re-established at Mecca, met with no opposition until 1524, when, because of renewed disorders, the kadi of the town closed the coffee houses, but did not seek to interfere with coffee drinking at home and in private. His successor, however, re-licensed them; and, continuing on their good behavior since then, they have not been disturbed. In 1542 a ripple was caused by an order issued by Soliman the Great, forbidding the use of coffee; but no one took it seriously, especially as it soon became known that the order had been obtained "by surprise" and at the desire of only one of the court ladies "a little too nice in this point." One of the most interesting facts in the history of the coffee drink is that wherever it has been introduced it has spelled revolution. It has been the world's most radical drink in that its function has always been to make people think. And when the people began to think, they became dangerous to tyrants and to foes of liberty of thought and action. Sometimes the people became intoxicated with their new found ideas; and, mistaking liberty for license, they ran amok, and called down upon their heads persecutions and many petty intolerances. So history repeated itself in Cairo, twenty-three years after the first Mecca persecution. _Coffee's Second Religious Persecution_ Selim I, after conquering Egypt, had brought coffee to Constantinople in 1517. The drink continued its progress through Syria, and was received in Damascus (about 1530), and in Aleppo (about 1532), without opposition. Several coffee houses of Damascus attained wide fame, among them the Café of the Roses, and the Café of the Gate of Salvation. Its increasing popularity and, perhaps, the realization that the continued spread of the beverage might lessen the demand for his services, caused a physician of Cairo to propound (about 1523) to his fellows this question: What is your opinion concerning the liquor called coffee which is drank in company, as being reckoned in the number of those we have free leave to make use of, notwithstanding it is the cause of no small disorders, that it flies up into the head and is very pernicious to health? Is it permitted or forbidden? At the end he was careful to add, as his own opinion (and without prejudice?), that coffee was unlawful. To the credit of the physicians of Cairo as a class, it should be recorded that they looked with unsympathetic eyes upon this attempt on the part of one of their number to stir up trouble for a valuable adjunct to their materia medica, and so the effort died a-borning. If the physicians were disposed to do nothing to stop coffee's progress, not so the preachers. As places of resort, the coffee houses exercised an appeal that proved stronger to the popular mind than that of the temples of worship. This to men of sound religious training was intolerable. The feeling against coffee smouldered for a time; but in 1534 it broke out afresh. In that year a fiery preacher in one of Cairo's mosques so played upon the emotions of his congregation with a preachment against coffee, claiming that it was against the law and that those who drank it were not true Mohammedans, that upon leaving the building a large number of his hearers, enraged, threw themselves into the first coffee house they found in their way, burned the coffee pots and dishes, and maltreated all the persons they found there. Public opinion was immediately aroused; and the city was divided into two parties; one maintaining that coffee was against the law of Mohammed, and the other taking the contrary view. And then arose a Solomon in the person of the chief justice, who summoned into his presence the learned physicians for consultation. Again the medical profession stood by its guns. The medical men pointed out to the chief justice that the question had already been decided by their predecessors on the side of coffee, and that the time had come to put some check "on the furious zeal of the bigots" and the "indiscretions of ignorant preachers." Whereupon, the wise judge caused coffee to be served to the whole company and drank some himself. By this act he "re-united the contending parties, and brought coffee into greater esteem than ever." _Coffee in Constantinople_ The story of the introduction of coffee into Constantinople shows that it experienced much the same vicissitudes that marked its advent at Mecca and Cairo. There were the same disturbances, the same unreasoning religious superstition, the same political hatreds, the same stupid interference by the civil authorities; and yet, in spite of it all, coffee attained new honors and new fame. The Oriental coffee house reached its supreme development in Constantinople. Although coffee had been known in Constantinople since 1517, it was not until 1554 that the inhabitants became acquainted with that great institution of early eastern democracy--the coffee house. In that year, under the reign of Soliman the Great, son of Selim I, one Schemsi of Damascus and one Hekem of Aleppo opened the first two coffee houses in the quarter called Taktacalah. They were wonderful institutions for those days, remarkable alike for their furnishings and their comforts, as well as for the opportunity they afforded for social intercourse and free discussion. Schemsi and Hekem received their guests on "very neat couches or sofas," and the admission was the price of a dish of coffee--about one cent. Turks, high and low, took up the idea with avidity. Coffee houses increased in number. The demand outstripped the supply. In the seraglio itself special officers (_kahvedjibachi_) were commissioned to prepare the coffee drink for the sultan. Coffee was in favor with all classes. The Turks gave to the coffee houses the name _kahveh kanes_ (_diversoria_, Cotovicus called them); and as they grew in popularity, they became more and more luxurious. There were lounges, richly carpeted; and in addition to coffee, many other means of entertainment. To these "schools of the wise" came the "young men ready to enter upon offices of judicature; kadis from the provinces, seeking re-instatement or new appointments; muderys, or professors; officers of the seraglio; bashaws; and the principal lords of the port," not to mention merchants and travelers from all parts of the then known world. _Coffee House Persecutions_ About 1570, just when coffee seemed settled for all time in the social scheme, the imams and dervishes raised a loud wail against it, saying the mosques were almost empty, while the coffee houses were always full. Then the preachers joined in the clamor, affirming it to be a greater sin to go to a coffee house than to enter a tavern. The authorities began an examination; and the same old debate was on. This time, however, appeared a mufti who was unfriendly to coffee. The religious fanatics argued that Mohammed had not even known of coffee, and so could not have used the drink, and, therefore, it must be an abomination for his followers to do so. Further, coffee was burned and ground to charcoal before making a drink of it; and the _Koran_ distinctly forbade the use of charcoal, including it among the unsanitary foods. The mufti decided the question in favor of the zealots, and coffee was forbidden by law. The prohibition proved to be more honored in the breach than in the observance. Coffee drinking continued in secret, instead of in the open. And when, about 1580, Amurath III, at the further solicitation of the churchmen, declared in an edict that coffee should be classed with wine, and so prohibited in accordance with the law of the Prophet, the people only smiled, and persisted in their secret disobedience. Already they were beginning to think for themselves on religious as well as political matters. The civil officers, finding it useless to try to suppress the custom, winked at violations of the law; and, for a consideration, permitted the sale of coffee privately, so that many Ottoman "speak-easies" sprung up--places where coffee might be had behind shut doors; shops where it was sold in back-rooms. This was enough to re-establish the coffee houses by degrees. Then came a mufti less scrupulous or more knowing than his predecessor, who declared that coffee was not to be looked upon as coal, and that the drink made from it was not forbidden by the law. There was a general renewal of coffee drinking; religious devotees, preachers, lawyers, and the mufti himself indulging in it, their example being followed by the whole court and the city. After this, the coffee houses provided a handsome source of revenue to each succeeding grand vizier; and there was no further interference with the beverage until the reign of Amurath IV, when Grand Vizier Kuprili, during the war with Candia, decided that for political reasons, the coffee houses should be closed. His argument was much the same as that advanced more than a hundred years later by Charles II of England, namely, that they were hotbeds of sedition. Kuprili was a military dictator, with nothing of Charles's vacillating nature; and although, like Charles, he later rescinded his edict, he enforced it, while it was effective, in no uncertain fashion. Kuprili was no petty tyrant. For a first violation of the order, cudgeling was the punishment; for a second offense, the victim was sewn in a leather bag and thrown into the Bosporus. Strangely enough, while he suppressed the coffee houses, he permitted the taverns, that sold wine forbidden by the _Koran_, to remain open. Perhaps he found the latter produced a less dangerous kind of mental stimulation than that produced by coffee. Coffee, says Virey, was too intellectual a drink for the fierce and senseless administration of the pashas. Even in those days it was not possible to make people good by law. Paraphrasing the copy-book, suppressed desires will arise, though all the world o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes. An unjust law was no more enforceable in those centuries than it is in the twentieth century. Men are humans first, although they may become brutish when bereft of reason. But coffee does not steal away their reason; rather, it sharpens their reasoning faculties. As Galland has truly said: "Coffee joins men, born for society, in a more perfect union; protestations are more sincere in being made at a time when the mind is not clouded with fumes and vapors, and therefore not easily forgotten, which too frequently happens when made over a bottle." [Illustration: CHARACTERISTIC SCENE IN A TURKISH COFFEE HOUSE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY] Despite the severe penalties staring them in the face, violations of the law were plentiful among the people of Constantinople. Venders of the beverage appeared in the market-places with "large copper vessels with fire under them; and those who had a mind to drink were invited to step into any neighboring shop where every one was welcome on such an account." Later, Kuprili, having assured himself that the coffee houses were no longer a menace to his policies, permitted the free use of the beverage that he had previously forbidden. _Coffee and Coffee Houses in Persia_ Some writers claim for Persia the discovery of the coffee drink; but there is no evidence to support the claim. There are, however, sufficient facts to justify a belief that here, as in Ethiopia, coffee has been known from time immemorial--which is a very convenient phrase. At an early date the coffee house became an established institution in the chief towns. The Persians appear to have used far more intelligence than the Turks in handling the political phase of the coffee-house question, and so it never became necessary to order them suppressed in Persia. The wife of Shah Abbas, observing that great numbers of people were wont to gather and to talk politics in the leading coffee house of Ispahan, appointed a mollah--an ecclesiastical teacher and expounder of the law--to sit there daily to entertain the frequenters of the place with nicely turned points of history, law, and poetry. Being a man of wisdom and great tact, he avoided controversial questions of state; and so politics were kept in the background. He proved a welcome visitor, and was made much of by the guests. This example was generally followed, and as a result disturbances were rare in the coffee houses of Ispahan. Adam Olearius[38] (1599-1671), who was secretary to the German Embassy that traveled in Turkey in 1633-36, tells of the great diversions made in Persian coffee houses "by their poets and historians, who are seated in a high chair from whence they make speeches and tell satirical stories, playing in the meantime with a little stick and using the same gestures as our jugglers and legerdemain men do in England." At court conferences conspicuous among the shah's retinue were always to be seen the "kahvedjibachi," or "coffee-pourers." _Early Coffee Manners and Customs_ Karstens Niebuhr[39] (1733-1815), the Hanoverian traveler, furnishes the following description of the early Arabian, Syrian, and Egyptian coffee houses: They are commonly large halls, having their floors spread with mats, and illuminated at night by a multitude of lamps. Being the only theaters for the exercise of profane eloquence, poor scholars attend here to amuse the people. Select portions are read, _e.g._ the adventures of Rustan Sal, a Persian hero. Some aspire to the praise of invention, and compose tales and fables. They walk up and down as they recite, or assuming oratorial consequence, harangue upon subjects chosen by themselves. In one coffee house at Damascus an orator was regularly hired to tell his stories at a fixed hour; in other cases he was more directly dependant upon the taste of his hearers, as at the conclusion of his discourse, whether it had consisted of literary topics or of loose and idle tales, he looked to the audience for a voluntary contribution. At Aleppo, again, there was a man with a soul above the common, who, being a person of distinction, and one that studied merely for his own pleasure, had yet gone the round of all the coffee houses in the city to pronounce moral harangues. In some coffee houses there were singers and dancers, as before, and many came to listen to the marvelous tales, of the _Thousand and One Nights_. In Oriental countries it was once the custom to offer a cup of "bad coffee," i.e., coffee containing poison, to those functionaries or other persons who had proven themselves embarrassing to the authorities. While coffee drinking started as a private religious function, it was not long after its introduction by the coffee houses that it became secularized still more in the homes of the people, although for centuries it retained a certain religious significance. Galland says that in Constantinople, at the time of his visit to the city, there was no house, rich or poor, Turk or Jew, Greek or Armenian, where it was not drunk at least twice a day, and many drank it oftener, for it became a custom in every house to offer it to all visitors; and it was considered an incivility to refuse it. Twenty dishes a day, per person, was not an uncommon average. Galland observes that "as much money must be spent in the private families of Constantinople for coffee as for wine at Paris," and relates that it is as common for beggars to ask for money to buy coffee, as it is in Europe to ask for money to buy wine or beer. At this time to refuse or to neglect to give coffee to their wives was a legitimate cause for divorce among the Turks. The men made promise when marrying never to let their wives be without coffee. "That," says Fulbert de Monteith, "is perhaps more prudent than to swear fidelity." Another Arabic manuscript by Bichivili in the Bibliothéque Nationale at Paris furnishes us with this pen picture of the coffee ceremony as practised in Constantinople in the sixteenth century: In all the great men's houses, there are servants whose business it is only to take care of the coffee; and the head officer among them, or he who has the inspection over all the rest, has an apartment allowed him near the hall which is destined for the reception of visitors. The Turks call this officer _Kavveghi_, that is, Overseer or Steward of the Coffee. In the harem or ladies' apartment in the seraglio, there are a great many such officers, each having forty or fifty _Baltagis_ under them, who, after they have served a certain time in these coffee-houses, are sure to be well provided for, either by an advantageous post, or a sufficient quantity of land. In the houses of persons of quality likewise, there are pages, called _Itchoglans_, who receive the coffee from the stewards, and present it to the company with surprising dexterity and address, as soon as the master of the family makes a sign for that purpose, which is all the language they ever speak to them.... The coffee is served on salvers without feet, made commonly of painted or varnished wood, and sometimes of silver. They hold from 15 to 20 china dishes each; and such as can afford it have these dishes half set in silver ... the dish may be easily held with the thumb below and two fingers on the upper edge. [Illustration: SERVING COFFEE TO A GUEST.--AFTER A DRAWING IN AN EARLY EDITION OF "ARABIAN NIGHTS"] In his _Relation of a Journey to Constantinople in 1657_, Nicholas Rolamb, the Swedish traveler and envoy to the Ottoman Porte, gives us this early glimpse of coffee in the home life of the Turks:[40] This [coffee] is a kind of pea that grows in _Egypt_, which the _Turks_ pound and boil in water, and take it for pleasure instead of brandy, sipping it through the lips boiling hot, persuading themselves that it consumes catarrhs, and prevents the rising of vapours out of the stomach into the head. The drinking of this coffee and smoking tobacco (for tho' the use of tobacco is forbidden on pain of death, yet it is used in _Constantinople_ more than any where by men as well as women, tho' secretly) makes up all the pastime among the _Turks_, and is the only thing they treat one another with; for which reason all people of distinction have a particular room next their own, built on purpose for it, where there stands a jar of coffee continually boiling. It is curious to note that among several misconceptions that were held by some of the peoples of the Levant was one that coffee was a promoter of impotence, although a Persian version of the Angel Gabriel legend says that Gabriel invented it to restore the Prophet's failing metabolism. Often in Turkish and Arabian literature, however, we meet with the suggestion that coffee drinking makes for sterility and barrenness, a notion that modern medicine has exploded; for now we know that coffee stimulates the racial instinct, for which tobacco is a sedative. [Illustration: THE FIRST PRINTED REFERENCE TO COFFEE, AS IT APPEARS IN RAUWOLF'S WORK, 1582] CHAPTER IV INTRODUCTION OF COFFEE INTO WESTERN EUROPE _When the three great temperance beverages, cocoa, tea, and coffee, came to Europe--Coffee first mentioned by Rauwolf in 1582--Early days of coffee in Italy--How Pope Clement VIII baptized it and made it a truly Christian beverage--The first European coffee house, in Venice, 1645--The famous Caffè Florian--Other celebrated Venetian coffee houses of the eighteenth century--The romantic story of Pedrocchi, the poor lemonade-vender, who built the most beautiful coffee house in the world_ Of the world's three great temperance beverages, cocoa, tea, and coffee, cocoa was the first to be introduced into Europe, in 1528, by the Spanish. It was nearly a century later, in 1610, that the Dutch brought tea to Europe. Venetian traders introduced coffee into Europe in 1615. Europe's first knowledge of coffee was brought by travelers returning from the Far East and the Levant. Leonhard Rauwolf started on his famous journey into the Eastern countries from Marseilles in September, 1573, having left his home in Augsburg, the 18th of the preceding May. He reached Aleppo in November, 1573; and returned to Augsburg, February 12, 1576. He was the first European to mention coffee; and to him also belongs the honor of being the first to refer to the beverage in print. Rauwolf was not only a doctor of medicine and a botanist of great renown, but also official physician to the town of Augsburg. When he spoke, it was as one having authority. The first printed reference to coffee appears as _chaube_ in chapter viii of _Rauwolf's Travels_, which deals with the manners and customs of the city of Aleppo. The exact passage is reproduced herewith as it appears in the original German edition of Rauwolf published at Frankfort and Lauingen in 1582-83. The translation is as follows: If you have a mind to eat something or to drink other liquors, there is commonly an open shop near it, where you sit down upon the ground or carpets and drink together. Among the rest they have a very good drink, by them called _Chaube_ [coffee] that is almost as black as ink, and very good in illness, chiefly that of the stomach; of this they drink in the morning early in open places before everybody, without any fear or regard, out of _China_ cups, as hot as they can; they put it often to their lips but drink but little at a time, and let it go round as they sit. In this same water they take a fruit called _Bunnu_ which in its bigness, shape and color is almost like unto a bayberry, with two thin shells surrounded, which, as they informed me, are brought from the _Indies_; but as these in themselves are, and have within them, two yellowish grains in two distinct cells, and besides, being they agree in their virtue, figure, looks, and name with the _Bunchum_ of _Avicenna_, and _Bunca_, of _Rasis ad Almans_ exactly; therefore I take them to be the same, until I am better informed by the learned. This liquor is very common among them, wherefore there are a great many of them that sell it, and others that sell the berries, everywhere in their _Batzars_. _The Early Days of Coffee in Italy_ It is not easy to determine just when the use of coffee spread from Constantinople to the western parts of Europe; but it is more than likely that the Venetians, because of their close proximity to, and their great trade with, the Levant, were the first acquainted with it. Prospero Alpini (Alpinus; 1553-1617), a learned physician and botanist of Padua, journeyed to Egypt in 1580, and brought back news of coffee. He was the first to print a description of the coffee plant and drink in his treatise _The Plants of Egypt_, written in Latin, and published in Venice, 1592. He says: I have seen this tree at Cairo, it being the same tree that produces the fruit, so common in Egypt, to which they give the name _bon_ or _ban_. The Arabians and the Egyptians make a sort of decoction of it, which they drink instead of wine; and it is sold in all their public houses, as wine is with us. They call this drink _caova_. The fruit of which they make it comes from "Arabia the Happy," and the tree that I saw looks like a spindle tree, but the leaves are thicker, tougher, and greener. The tree is never without leaves. Alpini makes note of the medicinal qualities attributed to the drink by dwellers in the Orient, and many of these were soon incorporated into Europe's materia medica. Johann Vesling (Veslingius; 1598-1649), a German botanist and traveler, settled in Venice, where he became known as a learned Italian physician. He edited (1640) a new edition of Alpini's work; but earlier (1638) published some comments on Alpini's findings, in the course of which he distinguished certain qualities found in a drink made from the husks (skins) of the coffee berries from those found in the liquor made from the beans themselves, which he calls the stones of the coffee fruit. He says: Not only in Egypt is coffee in much request, but in almost all the other provinces of the Turkish Empire. Whence it comes to pass that it is dear even in the Levant and scarce among the Europeans, who by that means are deprived of a very wholesome liquor. From this we may conclude that coffee was not wholly unknown in Europe at that time. Vesling adds that when he visited Cairo, he found there two or three thousand coffee houses, and that "some did begin to put sugar in their coffee to correct the bitterness of it, and others made sugar-plums of the berries." _Coffee Baptized by the Pope_ Shortly after coffee reached Rome, according to a much quoted legend, it was again threatened with religious fanaticism, which almost caused its excommunication from Christendom. It is related that certain priests appealed to Pope Clement VIII (1535-1605) to have its use forbidden among Christians, denouncing it as an invention of Satan. They claimed that the Evil One, having forbidden his followers, the infidel Moslems, the use of wine--no doubt because it was sanctified by Christ and used in the Holy Communion--had given them as a substitute this hellish black brew of his which they called coffee. For Christians to drink it was to risk falling into a trap set by Satan for their souls. [Illustration: AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ITALIAN COFFEE HOUSE After Goldoni, by Zatta] It is further related that the pope, made curious, desired to inspect this Devil's drink, and had some brought to him. The aroma of it was so pleasant and inviting that the pope was tempted to try a cupful. After drinking it, he exclaimed, "Why, this Satan's drink is so delicious that it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it. We shall fool Satan by baptizing it, and making it a truly Christian beverage." Thus, whatever harmfulness its opponents try to attribute to coffee, the fact remains (if we are to credit the story) that it has been baptized and proclaimed unharmful, and a "truly Christian beverage," by his holiness the pope. The Venetians had further knowledge of coffee in 1585, when Gianfrancesco Morosini, city magistrate at Constantinople, reported to the Senate that the Turks "drink a black water as hot as they can suffer it, which is the infusion of a bean called _cavee_, which is said to possess the virtue of stimulating mankind." Dr. A. Couguet, in an Italian review, asserts that Europe's first cup of coffee was sipped in Venice, toward the close of the sixteenth century. He is of the opinion that the first berries were imported by Mocengio, who was called the _pevere_, because he made a huge fortune trading in spices and other specialties of the Orient. In 1615 Pierre (Pietro) Delia Valle (1586-1652), the well known Italian traveler and author of _Travels in India and Persia_, wrote a letter from Constantinople to his friend Mario Schipano at Venice: The Turks have a drink of black color, which during the summer is very cooling, whereas in the winter it heats and warms the body, remaining always the same beverage and not changing its substance. They swallow it hot as it comes from the fire and they drink it in long draughts, not at dinner time, but as a kind of dainty and sipped slowly while talking with one's friends. One cannot find any meetings among them where they drink it not.... With this drink, which they call _cahue_, they divert themselves in their conversations.... It is made with the grain or fruit of a certain tree called _cahue_.... When I return I will bring some with me and I will impart the knowledge to the Italians. [Illustration: NOBILITY IN AN EARLY VENETIAN CAFFÈ From the Grevembroch collection in the Museo Civico] Della Valle's countrymen, however, were in a fair way to become well acquainted with the beverage, for already (1615) it had been introduced into Venice. At first it was used largely for medicinal purposes; and high prices were charged for it. Vesling says of its use in Europe as a medicine, "the first step it made from the cabinets of the curious, as an exotic seed, being into the apothecaries' shops as a drug." The first coffee house in Italy is said to have been opened in 1645, but convincing confirmation is lacking. In the beginning, the beverage was sold with other drinks by lemonade-venders. The Italian word _aquacedratajo_ means one who sells lemonade and similar refreshments; also one who sells coffee, chocolate, liquor, etc. Jardin says the beverage was in general use throughout Italy in 1645. It is certain, however, that a coffee shop was opened in Venice in 1683 under the _Procuratie Nuove_. The famous Caffè Florian was opened in Venice by Floriono Francesconi in 1720. The first authoritative treatise devoted to coffee only appeared in 1671. It was written in Latin by Antoine Faustus Nairon (1635-1707), Maronite professor of the Chaldean and Syrian languages in the College of Rome. During the latter part of the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth, the coffee house made great progress in Italy. It is interesting to note that this first European adaptation of the Oriental coffee house was known as a _caffè_. The double _f_ is retained by the Italians to this day, and by some writers is thought to have been taken from _coffea_, without the double _f_ being lost, as in the case of the French and some other Continental forms. To Italy, then, belongs the honor of having given to the Western world the real coffee house, although the French and Austrians greatly improved upon it. It was not long after its beginning that nearly every shop on the Piazza di San Marco in Venice was a _caffè_[41]. Near the Piazza was the Caffè della Ponte dell' Angelo, where in 1792 died the dog Tabacchio, celebrated by Vincenzo Formaleoni in a satirical eulogy that is a parody of the oration of Ubaldo Bregolini upon the death of Angelo Emo. In the Caffè della Spaderia, kept by Marco Ancilloto, some radicals proposed to open a reading-room to encourage the spread of liberal ideas. The inquisitors sent a foot-soldier to notify the proprietor that he should inform the first person entering the room that he was to present himself before their tribunal. The idea was thereupon abandoned. [Illustration: GOLDONI IN A VENETIAN CAFFÈ From a painting by P. Longhi] Among other celebrated coffee houses was the one called Menegazzo, from the name of the rotund proprietor, Menico. This place was much frequented by men of letters; and heated discussions were common there between Angelo Maria Barbaro, Lorenzo da Ponte, and others of their time. The coffee house gradually became the common resort of all classes. In the mornings came the merchants, lawyers, physicians, brokers, workers, and wandering venders; in the afternoons, and until the late hours of the nights, the leisure classes, including the ladies. For the most part, the rooms of the first Italian _caffè_ were low, simple, unadorned, without windows, and only poorly illuminated by tremulous and uncertain lights. Within them, however, joyous throngs passed to and fro, clad in varicolored garments, men and women chatting in groups here and there, and always above the buzz there were to be heard such choice bits of scandal as made worthwhile a visit to the coffee house. Smaller rooms were devoted to gaming. In the "little square" described by Goldoni[42] in his comedy _The Coffee House_, where the combined barber-shop and gambling house was located, Don Marzio, that marvelous type of slanderous old romancer, is shown as one typical of the period, for Goldoni was a satirist. The other characters of the play were also drawn from the types then to be seen every day in the coffee houses on the Piazza. In the square of St. Mark's, in the eighteenth century, under the _Procuratie Vecchie_, were the _caffè_ Re di Francia, Abbondanza, Pitt, l'eroe, Regina d'Ungheria, Orfeo, Redentore, Coraggio-Speranza, Arco Celeste, and Quadri. The last-named was opened in 1775 by Giorgio Quadri of Corfu, who served genuine Turkish coffee for the first time in Venice. Under the _Procuratie Nuove_ were to be found the _caffè_ Angelo Custode, Duca di Toscana, Buon genio-Doge, Imperatore Imperatrice della Russia, Tamerlano, Fontane di Diana, Dame Venete, Aurora Piante d'oro, Arabo-Piastrelle, Pace, Venezia trionfante, and Florian. Probably no coffee house in Europe has acquired so world-wide a celebrity as that kept by Florian, the friend of Canova the sculptor, and the trusted agent and acquaintance of hundreds of persons in and out of the city, who found him a mine of social information and a convenient city directory. Persons leaving Venice left their cards and itineraries with him; and new-comers inquired at Florian's for tidings of those whom they wished to see. "He long concentrated in himself a knowledge more varied and multifarious than that possessed by any individual before or since," says Hazlitt[43], who has given us this delightful pen picture of _caffè_ life in Venice in the eighteenth century: Venetian coffee was said to surpass all others, and the article placed before his visitors by Florian was the best in Venice. Of some of the establishments as they then existed, Molmenti has supplied us with illustrations, in one of which Goldoni the dramatist is represented as a visitor, and a female mendicant is soliciting alms. So cordial was the esteem of the great sculptor Canova for him, that when Florian was overtaken by gout, he made a model of his leg, that the poor fellow might be spared the anguish of fitting himself with boots. The friendship had begun when Canova was entering on his career, and he never forgot the substantial services which had been rendered to him in the hour of need. In later days, the Caffè Florian was under the superintendence of a female chef, and the waitresses used, in the case of certain visitors, to fasten a flower in the button-hole, perhaps allusively to the name. In the Piazza itself girls would do the same thing. A good deal of hospitality is, and has ever been, dispensed at Venice in the cafés and restaurants, which do service for the domestic hearth. There were many other establishments devoted, more especially in the latest period of Venetian independence, to the requirements of those who desired such resorts for purposes of conversation and gossip. These houses were frequented by various classes of patrons--the patrician, the politician, the soldier, the artist, the old and the young--all had their special haunts where the company and the tariff were in accordance with the guests. The upper circles of male society--all above the actually poor--gravitated hither to a man. For the Venetian of all ranks the coffee house was almost the last place visited on departure from the city, and the first visited on his return. His domicile was the residence of his wife and the repository of his possessions; but only on exceptional occasions was it the scene of domestic hospitality, and rare were the instances when the husband and wife might be seen abroad together, and when the former would invite the lady to enter a café or a confectioner's shop to partake of an ice. [Illustration: FLORIAN'S FAMOUS CAFFÈ IN THE PIAZZA DI SAN MARCO, VENICE, NINETEENTH CENTURY] The Caffè Florian has undergone many changes, but it still survives as one of the favorite _caffè_ in the Piazza San Marco. By 1775 coffee-house history had begun to repeat itself in Venice. Charges of immorality, vice, and corruption, were preferred against the _caffè_; and the Council of Ten in 1775, and again in 1776, directed the Inquisitors of State to eradicate these "social cankers." However, they survived all attempts of the reformers to suppress them. The Caffè Pedrocchi in Padua was another of the early Italian coffee houses that became famous. Antonio Pedrocchi (1776-1852) was a lemonade-vender who, in the hope of attracting the gay youth, the students of his time, bought an old house with the idea of converting the ground floor into a series of attractive rooms. He put all his ready money and all he could borrow into the venture, only to find there were no cellars, indispensable for making ices and beverages on the premises, and that the walls and floors were so old that they crumbled when repairs were started. He was in despair; but, nothing daunted, he decided to have a cellar dug. What was his surprise to find the house was built over the vault of an old church, and that the vault contained considerable treasure. The lucky proprietor found himself free to continue his trade of lemonade-vender and coffee-seller, or to live a life of ease. Being a wise man, he adhered to his original plan; and soon his luxurious rooms became the favorite rendezvous for the smart set of his day. In this period lemonade and coffee frequently went together. The Caffè Pedrocchi is considered one of the finest pieces of architecture erected in Italy in the nineteenth century. It was begun in 1816, opened in 1831, and completed in 1842. Coffee houses were early established in other Italian cities, particularly in Rome, Florence, and Genoa. In 1764, _Il Caffè_, a purely philosophical and literary periodical, made its appearance in Milan, being founded by Count Pietro Verri (1728-97). Its chief editor was Cesare Beccaria. Its object was to counteract the influence and superficiality of the Arcadians. It acquired its title from the fact that Count Verri and his friends were wont to meet at a coffee house in Milan kept by a Greek named Demetrio. It lived only two years. Other periodicals of the same name appeared at later periods. [Illustration] CHAPTER V THE BEGINNINGS OF COFFEE IN FRANCE _What French travelers did for coffee--The introduction of coffee by P. de la Roque into Marseilles in 1644--The first commercial importation of coffee from Egypt--The first French coffee house--Failure of the attempt by physicians of Marseilles to discredit coffee--Soliman Aga introduces coffee into Paris--Cabarets à caffè--Celebrated works on coffee by French writers_ We are indebted to three great French travelers for much valuable knowledge about coffee; and these gallant gentlemen first fired the imagination of the French people in regard to the beverage that was destined to play so important a part in the French revolution. They are Tavernier (1605-89), Thévenot (1633-67), and Bernier (1625-88). Then there is Jean La Roque (1661-1745), who made a famous "Voyage to Arabia the Happy" (_Voyage de l'Arabie Heureuse_) in 1708-13 and to whose father, P. de la Roque, is due the honor of having brought the first coffee into France in 1644. Also, there is Antoine Galland (1646-1715), the French Orientalist, first translator of the _Arabian Nights_ and antiquary to the king, who, in 1699, published an analysis and translation from the Arabic of the Abd-al-Kâdir manuscript (1587), giving the first authentic account of the origin of coffee. Probably the earliest reference to coffee in France is to be found in the simple statement that Onorio Belli (Bellus), the Italian botanist and author, in 1596 sent to Charles de l'Écluse (1526-1609), a French physician, botanist and traveler, "seeds used by the Egyptians to make a liquid they call _cave_.[44]" P. de la Roque accompanied M. de la Haye, the French ambassador, to Constantinople; and afterward traveled into the Levant. Upon his return to Marseilles in 1644, he brought with him not only some coffee, but "all the little implements used about it in Turkey, which were then looked upon as great curiosities in France." There were included in the coffee service some findjans, or china dishes, and small pieces of muslin embroidered with gold, silver, and silk, which the Turks used as napkins. Jean La Roque gives credit to Jean de Thévenot for introducing coffee privately into Paris in 1657, and for teaching the French how to use coffee. De Thévenot writes in this entertaining fashion concerning the use of the drink in Turkey in the middle of the seventeenth century: They have another drink in ordinary use. They call it _cahve_ and take it all hours of the day. This drink is made from a berry roasted in a pan or other utensil over the fire. They pound it into a very fine powder. When they wish to drink it, they take a boiler made expressly for the purpose, which they call an _ibrik_; and having filled it with water, they let it boil. When it boils, they add to about three cups of water a heaping spoonful of the powder; and when it boils, they remove it quickly from the fire, or sometimes they stir it, otherwise it would boil over, as it rises very quickly. When it has boiled up thus ten or twelve times, they pour it into porcelain cups, which they place upon a platter of painted wood and bring it to you thus boiling. One must drink it hot, but in several instalments, otherwise it is not good. One takes it in little swallows[45] for fear of burning one's self--in such fashion that in a _cavekane_ (so they call the places where it is sold ready prepared), one hears a pleasant little musical sucking sound.... There are some who mix with it a small quantity of cloves and cardamom seeds; others add sugar. [Illustration: TITLE PAGE OF LA ROQUE'S WORK, 1716] It was really out of curiosity that the people of France took to coffee, says Jardin; "they wanted to know this Oriental beverage, so much vaunted, although its blackness at first sight was far from attractive." About the year 1660 several merchants of Marseilles, who had lived for a time in the Levant and felt they were not able to do without coffee, brought some coffee beans home with them; and later, a group of apothecaries and other merchants brought in the first commercial importation of coffee in bales from Egypt. The Lyons merchants soon followed suit, and the use of coffee became general in those parts. In 1671 certain private persons opened a coffee house in Marseilles, near the Exchange, which at once became popular with merchants and travelers. Others started up, and all were crowded. The people did not, however, drink any the less at home. "In fine," says La Roque, "the use of the beverage increased so amazingly that, as was inevitable, the physicians became alarmed, thinking it would not agree with the inhabitants of a country hot and extremely dry." [Illustration: THE COFFEE TREE AS PICTURED BY LA ROQUE IN HIS "VOYAGE DE L'ARABIE HEUREUSE"] The age-old controversy was on. Some sided with the physicians, others opposed them, as at Mecca, Cairo, and Constantinople; only here the argument turned mainly on the medicinal question, the Church this time having no part in the dispute. "The lovers of coffee used the physicians very ill when they met together, and the physicians on their side threatened the coffee drinkers with all sorts of diseases." [Illustration: A CLOSE-UP OF RIPE COFFEE BERRIES] Matters came to a head in 1679, when an ingenious attempt by the physicians of Marseilles to discredit coffee took the form of having a young student, about to be admitted to the College of Physicians, dispute before the magistrate in the town hall, a question proposed by two physicians of the Faculty of Aix, as to whether coffee was or was not prejudicial to the inhabitants of Marseilles. The thesis recited that coffee had won the approval of all nations, had almost wholly put down the use of wine, although it was not to be compared even with the lees of that excellent beverage; that it was a vile and worthless foreign novelty; that its claim to be a remedy against distempers was ridiculous, because it was not a bean but the fruit of a tree discovered by goats and camels; that it was hot and not cold, as alleged; that it burned up the blood, and so induced palsies, impotence, and leanness; "from all of which we must necessarily conclude that coffee is hurtful to the greater part of the inhabitants of Marseilles." Thus did the good doctors of the Faculty of Aix set forth their prejudices, and this was their final decision upon coffee. Many thought they overreached themselves in their misguided zeal. They were handled somewhat roughly in the disputation, which disclosed many false reasonings, to say nothing of blunders as to matters of fact. The world had already advanced too far to have another decision against coffee count for much, and this latest effort to stop its onward march was of even less force than the diatribes of the Mohammedan priests. The coffee houses continued to be as much frequented as before, and the people drank no less coffee in their homes. Indeed, the indictment proved a boomerang, for consumption received such an impetus that the merchants of Lyons and Marseilles, for the first time in history, began to import green coffee from the Levant by the ship-load in order to meet the increased demand. Meanwhile, in 1669, Soliman Aga, the Turkish ambassador from Mohammed IV to the court of Louis XIV, had arrived in Paris. He brought with him a considerable quantity of coffee, and introduced the coffee drink, made in Turkish style, to the French capital. [Illustration: A COFFEE BRANCH WITH FLOWERS AND FRUIT AS ILLUSTRATED IN LA ROQUE'S "VOYAGE DE L'ARABIE HEUREUSE"] The ambassador remained in Paris only from July, 1669, to May, 1670, but long enough firmly to establish the custom he had introduced. Two years later, Pascal, an Armenian, opened his coffee-drinking booth at the fair of St.-Germain, and this event marked the beginning of the Parisian coffee houses. The story is told in detail in chapter XI. The custom of drinking coffee having become general in the capital, as well as in Marseilles and Lyons, the example was followed in all the provinces. Every city soon had its coffee houses, and the beverage was largely consumed in private homes. La Roque writes: "None, from the meanest citizen to the persons of the highest quality, failed to use it every morning or at least soon after dinner, it being the custom likewise to offer it in all visits." "The persons of highest quality" encouraged the fashion of having _cabaréts à caffé_; and soon it was said that there could be seen in France all that the East could furnish of magnificence in coffee houses, "the china jars and other Indian furniture being richer and more valuable than the gold and silver with which they were lavishly adorned." In 1671 there appeared in Lyons a book entitled _The Most Excellent Virtues of the Mulberry, Called Coffee_, showing the need for an authoritative work on the subject--a need that was ably filled that same year and in Lyons by the publication of Philippe Sylvestre Dufour's admirable treatise, _Concerning the Use of Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate_. Again at Lyons, Dufour published (1684) his more complete work on _The Manner of Making Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate_. This was followed (1715) by the publication in Paris of Jean La Roque's _Voyage de l'Arabie Heureuse_, containing the story of the author's journey to the court of the king of Yemen in 1711, a description of the coffee tree and its fruit, and a critical and historical treatise on its first use and introduction to France. La Roque's description of his visit to the king's gardens is interesting because it shows the Arabs still held to the belief that coffee grew only in Arabia. Here it is: There was nothing remarkable in the King's Gardens, except the great pains taken to furnish it with all the kinds of trees that are common in the country; amongst which there were the coffee trees, the finest that could be had. When the deputies represented to the King how much that was contrary to the custom of the Princes of Europe (who endeavor to stock their gardens chiefly with the rarest and most uncommon plants that can be found) the King returned them this answer: That he valued himself as much upon his good taste and generosity as any Prince in Europe; the coffee tree, he told them, was indeed common in his country, but it was not the less dear to him upon that account; the perpetual verdure of it pleased him extremely; and also the thoughts of its producing a fruit which was nowhere else to be met with; and when he made a present of that that came from his own Gardens, it was a great satisfaction to him to be able to say that he had planted the trees that produced it with his own hands. The first merchant licensed to sell coffee in France was one Damame François, a bourgeois of Paris, who secured the privilege through an edict of 1692. He was given the sole right for ten years to sell coffees and teas in all the provinces and towns of the kingdom, and in all territories under the sovereignty of the king, and received also authority to maintain a warehouse. To Santo Domingo (1738) and other French colonies the café was soon transported from the homeland, and thrived under special license from the king. In 1858 there appeared in France a leaflet-periodical, entitled _The Café, Literary, Artistic, and Commercial_. Ch. Woinez, the editor, said in announcing it: "The Salon stood for privilege, the Café stands for equality." Its publication was of short duration. [Illustration] CHAPTER VI THE INTRODUCTION OF COFFEE INTO ENGLAND _The first printed reference to coffee in English--Early mention of coffee by noted English travelers and writers--The Lacedæmonian "black broth" controversy--How Conopios introduced coffee drinking at Oxford--The first English coffee house in Oxford--Two English botanists on coffee_ English travelers and writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were quite as enterprising as their Continental contemporaries in telling about the coffee bean and the coffee drink. The first printed reference to coffee in English, however, appears as _chaoua_ in a note by a Dutchman, Paludanus, in _Linschoten's Travels_, the title of an English translation from the Latin of a work first published in Holland in 1595 or 1596, the English edition appearing in London in 1598. A reproduction made from a photograph of the original work, with the quaint black-letter German text and the Paludanus notation in roman, is shown herewith. Hans Hugo (or John Huygen) Van Linschooten (1563-1611) was one of the most intrepid of Dutch travelers. In his description of Japanese manners and customs we find one of the earliest tea references. He says: Their manner of eating and drinking is: everie man hath a table alone, without table-clothes or napkins, and eateth with two pieces of wood like the men of Chino: they drinke wine of Rice, wherewith they drink themselves drunke, and after their meat they use a certain drinke, which is a pot with hote water, which they drinke as hote as ever they may indure, whether it be Winter or Summer. Just here Bernard Ten Broeke Paludanus (1550-1633), Dutch savant and author, professor of philosophy at the University of Leyden, himself a traveler over the four quarters of the globe, inserts his note containing the coffee reference. He says: The Turks holde almost the same manner of drinking of their _Chaona_[46], which they make of certaine fruit, which is like unto the Bakelaer[47], and by the Egyptians called _Bon_ or _Ban_[48]: they take of this fruite one pound and a half, and roast them a little in the fire and then sieth them in twenty pounds of water, till the half be consumed away: this drinke they take every morning fasting in their chambers, out of an earthen pot, being verie hote, as we doe here drinke _aquacomposita_[49] in the morning: and they say that it strengtheneth and maketh them warme, breaketh wind, and openeth any stopping. Van Linschooten then completes his tea reference by saying: The manner of dressing their meat is altogether contrarie unto other nations: the aforesaid warme water is made with the powder of a certaine hearbe called _Chaa_, which is much esteemed, and is well accounted among them. The _chaa_ is, of course, tea, dialect _t'eh_. In 1599, "Sir" Antony (or Anthony) Sherley (1565-1630), a picturesque gentleman-adventurer, the first Englishman to mention coffee drinking in the Orient, sailed from Venice on a kind of self-appointed, informal Persian mission, to invite the shah to ally himself with the Christian princes against the Turks, and incidentally, to promote English trade interests in the East. The English government knew nothing of the arrangement, disavowed him, and forbade his return to England. However, the expedition got to Persia; and the account of the voyage thither was written by William Parry, one of the Sherley party, and was published in London in 1601. It is interesting because it contains the first printed reference to coffee in English employing the more modern form of the word. The original reference was photographed for this work in the Worth Library of the British Museum, and is reproduced herewith on page 39. The passage is part of an account of the manners and customs of the Turks (who, Parry says, are "damned infidells") in Aleppo. It reads: They sit at their meat (which is served to them upon the ground) as Tailers sit upon their stalls, crosse-legd; for the most part, passing the day in banqueting and carowsing, untill they surfet, drinking a certaine liquor, which they do call _Coffe_, which is made of seede much like mustard seede, which will soone intoxicate the braine like our Metheglin.[50] Another early English reference to coffee, wherein the word is spelled "coffa", is in Captain John Smith's book of _Travels and Adventure_, published in 1603. He says of the Turks: "Their best drink is _coffa_ of a graine they call _coava_." This is the same Captain John Smith who in 1607 became the founder of the Colony of Virginia and brought with him to America probably the earliest knowledge of the beverage given to the new Western world. Samuel Purchas (1527-1626), an early English collector of travels, in _Purchas His Pilgrimes_, under the head of "Observations of William Finch, merchant, at Socotra" (Sokotra--an island in the Indian Ocean) in 1607, says of the Arab inhabitants: Their best entertainment is a china dish of _Coho_, a blacke bitterish drinke, made of a berry like a bayberry, brought from Mecca, supped off hot, good for the head and stomache.[51] Still other early and favorite English references to coffee are those to be found in the _Travels_ of William Biddulph. This work was published in 1609. It is entitled _The Travels of Certayne Englishmen in Africa, Asia, etc.... Begunne in 1600 and by some of them finished--this yeere 1608_. These references are also reproduced herewith from the black-letter originals in the British Museum (see page 40). Biddulph's description of the drink, and of the coffee-house customs of the Turks, was the first detailed account to be written by an Englishman. It also appears in _Purchas His Pilgrimes_ (1625). But, to quote: Their most common drinke is _Coffa_, which is a blacke kinde of drinke, made of a kind of Pulse like Pease, called _Coaua_; which being grownd in the Mill, and boiled in water, they drinke it as hot as they can suffer it; which they finde to agree very well with them against their crudities, and feeding on hearbs and rawe meates. Other compounded drinkes they have, called _Sherbet_, made of Water and Sugar, or Hony, with Snow therein to make it coole; for although the Countrey bee hot, yet they keepe Snow all the yeere long to coole their drinke. It is accounted a great curtesie amongst them to give unto their frends when they come to visit them, a Fin-ion or Scudella of _Coffa_, which is more holesome than toothsome, for it causeth good concoction, and driveth away drowsinesse. Some of them will also drinke Bersh or Opium, which maketh them forget themselves, and talk idely of Castles in the Ayre, as though they saw Visions, and heard Revelations. Their _Coffa_ houses are more common than Ale-houses in England; but they use not so much to sit in the houses, as on benches on both sides the streets, neere unto a Coffa house, every man with his Fin-ionful; which being smoking hot, they use to put it to their Noses & Eares, and then sup it off by leasure, being full of idle and Ale-house talke whiles they are amongst themselves drinking it; if there be any news, it is talked of there. Among other early English references to coffee we find an interesting one by Sir George Sandys (1577-1644), the poet, who gave a start to classical scholarship in America by translating Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ during his pioneer days in Virginia. In 1610 he spent a year in Turkey, Egypt, and Palestine, and records of the Turks:[52] Although they be destitute of Taverns, yet have they their Coffa-houses, which something resemble them. There sit they chatting most of the day; and sippe of a drinke called Coffa (of the berry that it is made of) in little _China_ dishes as hot as they can suffer it: blacke as soote, and tasting not much unlike it (why not that blacke broth which was in use amongst the _Lacedemonians_?) which helpeth, as they say, digestion, and procureth alacrity: many of the Coffa-men keeping beautifull boyes, who serve as stales to procure them customers. Edward Terry (1590-1660), an English traveler, writes, under date of 1616, that many of the best people in India who are strict in their religion and drink no wine at all, "use a liquor more wholesome than pleasant, they call coffee; made by a black Seed boyld in water, which turnes it almost into the same colour, but doth very little alter the taste of the water [!], notwithstanding it is very good to help Digestion, to quicken the Spirits and to cleanse the Blood." [Illustration#: FIRST PRINTED REFERENCE TO COFFEE IN ENGLISH, 1598 It appears as _Chaona_ (_chaoua_) in the second line of the roman text notation by Paludanus] In 1623, Francis Bacon (1561-1626), in his _Historia Vitae et Mortis_ says: "The Turkes use a kind of herb which they call _caphe_"; and, in 1624, in his _Sylva Sylvarum_[53] (published in 1627, after his death), he writes: They have in Turkey a drink called _coffa_ made of a berry of the same name, as black as soot, and of a strong scent, but not aromatical; which they take, beaten into powder, in water, as hot as they can drink it: and they take it, and sit at it in their coffa-houses, which are like our taverns. This drink comforteth the brain and heart, and helpeth digestion. Certainly this berry coffa, the root and leaf betel, the leaf tobacco, and the tear of poppy (opium) of which the Turks are great takers (supposing it expelleth all fear), do all condense the spirits, and make them strong and aleger. But it seemeth they were taken after several manners; for coffa and opium are taken down, tobacco but in smoke, and betel is but champed in the mouth with a little lime. Robert Burton (1577-1640), English philosopher and humorist, in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_[54] writes in 1632: The Turkes have a drinke called coffa (for they use no wine), so named of a berry as blacke as soot and as bitter (like that blacke drinke which was in use amongst the Lacedemonians and perhaps the same), which they sip still of, and sup as warme as they can suffer; they spend much time in those coffa-houses, which are somewhat like our Ale-houses or Taverns, and there they sit, chatting and drinking, to drive away the time, and to be merry together, because they find, by experience, that kinde of drinke so used, helpeth digestion and procureth alacrity. Later English scholars, however, found sufficient evidence in the works of Arabian authors to assure their readers that coffee sometimes breeds melancholy, causes headache, and "maketh lean much." One of these, Dr. Pocoke, (1659: see chapter III) stated that, "he that would drink it for livelinesse sake, and to discusse slothfulnesse ... let him use much sweet meates with it, and oyle of pistaccioes, and butter. Some drink it with milk, but it is an error, and such as may bring in danger of the leprosy." Another writer observed that any ill effects caused by coffee, unlike those of tea, etc., ceased when its use was discontinued. In this connection it is interesting to note that in 1785 Dr. Benjamin Mosely, physician to the Chelsea Hospital, member of the College of Physicians, etc., probably having in mind the popular idea that the Arabic original of the word coffee meant force, or vigor, once expressed the hope that the coffee drink might return to popular favor in England as "a cheap substitute for those enervating teas and beverages which produce the pernicious habit of dram-drinking." About 1628, Sir Thomas Herbert (1606-1681), English traveler and writer, records among his observations on the Persians that: "They drink above all the rest _Coho_ or _Copha_: by Turk and Arab called _Caphe_ and _Cahua_: a drink imitating that in the Stigian lake, black, thick, and bitter: destrain'd from _Bunchy_, _Bunnu_, or Bay berries; wholesome, they say, if hot, for it expels melancholy ... but not so much regarded for those good properties, as from a Romance that it was invented and brew'd by Gabriel ... to restore the decayed radical Moysture of kind hearted Mahomet."[55] In 1634, Sir Henry Blount (1602-82), sometimes referred to as "the father of the English coffee house," made a journey on a Venetian galley into the Levant. He was invited to drink _cauphe_ in the presence of Amurath IV; and later, in Egypt, he tells of being served the beverage again "in a porcelaine dish". This is how he describes the drink in Turkey:[56] They have another drink not good at meat, called _Cauphe_, made of a _Berry_ as big as a small _Bean_, dried in a Furnace, and beat to Pouder, of a Soot-colour, in taste a little bitterish, that they seeth and drink as hot as may be endured: It is good all hours of the day, but especially morning and evening, when to that purpose, they entertain themselves two or three hours in _Cauphe-houses_, which in all Turkey abound more than _Inns_ and _Ale-houses_ with us; it is thought to be the old black broth used so much by the _Lacedemonians_, and dryeth ill Humours in the stomach, comforteth the Brain, never causeth Drunkenness or any other Surfeit, and is a harmless entertainment of good Fellowship; for there upon Scaffolds half a yard high, and covered with Mats, they sit Cross-leg'd after the _Turkish_ manner, many times two or three hundred together, talking, and likely with some poor musick passing up and down. [Illustration: FIRST PRINTED REFERENCE TO "COFFEE" IN ENGLISH, IN ITS MODERN FORM, 1601 Photographed from the black-letter original of W. Parry's book in the Worth Library of the British Museum] This reference to the Lacedæmonian black broth, first by Sandys, then by Burton, again by Blount, and concurred in by James Howell (1595-1666), the first historiographer royal, gave rise to considerable controversy among Englishmen of letters in later years. It is, of course, a gratuitous speculation. The black broth of the Lacedæmonians was "pork, cooked in blood and seasoned with salt and vinegar.[57]" [Illustration: REFERENCES TO COFFEE AS FOUND IN BIDDULPH'S TRAVELS 1609 From the black-letter original in the British Museum] William Harvey (1578-1657), the famous English physician who discovered the circulation of the blood, and his brother are reputed to have used coffee before coffee houses came into vogue in London--this must have been previous to 1652. "I remember", says Aubrey[58], "he was wont to drinke coffee; which his brother Eliab did, before coffee houses were the fashion in London." Houghton, in 1701, speaks of "the famous inventor of the circulation of the blood, Dr. Harvey, who some say did frequently use it." Although it seems likely that coffee must have been introduced into England sometime during the first quarter of the seventeenth century, with so many writers and travelers describing it, and with so much trading going on between the merchants of the British Isles and the Orient, yet the first reliable record we have of its advent is to be found in the _Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn, F.R.S._[59], under "Notes of 1637", where he says: There came in my time to the college (Baliol, Oxford) one Nathaniel Conopios, out of Greece, from Cyrill, the Patriarch of Constantinople, who, returning many years after was made (as I understand) Bishop of Smyrna. He was the first I ever saw drink coffee; which custom came not into England till thirty years thereafter. Evelyn should have said thirteen years after; for then it was that the first coffee house was opened (1650). Conopios was a native of Crete, trained in the Greek church. He became _primore_ to Cyrill, Patriarch of Constantinople. When Cyrill was strangled by the vizier, Conopios fled to England to avoid a like barbarity. He came with credentials to Archbishop Laud, who allowed him maintenance in Balliol College. It was observed that while he continued in Balliol College he made the drink for his own use called Coffey, and usually drank it every morning, being the first, as the antients of that House have informed me, that was ever drank in Oxon.[60] [Illustration: MOL'S COFFEE HOUSE, EXETER, ENGLAND, NOW WORTH'S ART ROOMS] In 1640 John Parkinson (1567-1650), English botanist and herbalist, published his _Theatrum Botanicum_[61], containing the first botanical description of the coffee plant in English, referred to as "_Arbor Bon cum sua Buna._ The Turkes Berry Drinke". His work being somewhat rare, it may be of historical interest to quote the quaint description here: Alpinus, in his Booke of Egiptian plants, giveth us a description of this tree, which as hee saith, hee saw in the garden of a certain Captaine of the _Ianissaries_, which was brought out of _Arabia felix_ and there planted as a rarity, never seene growing in those places before. The tree, saith _Alpinus_, is somewhat like unto the _Evonymus_ Pricketimber tree, whose leaves were thicker, harder, and greener, and always abiding greene on the tree; the fruite is called _Buna_ and is somewhat bigger then an Hazell Nut and longer, round also, and pointed at the end, furrowed also on both sides, yet on one side more conspicuous than the other, that it might be parted in two, in each side whereof lyeth a small long white kernell, flat on that side they joyne together, covered with a yellowish skinne, of an acid taste, and somewhat bitter withall and contained in a thinne shell, of a darkish ash-color; with these berries generally in _Arabia_ and _Egipt_, and in other places of the _Turkes_ Dominions, they make a decoction or drinke, which is in the stead of Wine to them, and generally sold in all their tappe houses, called by the name of _Caova_; _Paludanus_ saith _Chaova_, and _Rauwolfius_ _Chaube_. This drinke hath many good physical properties therein; for it strengthened a week stomacke, helpeth digestion, and the tumors and obstructions of the liver and spleene, being drunke fasting for some time together. In 1650, a certain Jew from Lebanon, in some accounts Jacob or Jacobs by name, in others Jobson[62], opened "at the Angel in the parish of St. Peter in the East", Oxford, the earliest English coffee house and "there it [coffee] was by some who delighted in noveltie, drank". Chocolate was also sold at this first coffee house. Authorities differ, but the confusion as to the name of the coffee-house keeper may have arisen from the fact that there were two--Jacobs, who began in 1650; and another, Cirques Jobson, a Jewish Jacobite, who followed him in 1654. The drink at once attained great favor among the students. Soon it was in such demand that about 1655 a society of young students encouraged one Arthur Tillyard, "apothecary and Royalist," to sell "coffey publickly in his house against All Soules College." It appears that a club composed of admirers of the young Charles met at Tillyard's and continued until after the Restoration. This Oxford Coffee Club was the start of the Royal Society. Jacobs removed to Old Southhampton Buildings, London, where he was in 1671. Meanwhile, the first coffee house in London had been opened by Pasqua Rosée in 1652; and, as the remainder of the story of coffee's rise and fall in England centers around the coffee houses of old London, we shall reserve it for a separate chapter. [Illustration: EARLY ENGLISH REFERENCE TO COFFEE BY SIR GEORGE SANDYS From the seventh edition of _Sandys' Travels_, London, 1673] Of course, the coffee-house idea, and the use of coffee in the home, quickly spread to other cities in Great Britain; but all the coffee houses were patterned after the London model. Mol's coffee house at Exeter, Devonshire, which is pictured on page 41, was one of the first coffee houses established in England, and may be regarded as typical of those that sprang up in the provinces. It had previously been a noted club house; and the old hall, beautifully paneled with oak, still displays the arms of noted members. Here Sir Walter Raleigh and congenial friends regaled themselves with smoking tobacco. This was one of the first places where tobacco was smoked in England. It is now an art gallery. When the Bishop of Berytus (Beirut) was on his way to Cochin China in 1666, he reported that the Turks used coffee to correct the indisposition caused in the stomach by the bad water. "This drink," he says, "imitates the effect of wine ... has not an agreeable taste but rather bitter, yet it is much used by these people for the good effects they find therein." In 1686, John Ray (1628-1704), one of the most celebrated of English naturalists, published his _Universal History of Plants_, notable among other things for being the first work of its kind to extol the virtues of coffee in a scientific treatise. R. Bradley, professor of botany at Cambridge, published (1714) _A Short Historical Account of Coffee_, all trace of which appears to be lost. Dr. James Douglas published in London (1727) his _Arbor Yemensis fructum Cofe ferens; or, a description and History of the Coffee Tree_, in which he laid under heavy contribution the Arabian and French writers that had preceded him. [Illustration] CHAPTER VII THE INTRODUCTION OF COFFEE INTO HOLLAND _How the enterprising Dutch traders captured the first world's market for coffee--Activities of the Netherlands East India Company--The first coffee house at the Hague--The first public auction at Amsterdam in 1711, when Java coffee brought forty-seven cents a pound, green_ The Dutch had early knowledge of coffee because of their dealings with the Orient and with the Venetians, and of their nearness to Germany, where Rauwolf first wrote about it in 1582. They were familiar with Alpini's writings on the subject in 1592. Paludanus, in his coffee note on _Linschoten's Travels_, furnished further enlightenment in 1598. The Dutch were always great merchants and shrewd traders. Being of a practical turn of mind, they conceived an ambition to grow coffee in their colonial possessions, so as to make their home markets headquarters for a world's trade in the product. In considering modern coffee-trading, the Netherlands East India Company may be said to be the pioneer, as it established in Java one of the first experimental gardens for coffee cultivation. The Netherlands East India Company was formed in 1602. As early as 1614, Dutch traders visited Aden to examine into the possibilities of coffee and coffee-trading. In 1616 Pieter Van dan Broeck brought the first coffee from Mocha to Holland. In 1640 a Dutch merchant, named Wurffbain, offered for sale in Amsterdam the first commercial shipment of coffee from Mocha. As indicating the enterprise of the Dutch, note that this was four years before the beverage was introduced into France, and only three years after Conopios had privately instituted the breakfast coffee cup at Oxford. About 1650, Varnar, the Dutch minister resident at the Ottoman Porte, published a treatise on coffee. When the Dutch at last drove the Portuguese out of Ceylon in 1658, they began the cultivation of coffee there, although the plant had been introduced into the island by the Arabs prior to the Portuguese invasion in 1505. However, it was not until 1690 that the more systematic cultivation of the coffee plant by the Dutch was undertaken in Ceylon. Regular imports of coffee from Mocha to Amsterdam began in 1663. Later, supplies began to arrive from the Malabar coast. Pasqua Rosée, who introduced the coffee house into London in 1652, is said to have made coffee popular as a beverage in Holland by selling it there publicly in 1664. The first coffee house was opened in the Korten Voorhout, the Hague, under the protection of the writer Van Essen; others soon followed in Amsterdam and Haarlem. At the instigation of Nicolaas Witsen, burgomaster of Amsterdam and governor of the East India Company, Adrian Van Ommen, commander of Malabar, sent the first Arabian coffee seedlings to Java in 1696, recorded in the chapter on the history of coffee propagation. These were destroyed by flood, but were followed in 1699 by a second shipment, from which developed the coffee trade of the Netherlands East Indies, that made Java coffee a household word in every civilized country. A trial shipment of the coffee grown near Batavia was received at Amsterdam in 1706, also a plant for the botanical gardens. This plant subsequently became the progenitor of most of the coffees of the West Indies and America. The first Java coffee for the trade was received at Amsterdam 1711. The shipment consisted of 894 pounds from the Jakatra plantations and from the interior of the island. At the first public auction, this coffee brought twenty-three and two-thirds _stuivers_ (about forty-seven cents) per Amsterdam pound. The Netherlands East India Company contracted with the regents of Netherlands India for the compulsory delivery of coffee; and the natives were enjoined to cultivate coffee, the production thus becoming a forced industry worked by government. A "general system of cultivation" was introduced into Java in 1832 by the government, which decreed the employment of forced labor for different products. Coffee-growing was the only forced industry that existed before this system of cultivation, and it was the only government cultivation that survived the abolition of the system in 1905-08. The last direct government interest in coffee was closed out in 1918. From 1870 to 1874, the government plantations yielded an average of 844,854 piculs[63] a year; from 1875 to 1878, the average was 866,674 piculs. Between 1879 and 1883, it rose to 987,682 piculs. From 1884 to 1888, the average annual yield was only 629,942 piculs. Holland readily adopted the coffee house; and among the earliest coffee pictures preserved to us is one depicting a scene in a Dutch coffee house of the seventeenth century, the work of Adriaen Van Ostade (1610-1675), shown on page 586. History records no intolerance of coffee in Holland. The Dutch attitude was ever that of the constructionist. Dutch inventors and artisans gave us many new designs in coffee mortars, coffee roasters, and coffee serving-pots. [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII THE INTRODUCTION OF COFFEE INTO GERMANY _The contributions made by German travelers and writers to the literature of the early history of coffee--The first coffee house in Hamburg opened by an English merchant--Famous coffee houses of old Berlin--The first coffee periodical, and the first kaffee-klatsch--Frederick the Great's coffee-roasting monopoly--Coffee persecutions--"Coffee-smellers"--The first coffee king_ As we have already seen, Leonhard Rauwolf, in 1573, made his memorable trip to Aleppo and, in 1582, won for Germany the honor of being the first European country to make printed mention of the coffee drink. Adam Olearius (or Oelschlager), a German Orientalist (1599-1671), traveled in Persia as secretary to a German embassy in 1633-36. Upon his return he published an account of his journeys. In it, under date of 1637, he says of the Persians: They drink with their tobacco a certain black water, which they call _cahwa_, made of a fruit brought out of Egypt, and which is in colour like ordinary wheat, and in taste like Turkish wheat, and is of the bigness of a little bean.... The Persians think it allays the natural heat. In 1637, Joh. Albrecht von Mandelsloh, in his _Oriental Trip_, mentions "the black water of the Persians called _Kahwe_", saying "it must be drunk hot." Coffee drinking was introduced into Germany about 1670. The drink appeared at the court of the great elector of Brandenburg in 1675. Northern Germany got its first taste of the beverage from London, an English merchant opening the first coffee house in Hamburg in 1679-80. Regensburg followed in 1689; Leipsic, in 1694; Nuremberg, in 1696; Stuttgart, in 1712; Augsburg, in 1713; and Berlin, in 1721. In that year (1721) King Frederick William I granted a foreigner the privilege of conducting a coffee house in Berlin free of all rental charges. It was known as the English coffee house, as was also the first coffee house in Hamburg. And for many years, English merchants supplied the coffees consumed in northern Germany; while Italy supplied southern Germany. Other well known coffee houses of old Berlin were, the Royal, in Behren _Strasse_; that of the Widow Doebbert, in the Stechbahn; the City of Rome, in Unter-den-Linden; Arnoldi, in Kronen _Strasse_; Miercke, in Tauben _Strasse_, and Schmidt, in Post _Strasse_. Later, Philipp Falck opened a Jewish coffee house in Spandauer _Strasse_. In the time of Frederick the Great (1712-1786) there were at least a dozen coffee houses in the metropolitan district of Berlin. In the suburbs were many tents where coffee was served. The first coffee periodical, _The New and Curious Coffee House_, was issued in Leipsic in 1707 by Theophilo Georgi. The full title was _The New and Curious Coffee House, formerly in Italy but now opened in Germany. First water debauchery. "City of the Well." Brunnenstadt by Lorentz Schoepffwasser_ [draw-water] 1707. The second issue gave the name of Georgi as the real publisher. It was intended to be in the nature of an organ for the first real German kaffee-klatsch. It was a chronicle of the comings and goings of the savants who frequented the "Tusculum" of a well-to-do gentleman in the outskirts of the city. At the beginning the master of the house declared: I know that the gentlemen here speak French, Italian and other languages. I know also that in many coffee and tea meetings it is considered requisite that French be spoken. May I ask, however, that he who calls upon me should use no other language but German. We are all Germans, we are in Germany; shall we not conduct ourselves like true Germans? In 1721 Leonhard Ferdinand Meisner published at Nuremberg the first comprehensive German treatise on coffee, tea, and chocolate. During the second half of the eighteenth century coffee entered the homes, and began to supplant flour-soup and warm beer at breakfast tables. Meanwhile coffee met with some opposition in Prussia and Hanover. Frederick the Great became annoyed when he saw how much money was paid to foreign coffee merchants for supplies of the green bean, and tried to restrict its use by making coffee a drink of the "quality". Soon all the German courts had their own coffee roasters, coffee pots, and coffee cups. Many beautiful specimens of the finest porcelain cups and saucers made in Meissen, and used at court fêtes of this period, survive in the collections at the Potsdam and Berlin museums. The wealthy classes followed suit; but when the poor grumbled because they could not afford the luxury, and demanded their coffee, they were told in effect: "You had better leave it alone. Anyhow, it's bad for you because it causes sterility." Many doctors lent themselves to a campaign against coffee, one of their favorite arguments being that women using the beverage must forego child-bearing. Bach's _Coffee Cantata_[64] (1732) was a notable protest in music against such libels. On September 13, 1777, Frederick issued a coffee and beer manifesto, a curious document, which recited: It is disgusting to notice the increase in the quantity of coffee used by my subjects, and the amount of money that goes out of the country in consequence. Everybody is using coffee. If possible, this must be prevented. My people must drink beer. His Majesty was brought up on beer, and so were his ancestors, and his officers. Many battles have been fought and won by soldiers nourished on beer; and the King does not believe that coffee-drinking soldiers can be depended upon to endure hardship or to beat his enemies in case of the occurrence of another war. [Illustration: RICHTER'S COFFEE HOUSE IN LEIPSIC--SEVENTEENTH CENTURY] For a time beer was restored to its honored place; and coffee continued to be a luxury afforded only by the rich. Soon a revulsion of feeling set in; and it was found that even Prussian military rule could not enforce coffee prohibition. Whereupon, in 1781, finding that all his efforts to reserve the beverage for the exclusive court circles, the nobility, and the officers of his army, were vain, the king created a royal monopoly in coffee, and forbade its roasting except in royal roasting establishments. At the same time, he made exceptions in the cases of the nobility, the clergy, and government officials; but rejected all applications for coffee-roasting licenses from the common people. His object, plainly, was to confine the use of the drink to the elect. To these representatives of the cream of Prussian society, the king issued special licenses permitting them to do their own roasting. Of course, they purchased their supplies from the government; and as the price was enormously increased, the sales yielded Frederick a handsome income. Incidentally, the possession of a coffee-roasting license became a kind of badge of membership in the upper class. The poorer classes were forced to get their coffee by stealth; and, failing this, they fell back upon numerous barley, wheat, corn, chicory, and dried-fig substitutes, that soon appeared in great numbers. This singular coffee ordinance was known as the "_Déclaration du Roi concernant la vente du café brûlé_", and was published January 21, 1781. [Illustration: COFFEE HOUSE IN GERMANY--MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY] After placing the coffee _regie_ (revenue) in the hands of a Frenchman, Count de Lannay, so many deputies were required to make collections that the administration of the law became a veritable persecution. Discharged wounded soldiers were mostly employed, and their principal duty was to spy upon the people day and night, following the smell of roasting coffee whenever detected, in order to seek out those who might be found without roasting permits. The spies were given one-fourth of the fine collected. These deputies made themselves so great a nuisance, and became so cordially disliked, that they were called "coffee-smellers" by the indignant people. Taking a leaf out of Frederick's book, the elector of Cologne, Maximilian Frederick, bishop of Münster, (Duchy of Westphalia) on February 17, 1784, issued a manifesto which said: To our great displeasure we have learned that in our Duchy of Westphalia the misuse of the coffee beverage has become so extended that to counteract the evil we command that four weeks after the publication of this decree no one shall sell coffee roasted or not roasted under a fine of one hundred dollars, or two years in prison, for each offense. Every coffee-roasting and coffee-serving place shall be closed, and dealers and hotel-keepers are to get rid of their coffee supplies in four weeks. It is only permitted to obtain from the outside coffee for one's own consumption in lots of fifty pounds. House fathers and mothers shall not allow their work people, especially their washing and ironing women, to prepare coffee, or to allow it in any manner under a penalty of one hundred dollars. All officials and government employees, to avoid a penalty of one hundred gold florins, are called upon closely to follow and to keep a watchful eye over this decree. To the one who reports such persons as act contrary to this decree shall be granted one-half of the said money fine with absolute silence as to his name. This decree was solemnly read in the pulpits, and was published besides in the usual places and ways. There immediately followed a course of "telling-ons", and of "coffee-smellings", that led to many bitter enmities and caused much unhappiness in the Duchy of Westphalia. Apparently the purpose of the archduke was to prevent persons of small means from enjoying the drink, while those who could afford to purchase fifty pounds at a time were to be permitted the indulgence. As was to be expected, the scheme was a complete failure. While the king of Prussia exploited his subjects by using the state coffee monopoly as a means of extortion, the duke of Württemberg had a scheme of his own. He sold to Joseph Suess-Oppenheimer, an unscrupulous financier, the exclusive privilege of keeping coffee houses in Württemberg. Suess-Oppenheimer in turn sold the individual coffee-house licenses to the highest bidders, and accumulated a considerable fortune. He was the first "coffee king." But coffee outlived all these unjust slanders and cruel taxations of too paternal governments, and gradually took its rightful place as one of the favorite beverages of the German people. [Illustration: KOLSCHITZKY, THE GREAT BROTHER-HEART, IN HIS BLUE BOTTLE CAFÉ, VIENNA, 1683 From a lithograph after the painting by Franz Schams, entitled "Das Erste (Kulczycki'sche) Kaffee Haus"] CHAPTER IX TELLING HOW COFFEE CAME TO VIENNA _The romantic adventure of Franz George Kolschitzky, who carried "a message to Garcia" through the enemy's lines and won for himself the honor of being the first to teach the Viennese the art of making coffee, to say nothing of falling heir to the supplies of the green beans left behind by the Turks; also the gift of a house from a grateful municipality, and a statue after death--Affectionate regard in which "brother-heart" Kolschitzky is held as the patron saint of the Vienna kaffee-sieder--Life in the early Vienna cafés_ A romantic tale has been woven around the introduction of coffee into Austria. When Vienna was besieged by the Turks in 1683, so runs the legend, Franz George Kolschitzky, a native of Poland, formerly an interpreter in the Turkish army, saved the city and won for himself undying fame, with coffee as his principal reward. It is not known whether, in the first siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1529, the invaders boiled coffee over their camp fires that surrounded the Austrian capital; although they might have done so, as Selim I, after conquering Egypt in 1517, had brought with him to Constantinople large stores of coffee as part of his booty. But it is certain that when they returned to the attack, 154 years later, they carried with them a plentiful supply of the green beans. Mohammed IV mobilized an army of 300,000 men and sent it forth under his vizier, Kara Mustapha, (Kuprili's successor) to destroy Christendom and to conquer Europe. Reaching Vienna July 7, 1683, the army quickly invested the city and cut it off from the world. Emperor Leopold had escaped the net and was several miles away. Nearby was the prince of Lorraine, with an army of 33,000 Austrians, awaiting the succor promised by John Sobieski, king of Poland, and an opportunity to relieve the besieged capital. Count Rudiger von Starhemberg, in command of the forces in Vienna, called for a volunteer to carry a message through the Turkish lines to hurry along the rescue. He found him in the person of Franz George Kolschitzky, who had lived for many years among the Turks and knew their language and customs. On August 13, 1683, Kolschitzky donned a Turkish uniform, passed through the enemy's lines and reached the Emperor's army across the Danube. Several times he made the perilous journey between the camp of the prince of Lorraine and the garrison of the governor of Vienna. One account says that he had to swim the four intervening arms of the Danube each time he performed the feat. His messages did much to keep up the morale of the city's defenders. At length King John and his army of rescuing Poles arrived and were consolidated with the Austrians on the summit of Mount Kahlenberg. It was one of the most dramatic moments in history. The fate of Christian Europe hung in the balance. Everything seemed to point to the triumph of the crescent over the cross. Once again Kolschitzky crossed the Danube, and brought back word concerning the signals that the prince of Lorraine and King John would give from Mount Kahlenberg to indicate the beginning of the attack. Count Starhemberg was to make a sortie at the same time. [Illustration: FRANZ GEORGE KOLSCHITZKY, PATRON SAINT OF VIENNA COFFEE LOVERS] The battle took place September 12, and thanks to the magnificent generalship of King John, the Turks were routed. The Poles here rendered a never-to-be-forgotten service to all Christendom. The Turkish invaders fled, leaving 25,000 tents, 10,000 oxen, 5,000 camels, 100,000 bushels of grain, a great quantity of gold, and many sacks filled with coffee--at that time unknown in Vienna. The booty was distributed; but no one wanted the coffee. They did not know what to do with it; that is, no one except Kolschitzky. He said, "If nobody wants those sacks, I will take them", and every one was heartily glad to be rid of the strange beans. But Kolschitzky knew what he was about, and he soon taught the Viennese the art of preparing coffee. Later, he established the first public booth where Turkish coffee was served in Vienna. This, then, is the story of how coffee was introduced into Vienna, where was developed that typical Vienna café which has become a model for a large part of the world. Kolschitzky is honored in Vienna as the patron saint of coffee houses. His followers, united in the guild of coffee makers (_kaffee-sieder_), even erected a statue in his honor. It still stands as part of the facade of a house where the Kolschitzygasse merges into the Favoritengasse, as shown in the accompanying picture. Vienna is sometimes referred to as the "mother of cafés". Café Sacher is world-renowned. Tart à la Sacher is to be found in every cook-book. The Viennese have their "_jause_" every afternoon. When one drinks coffee at a Vienna café one generally has a _kipfel_ with it. This is a crescent-shaped roll--baked for the first time in the eventful year 1683, when the Turks besieged the city. A baker made these crescent rolls in a spirit of defiance of the Turk. Holding sword in one hand and _kipfel_ in the other, the Viennese would show themselves on top of their redoubts and challenge the cohorts of Mohammed IV. Mohammed IV was deposed after losing the battle, and Kara Mustapha was executed for leaving the stores--particularly the sacks of coffee beans--at the gates of Vienna; but Vienna coffee and Vienna _kipfel_ are still alive, and their appeal is not lessened by the years. [Illustration: THE FIRST COFFEE HOUSE IN THE LEOPOLDSTADT From a cut so titled in Bermann's _Alt und Neu Wien_] The hero Kolschitzky was presented with a house by the grateful municipality; and there, at the sign of the Blue Bottle, according to one account, he continued as a coffee-house keeper for many years.[65] This, in brief, is the story that--although not authenticated in all its particulars--is seriously related in many books, and is firmly believed throughout Vienna. It seems a pity to discredit the hero of so romantic an adventure; but the archives of Vienna throw a light upon Kolschitzky's later conduct that tends to show that, after all, this Viennese idol's feet were of common clay. It is said that Kolschitzky, after receiving the sacks of green coffee left behind by the Turks, at once began to peddle the beverage from house to house, serving it in little cups from a wooden platter. Later he rented a shop in Bischof-hof. Then he began to petition the municipal council, that, in addition to the sum of 100 ducats already promised him as further recognition of his valor, he should receive a house with good will attached; that is, a shop in some growing business section. "His petitions to the municipal council", writes M. Bermann[66], "are amazing examples of measureless self-conceit and the boldest greed. He seemed determined to get the utmost out of his own self-sacrifice. He insisted upon the most highly deserved reward, such as the Romans bestowed upon their Curtius, the Lacedæmonians upon their Pompilius, the Athenians upon Seneca, with whom he modestly compared himself." At last, he was given his choice of three houses in the Leopoldstadt, any one of them worth from 400 to 450 gulden, in place of the money reward, that had been fixed by a compromise agreement at 300 gulden. But Kolschitzky was not satisfied with this; and urged that if he was to accept a house in full payment it should be one valued at not less than 1000 gulden. Then ensued much correspondence and considerable haggling. To put an end to the acrimonious dispute, the municipal council in 1685 directed that there should be deeded over to Kolschitzky and his wife, Maria Ursula, without further argument, the house known at that time as 30 (now 8) Haidgasse. It is further recorded that Kolschitzky sold the house within a year; and, after many moves, he died of tuberculosis, February 20, 1694, aged fifty-four years. He was courier to the emperor at the time of his death, and was buried in the Stefansfreithof Cemetery. [Illustration: STATUE OF KOLSCHITZKY ERECTED BY THE COFFEE MAKERS GUILD OF VIENNA] Kolschitzky's heirs moved the coffee house to Donaustrand, near the wooden Schlagbrücke, later known as Ferdinand's _brücke_ (bridge). The celebrated coffee house of Franz Mosee (d. 1860) stood on this same spot. In the city records for the year 1700 a house in the Stock-im-Eisen-Platz (square) is designated by the words "_allwo das erste kaffeegewölbe_" ("here was the first coffee house"). Unfortunately, the name of the proprietor is not given. Many stories are told of Kolschitzky's popularity as a coffee-house keeper. He is said to have addressed everyone as _bruderherz_ (brother-heart) and gradually he himself acquired the name _bruderherz_. A portrait of Kolschitzky, painted about the time of his greatest vogue, is carefully preserved by the Innung der Wiener Kaffee-sieder (the Coffee Makers' Guild of Vienna). Even during the lifetime of the first _kaffee-sieder_, a number of others opened coffee houses and acquired some little fame. Early in the eighteenth century a tourist gives us a glimpse of the progress made by coffee drinking and by the coffee-house idea in Vienna. We read: The city of Vienna is filled with coffee houses, where the novelists or those who busy themselves with the newspapers delight to meet, to read the gazettes and discuss their contents. Some of these houses have a better reputation than others because such _zeitungs-doctors_ (newspaper doctors--an ironical title) gather there to pass most unhesitating judgment on the weightiest events, and to surpass all others in their opinions concerning political matters and considerations. All this wins them such respect that many congregate there because of them, and to enrich their minds with inventions and foolishness which they immediately run through the city to bring to the ears of the said personalities. It is impossible to believe what freedom is permitted, in furnishing this gossip. They speak without reverence not only of the doings of generals and ministers of state, but also mix themselves in the life of the Kaiser (Emperor) himself. Vienna liked the coffee house so well that by 1839 there were eighty of them in the city proper and fifty more in the suburbs. [Illustration] CHAPTER X THE COFFEE HOUSES OF OLD LONDON _One of the most picturesque chapters in the history of coffee--The first coffee house in London--The first coffee handbill, and the first newspaper advertisement for coffee--Strange coffee mixtures--Fantastic coffee claims--Coffee prices and coffee licenses--Coffee club of the Rota--Early coffee-house manners and customs--Coffee-house keepers' tokens--Opposition to the coffee house--"Penny universities"--Weird coffee substitutes--The proposed coffee-house newspaper monopoly--Evolution of the club--Decline and fall of the coffee house--Pen pictures of coffee-house life--Famous coffee houses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries--Some Old World pleasure gardens--Locating the notable coffee houses_ The two most picturesque chapters in the history of coffee have to do with the period of the old London and Paris coffee houses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Much of the poetry and romance of coffee centers around this time. "The history of coffee houses," says D'Israeli, "ere the invention of clubs, was that of the manners, the morals and the politics of a people." And so the history of the London coffee houses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is indeed the history of the manners and customs of the English people of that period. _The First London Coffee House_ "The first coffee house in London," says John Aubrey (1626-97), the English antiquary and folklorist, "was in St. Michael's Alley, in Cornhill, opposite to the church, which was sett up by one ... Bowman (coachman to Mr. Hodges, a Turkey merchant, who putt him upon it) in or about the yeare 1652. 'Twas about four years before any other was sett up, and that was by Mr. Farr. Jonathan Paynter, over-against to St. Michael's Church, was the first apprentice to the trade, viz., to Bowman."[67] Another account, for which we are indebted to William Oldys (1696-1761), the bibliographer, relates that Mr. Edwards, a London merchant, acquired the coffee habit in Turkey, and brought home with him from Ragusa, in Dalmatia, Pasqua Rosée, an Armenian or Greek youth, who prepared the beverage for him. "But the novelty thereof," says Oldys, "drawing too much company to him, he allowed the said servant with another of his son-in-law to set up the first coffee house in London at St. Michael's Alley, in Cornhill." From this it would appear that Pasqua Rosée had as partner in this enterprise, the Bowman, who, according to Aubrey, was coachman to Mr. Hodges, the son-in-law of Mr. Edwards, and a fellow merchant traveler. Oldys tells us that Rosée and Bowman soon separated. John Timbs (1801-1875), another English antiquary, says they quarreled, Rosée keeping the house, and his partner Bowman obtaining leave to pitch a tent and to sell the drink in St. Michael's churchyard. Still another version of this historic incident is to be found in _Houghton's Collection_, 1698. It reads: It appears that a Mr. Daniel Edwards, an English merchant of Smyrna, brought with him to this country a Greek of the name of Pasqua, in 1652, who made his coffee; this Mr. Edwards married one Alderman Hodges's daughter, who lived in Walbrook, and set up Pasqua for a coffee man in a shed in the churchyard in St. Michael, Cornhill, which is now a scrivener's brave-house, when, having great custom, the ale-sellers petitioned the Lord Mayor against him as being no freeman. This made Alderman Hodges join his coachman, Bowman, who was free, as Pasqua's partner; but Pasqua, for some misdemeanor, was forced to run the country, and Bowman, by his trade and a contribution of 1000 sixpences, turned the shed to a house. Bowman's apprentices were first, John Painter, then Humphry, from whose wife I had this account. This account makes it appear that Edwards was Hodges' son-in-law. Whatever the relationship, most authorities agree that Pasqua Rosée was the first to sell coffee publicly, whether in a tent or shed, in London in or about the year 1652. His original shop-bill, or handbill, the first advertisement for coffee, is in the British Museum, and from it the accompanying photograph was made for this work. It sets forth in direct fashion: "The Vertue of the _COFFEE_ Drink First publiquely made and sold in England, by _Pasqua Rosée_ ... in St. _Michaels Alley_ in _Cornhill_ ... at the Signe of his own Head."[68] H.R. Fox Bourne[69] (about 1870) is alone in an altogether different version of this historic event. He says: "In 1652 Sir Nicholas Crispe, a Levant merchant, opened in London the first coffee house known in England, the beverage being prepared by a Greek girl brought over for the work." There is nothing to substantiate this story; the preponderance of evidence is in support of the Edwards-Rosée version. Such then was the advent of the coffee house in London, which introduced to English-speaking people the drink of democracy. Oddly enough, coffee and the Commonwealth came in together. The English coffee house, like its French contemporary, was the home of liberty. Robinson, who accepts that version of the event wherein Edwards marries Hodges's daughter, says that after the partners Rosée and Bowman separated, and Bowman had set up his tent opposite Rosée, a zealous partisan addressed these verses "To Pasqua Rosée, at the Sign of his own Head and half his Body in St. Michael's Alley, next the first Coffee-Tent in London": Were not the fountain of my Tears Each day exhausted by the steam Of your Coffee, no doubt appears But they would swell to such a stream As could admit of no restriction To see, poor Pasqua, thy Affliction. What! Pasqua, you at first did broach This Nectar for the publick Good, Must you call Kitt down from the Coach To drive a Trade he understood No more than you did then your creed, Or he doth now to write or read? Pull Courage, Pasqua, fear no Harms From the besieging Foe; Make good your Ground, stand to your Arms, Hold out this summer, and then tho' He'll storm, he'll not prevail--your Face[70] Shall give the Coffee Pot the chace. Eventually Pasqua Rosée disappeared, some say to open a coffee house on the Continent, in Holland or Germany. Bowman, having married Alderman Hodges's cook, and having also prevailed upon about a thousand of his customers to lend him sixpence apiece, converted his tent into a substantial house, and eventually took an apprentice to the trade. Concerning London's second coffee-house keeper, James Farr, proprietor of the Rainbow, who had as his most distinguished visitor Sir Henry Blount, Edward Hatton[71] says: I find it recorded that one James Farr, a barber, who kept the coffee-house which is now the Rainbow, by the Inner Temple Gate (one of the first in England), was in the year 1657, prosecuted by the inquest of St Dunstan's in the West, for making and selling a sort of liquor called coffe, as a great nuisance and prejudice to the neighborhood, etc., and who would then have thought London would ever have had near three thousand such nuisances, and that coffee would have been, as now, so much drank by the best of quality and physicians? [Illustration: FIRST ADVERTISEMENT FOR COFFEE--1652 Handbill used by Pasqua Rosée, who opened the first coffee house in London From the original in the British Museum] Hatton evidently attributed Fair's nuisance to the coffee itself, whereas the presentment[72] clearly shows it was in Farr's chimney and not in the coffee. Mention has already been made that Sir Henry Blount was spoken of as "the father of English coffee houses" and his claim to this distinction would seem to be a valid one, for his strong personality "stamped itself upon the system." His favorite motto, "_Loquendum est cum vulgo, sentiendum cum sapientibus_" (the crowd may talk about it; the wise decide it), says Robinson, "expresses well their colloquial purpose, and was natural enough on the lips of one whose experience had been world wide." Aubrey says of Sir Henry Blount, "He is now neer or altogether eighty yeares, his intellectuals good still and body pretty strong." Women played a not inconspicuous part in establishing businesses for the sale of the coffee drink in England, although the coffee houses were not for both sexes, as in other European countries. The London City _Quaeries_ for 1660 makes mention of "a she-coffee merchant." Mary Stringar ran a coffee house in Little Trinity Lane in 1669; Anne Blunt was mistress of one of the Turk's-Head houses in Cannon Street in 1672. Mary Long was the widow of William Long, and her initials, together with those of her husband, appear on a token issued from the Rose tavern in Bridge Street, Covent Garden. Mary Long's token from the "Rose coffee house by the playhouse" in Covent Garden is shown among the group of coffee-house keepers' tokens herein illustrated. _The First Newspaper Advertisement_ The first newspaper advertisement for coffee appeared, May 26, 1657, in the _Publick Adviser_ of London, one of the first weekly pamphlets. The name of this publication was erroneously given as the _Publick Advertiser_ by an early writer on coffee, and the error has been copied by succeeding writers. The first newspaper advertisement was contained in the issue of the _Publick Adviser_ for the week of May 19 to May 26, and read: In _Bartholomew_ Lane on the back side of the Old Exchange, the drink called _Coffee_, (which is a very wholsom and Physical drink, having many excellent vertues, closes the Orifice of the Stomack, fortifies the heat within, helpeth Digestion, quickneth the Spirits, maketh the heart lightsom, is good against Eye-sores, Coughs, or Colds, Rhumes, Consumptions, Head-ach, Dropsie, Gout, Scurvy, Kings Evil, and many others is to be sold both in the morning, and at three of the clock in the afternoon). Chocolate was also advertised for sale in London this same year. The issue of the _Publick Adviser_ for June 16, 1657, contained this announcement: In Bishopgate Street, in Queen's Head Alley, at a Frenchman's house is an excellent West India drink called chocolate, to be sold, where you may have it ready at any time, and also unmade at reasonable rates. Tea was first sold publicly at Garraway's (or Garway's) in 1657. _Strange Coffee Mixtures_ The doctors were loath to let coffee escape from the mysteries of the pharmacopoeia and become "a simple and refreshing beverage" that any one might obtain for a penny in the coffee houses, or, if preferred, might prepare at home. In this they were aided and abetted by many well-meaning but misguided persons (some of them men of considerable intelligence) who seemed possessed of the idea that the coffee drink was an unpleasant medicine that needed something to take away its curse, or else that it required a complex method of preparation. Witness "Judge" Walter Rumsey's _Electuary of Cophy_, which appeared in 1657 in connection with a curious work of his called _Organon Salutis: an instrument to cleanse the stomach_.[73] The instrument itself was a flexible whale-bone, two or three feet long, with a small linen or silk button at the end, and was designed to be introduced into the stomach to produce the effect of an emetic. The electuary of coffee was to be taken by the patient before and after using the instrument, which the "judge" called his _Provang_. And this was the "judge's" "new and superior way of preparing coffee" as found in his prescription for making electuary of cophy: Take equal quantity of Butter and Sallet-oyle, melt them well together, but not boyle them: Then stirre them well that they may incorporate together: Then melt therewith three times as much Honey, and stirre it well together: Then add thereunto powder of Turkish Cophie, to make it a thick Electuary. A little consideration will convince any one that the electuary was most likely to achieve the purpose for which it was recommended. [Illustration: THE FIRST NEWSPAPER ADVERTISEMENT FOR COFFEE--1657] Another concoction invented by the "judge" was known as "wash-brew", and included oatmeal, powder of "cophie", a pint of ale or any wine, ginger, honey, or sugar to please the taste; to these ingredients butter might be added and any cordial powder or pleasant spice. It was to be put into a flannel bag and "so keep it at pleasure like starch." This was a favorite medicine among the common people of Wales. The book contained in a prefix an interesting historical document in the shape of a letter from James Howell (1595-1666) the writer and historiographer, which read: Touching coffee, I concurre with them in opinion, who hold it to be that black-broth which was us'd of old in Lacedemon, whereof the Poets sing; Surely it must needs be salutiferous, because so many sagacious, and the wittiest sort of Nations use it so much; as they who have conversed with Shashes and Turbants doe well know. But, besides the exsiccant quality it hath to dry up the crudities of the Stomach, as also to comfort the Brain, to fortifie the sight with its steem, and prevent Dropsies, Gouts, the Scurvie, together with the Spleen and Hypocondriacall windes (all which it doth without any violance or distemper at all.) I say, besides all these qualities, 'tis found already, that this Coffee-drink hath caused a greater sobriety among the nations; for whereas formerly Apprentices and Clerks with others, used to take their mornings' draught in Ale, Beer or Wine, which by the dizziness they cause in the Brain, make many unfit for business, they use now to play the Good-fellows in this wakefull and civill drink: Therefore that worthy Gentleman, Mr. Mudiford[74], who introduced the practice hereof first to London, deserves much respect of the whole nation. The coffee drink at one time was mixed with sugar candy, and also with mustard. In the coffee houses, however, it was usually served black; "few people then mixed it with either sugar or milk." _Fantastic Coffee Claims_ One can not fail to note in connection with the introduction of coffee into England that the beverage suffered most from the indiscretions of its friends. On the one hand, the quacks of the medical profession sought to claim it for their own; and, on the other, more or less ignorant laymen attributed to the drink such virtues as its real champions among the physicians never dreamed of. It was the favorite pastime of its friends to exaggerate coffee's merits; and of its enemies, to vilify its users. All this furnished good "copy" for and against the coffee house, which became the central figure in each new controversy. From the early English author who damned it by calling it "more wholesome than toothsome", to Pasqua Rosée and his contemporaries, who urged its more fantastic claims, it was forced to make its way through a veritable morass of misunderstanding and intolerance. No harmless drink in history has suffered more at hands of friend and foe. Did its friends hail it as a panacea, its enemies retorted that it was a slow poison. In France and in England there were those who contended that it produced melancholy, and those who argued it was a cure for the same. Dr. Thomas Willis (1621-1673), a distinguished Oxford physician whom Antoine Portal (1742-1832) called "one of the greatest geniuses that ever lived", said he would sometimes send his patients to the coffee house rather than to the apothecary's shop. An old broadside, described later in this chapter, stressed the notion that if you "do but this Rare ARABIAN cordial use, and thou may'st all the Doctors Slops Refuse." As a cure for drunkenness its "magic" power was acclaimed by its friends, and grudgingly admitted by its foes. This will appear presently in a description of the war of the broadsides and the pamphlets. Coffee was praised by one writer as a deodorizer. Another (Richard Bradley), in his treatise concerning its use with regard to the plague, said if its qualities had been fully known in 1665, "Dr. Hodges and other learned men of that time would have recommended it." As a matter of fact, in Gideon Harvey's _Advice against the Plague_, published in 1665, we find, "coffee is commended against the contagion." This is how the drink's sobering virtue was celebrated by the author of the _Rebellious Antidote_: Come, Frantick Fools, leave off your Drunken fits. Obsequious be and I'll recall your Wits, From perfect Madness to a modest Strain For farthings four I'll fetch you back again, Enable all your mene with tricks of State, Enter and sip and then attend your Fate; Come Drunk or Sober, for a gentle Fee, Come n'er so Mad, I'll your Physician be. Dr. Willis, in his _Pharmaceutice Rationalis_ (1674), was one of the first to attempt to do justice to both sides of the coffee question. At best, he thought it a somewhat risky beverage, and its votaries must, in some cases, be prepared to suffer languor and even paralysis; it may attack the heart and cause tremblings in the limbs. On the other hand it may, if judiciously used, prove a marvelous benefit; "being daily drunk it wonderfully clears and enlightens each part of the Soul and disperses all the clouds of every Function." It was a long time before recognition was obtained for the truth about the "novelty drink"; especially that, if there were any beyond purely social virtues to be found in coffee, they were "political rather than medical." Dr. James Duncan, of the Faculty of Montpellier, in his book _Wholesome Advice against the Abuse of Hot Liquors_, done into English in 1706, found coffee no more deserving of the name of panacea than that of poison. George Cheyne (1671-1743), the noted British physician, proclaimed his neutrality in the words, "I have neither great praise nor bitter blame for the thing." _Coffee Prices and Coffee Licenses_ Coffee, with tea and chocolate, was first mentioned in the English Statute books in 1660, when a duty of four pence was laid upon every gallon made and sold, "to be paid by the maker." Coffee was classed by the House of Commons with "other outlandish drinks." It is recorded in 1662 that "the right coffee powder" was being sold at the Turk's Head coffee house in Exchange Alley for "4s. to 6s. 8d. per pound; that pounded in a mortar, 2s; East India berry, 1s. 6d.; and the right Turkie berry, well garbled [ground] at 3s. The ungarbled [in the bean] for less with directions how to use the same." Chocolate was also to be had at "2s. 6d. the pound; the perfumed from 4s. to 10s." At one time coffee sold for five guineas a pound in England, and even forty crowns (about forty-eight dollars) a pound was paid for it. In 1663, all English coffee houses were required to be licensed; the fee was twelve pence. Failure to obtain a license was punished by a fine of five pounds for every month's violation of the law. The coffee houses were under close surveillance by government officials. One of these was Muddiman, a good scholar and an "arch rogue", who had formerly "written for the Parliament" but who later became a paid spy. L'Estrange, who had a patent on "the sole right of intelligence", wrote in his _Intelligencer_ that he was alarmed at the ill effects of "the ordinary written papers of Parliament's news ... making coffee houses and all the popular clubs judges of those councils and deliberations which they have nothing to do with at all." The first royal warrant for coffee was given by Charles II to Alexander Man, a Scotsman who had followed General Monk to London, and set up in Whitehall. Here he advertised himself as "coffee man to Charles II." Owing to increased taxes on tea, coffee, and newspapers, near the end of Queen Anne's reign (1714) coffee-house keepers generally raised their prices as follows: Coffee, two pence per dish; green tea, one and a half pence per dish. All drams, two pence per dram. At retail, coffee was then sold for five shillings per pound; while tea brought from twelve to twenty-eight shillings per pound. _Coffee Club of The Rota_ "Coffee and Commonwealth", says a pamphleteer of 1665, "came in together for a Reformation, to make 's a free and sober nation." The writer argues that liberty of speech should be allowed, "where men of differing judgements croud"; and he adds, "that's a coffee-house, for where should men discourse so free as there?" Robinson's comments are apt: Now perhaps we do not always connect the ideas of sociableness and freedom of discussion with the days of Puritan rule; yet it must be admitted that something like geniality and openness characterized what Pepys calls the Coffee Club of the Rota. This "free and open Society of ingenious gentlemen" was founded in the year 1659 by certain members of the Republican party, whose peculiar opinions had been timidly expressed and not very cordially tolerated under the Great Oliver. By the weak Government that followed, these views were regarded with extreme dislike and with some amount of terror. "They met", says Aubrey, who was himself of their number, "at the Turk's Head [Miles's coffee house] in New Palace Yard, Westminster, where they take water, at one Miles's, the next house to the staires, where was made purposely a large ovall table, with a passage in the middle for Miles to deliver his coffee." Robinson continues: This curious refreshment bar and the interest with which the beverage itself was regarded, were quite secondary to the excitement caused by another novelty. When, after heated disputation, a member desired to test the opinion of the meeting, any particular point might, by agreement, be put to the vote and then everything depended upon "our wooden oracle," the first balloting-box ever seen in England. Formal methods of procedure and the intensely practical nature of the subjects discussed, combined to give a real importance to this Amateur Parliament. [Illustration: A COFFEE HOUSE IN THE TIME OF CHARLES II From a wood cut of 1674] The Rota, or Coffee Club, as Pepys called it, was essentially a debating society for the dissemination of republican opinions. It was preceded only, in the reign of Henry IV, by the club called La Court de Bone Compagnie; by Sir Walter Raleigh's Friday Street, or Bread Street, club; the club at the Mermaid tavern in Bread Street, of which Shakespeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Raleigh, Selden, Donne, _et al._, were members; and "rare" Ben Jonson's Devil tavern club, between Middle Temple Gate and Temple Bar. The Rota derived its name from a plan, which it was designed to promote, for changing a certain number of members of parliament annually by rotation. It was founded by James Harrington, who had painted it in fairest colors in his _Oceana_, that ideal commonwealth. Sir William Petty was one of its members. Around the table, "in a room every evening as full as it could be crammed," says Aubrey, sat Milton (?) and Marvell, Cyriac Skinner, Harrington, Nevill, and their friends, discussing abstract political questions. The Rota became famous for its literary strictures. Among these was "The censure of the Rota upon Mr. Milton's book entitled _The ready and easie way to establish a free commonwealth_" (1660), although it is doubtful if Milton was ever a visitor to this "bustling coffee club." The Rota also censured "Mr. Driden's _Conquest of Granada_" (1673). _Early Coffee-House Manners and Customs_ Among many of the early coffee-house keepers there was great anxiety that the coffee house, open to high and low, should be conducted under such restraints as might secure the better class of customers from annoyance. The following set of regulations in somewhat halting rhyme was displayed on the walls of several of the coffee houses in the seventeenth century: THE RULES AND ORDERS OF THE COFFEE HOUSE. Enter, Sirs, freely, but first, if you please, Peruse our civil orders, which are these. First, gentry, tradesmen, all are welcome hither, And may without affront sit down together: Pre-eminence of place none here should mind, But take the next fit seat that he can find: Nor need any, if finer persons come, Rise up to assigne to them his room; To limit men's expence, we think not fair, But let him forfeit twelve-pence that shall swear; He that shall any quarrel here begin, Shall give each man a dish t' atone the sin; And so shall he, whose compliments extend So far to drink in _coffee_ to his friend; Let noise of loud disputes be quite forborne, No maudlin lovers here in corners mourn, But all be brisk and talk, but not too much, On sacred things, let none presume to touch. Nor profane Scripture, nor sawcily wrong Affairs of state with an irreverent tongue: Let mirth be innocent, and each man see That all his jests without reflection be; To keep the house more quiet and from blame, We banish hence cards, dice, and every game; Nor can allow of wagers, that exceed Five shillings, which ofttimes much trouble breed; Let all that's lost or forfeited be spent In such good liquor as the house doth vent. And customers endeavour, to their powers, For to observe still, seasonable hours. Lastly, let each man what he calls for pay, And so you're welcome to come every day. The early coffee houses were often up a flight of stairs, and consisted of a single large room with "tables set apart for divers topics." There is a reference to this in the prologue to a comedy of 1681 (quoted by Malone): In a coffee house just now among the rabble I bluntly asked, which is the treason table? This was the arrangement at Man's and others favored by the wits, the _literati_, and "men of fashionable instincts." In the distinctly business coffee houses separate rooms were provided at a later time for mercantile transactions. The introduction of wooden partitions--wooden boxes, as at a tavern--was also of somewhat later date. A print of 1674 shows five persons of different ranks in life, one of them smoking, sitting on chairs around a coffee-house table, on which are small basins, or dishes, without saucers, and tobacco pipes, while a coffee boy is serving coffee. In the beginning, only coffee was dispensed in the English coffee houses. Soon chocolate, sherbert, and tea were added; but the places still maintained their status as social and temperance factors. Constantine Jennings (or George Constantine) of the Grecian advertised chocolate, sherbert and tea at retail in 1664-65; also free instruction in the part of preparing these liquors. "Drams and cordial waters were to be had only at coffee houses newly set up," says Elford the younger, writing about 1689. "While some few places added ale and beer as early as 1669, intoxicating liquors were not items of importance for many years." [Illustration: A LONDON COFFEE HOUSE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY From a wood cut of the period] After the fire of 1666, many new coffee houses were opened that were not limited to a single room up a flight of stairs. Because the coffee-house keepers over-emphasized the sobering qualities of the coffee drink, they drew many undesirable characters from the taverns and ale houses after the nine o'clock closing hour. These were hardly calculated to improve the reputation of the coffee houses; and, indeed, the decline of the coffee houses as a temperance institution would seem to trace back to this attitude of false pity for the victims of tavern vices, evils that many of the coffee houses later on embraced to their own undoing. The early institution was unique, its distinctive features being unlike those of any public house in England or on the Continent. Later on, in the eighteenth century, when these distinctive features became obscured, the name coffee house became a misnomer. [Illustration: COFFEE HOUSE, QUEEN ANNE'S TIME--1702-14 Showing coffee pots, coffee dishes, and coffee boy] However, Robinson says, "the close intercourse between the habitués of the coffee house, before it lost anything of its generous social traditions and whilst the issue of the struggle for political liberty was as yet uncertain, was to lead to something more than a mere jumbling or huddling together of opposites. The diverse elements gradually united in the bonds of common sympathy, or were forcibly combined by persecution from without until there resulted a social, political and moral force of almost irresistible strength." _Coffee-House Keepers' Tokens_ The great London fire of 1666 destroyed some of the coffee houses; but prominent among those that survived was the Rainbow, whose proprietor, James Farr, issued one of the earliest coffee-house tokens, doubtless in grateful memory of his escape. Farr's token shows an arched rainbow emerging from the clouds of the "great fire," indicating that all was well with him, and the Rainbow still radiant. On the reverse the medal was inscribed, "In Fleet Street--His Half Penny." A large number of these trade coins were put out by coffee-house keepers and other tradesmen in the seventeenth century as evidence of an amount due, as stated thereon, by the issuer to the holder. Tokens originated because of the scarcity of small change. They were of brass, copper, pewter, and even leather, gilded. They bore the name, address, and calling of the issuer, the nominal value of the piece, and some reference to his trade. They were readily redeemed, on presentation, at their face value. They were passable in the immediate neighborhood, seldom reaching farther than the next street. C.G. Williamson writes: Tokens are essentially democratic; they would never have been issued but for the indifference of the Government to a public need; and in them we have a remarkable instance of a people forcing a legislature to comply with demands at once reasonable and imperative. Taken as a whole series, they are homely and quaint, wanting in beauty, but not without a curious domestic art of their own. Robinson finds an exception to the general simplicity in the tokens issued by one of the Exchange Alley houses. The dies of these tokens are such as to have suggested the skilled workmanship of John Roettier. The most ornate has the head of a Turkish sultan at that time famed for his horrible deeds, ending in suicide; its inscription runs: Morat ye Great Men did mee call; Where Eare I came I conquer'd all. A number of the most interesting coffee-house keepers' tokens in the Beaufoy collection in the Guildhall Museum were photographed for this work, and are shown herewith. It will be observed that many of the traders of 1660-75 adopted as their trade sign a hand pouring coffee from a pot, invariably of the Turkish-ewer pattern. Morat (Amurath) and Soliman were frequent coffee-house signs in the seventeenth century. J.H. Burn, in his _Catalogue of Traders' Tokens_, recites that in 1672 "divers persons who presumed ... to stamp, coin, exchange and distribute farthings, halfpence and pence of brass and copper" were "taken into custody, in order to a severe prosecution"; but upon submission, their offenses were forgiven, and it was not until the year 1675 that the private token ceased to pass current. [Illustration: PLATE 1--COFFEE-HOUSE KEEPERS' TOKENS OF THE 17TH CENTURY Drawn for this work from the originals in the British Museum, and in the Beaufoy collection at the Guildhall Museum] A royal proclamation at the close of 1674 enjoined the prosecution of any who should "utter base metals with private stamps," or "hinder the vending of those half pence and farthings which are provided for necessary exchange." After this, tokens were issued stamped "necessary change." [Illustration: A BROAD-SIDE OF 1663] _Opposition to the Coffee House_ It is easy to see why the coffee houses at once found favor among men of intelligence in all classes. Until they came, the average Englishman had only the tavern as a place of common resort. But here was a public house offering a non-intoxicating beverage, and its appeal was instant and universal. As a meeting place for the exchange of ideas it soon attained wide popularity. But not without opposition. The publicans and ale-house keepers, seeing business slipping away from them, made strenuous propaganda against this new social center; and not a few attacks were launched against the coffee drink. Between the Restoration and the year 1675, of eight tracts written upon the subject of the London coffee houses, four have the words "character of a coffee house" as part of their titles. The authors appear eager to impart a knowledge of the town's latest novelty, with which many readers were unacquainted. One of these early pamphlets (1662) was entitled _The Coffee Scuffle_, and professed to give a dialogue between "a learned knight and a pitifull pedagogue," and contained an amusing account of a house where the Puritan element was still in the ascendant. A numerous company is present, and each little group being occupied with its own subject, the general effect is that of another Babel. While one is engaged in quoting the classics, another confides to his neighbors how much he admires Euclid; A third's for a lecture, a fourth a conjecture, A fifth for a penny in the pound. Theology is introduced. Mask balls and plays are condemned. Others again discuss the news, and are deep in the store of "mercuries" here to be found. One cries up philosophy. Pedantry is rife, and for the most part unchecked, when each 'prentice-boy "doth call for his coffee in Latin" and all are so prompt with their learned quotations that "'t would make a poor Vicar to tremble." The first noteworthy effort attacking the coffee drink was a satirical broadside that appeared in 1663. It was entitled _A Cup of Coffee: or, Coffee in its Colours_. It said: For men and Christians to turn Turks, and think T'excuse the Crime because 'tis in their drink, Is more than Magick.... Pure English Apes! Ye may, for ought I know, Would it but mode, learn to eat Spiders too. The writer wonders that any man should prefer coffee to canary, and refers to the days of Beaumont, Fletcher, and Ben Jonson. He says: They drank pure nectar as the gods drink too, Sublim'd with rich Canary.... 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 doth take; Yet grin, and give ye for the Vine's pure Blood A loathsome potion, not yet understood, Syrrop of soot, or Essence of old Shooes, Dasht with Diurnals and the Books of news? The author of _A Cup of Coffee_, it will be seen, does not shrink from using epithets. [Illustration: PLATE 2--COFFEE-HOUSE KEEPERS' TOKENS OF THE 17TH CENTURY Drawn for this work from the originals in the British Museum, and in the Beaufoy collection at the Guildhall Museum] _The Coffee Man's Granado Discharged upon the Maiden's Complaint Against Coffee_, a dialogue in verse, also appeared in 1663. _The Character of a Coffee House, by an Eye and Ear Witness_ appeared in 1665. It was a ten-page pamphlet, and proved to be excellent propaganda for coffee. It is so well done, and contains so much local color, that it is reproduced here, the text Museum. The title page reads: The CHARACTER OF A COFFEE-HOUSE wherein Is contained a Description of the Persons usually frequenting it, with their Discourse and Humors, As Also The Admirable Vertues of COFFEE By an Eye and Ear Witness _When Coffee once was vended here, The Alc'ron shortly did appear, For our Reformers were such Widgeons. New Liquors brought in new Religions._ Printed in the Year, 1665. The text and the arrangement of the body of the pamphlet are as follows: THE CHARACTER OF A COFFEE-HOUSE THE DERIVATION OF A COFFEE-HOUSE A _Coffee-house_, the learned hold It is a place where _Coffee's_ sold; This derivation cannot fail us, For where _Ale's_ vended, that's an _Ale-house_. This being granted to be true, 'Tis meet that next the _Signs_ we shew Both _where_ and _how_ to find this house Where men such _cordial broth_ carowse. And if _Culpepper_ woon some glory In turning the _Dispensatory_ From _Latin_ into _English_; then Why should not all good _English men_ Give him much thanks who shews a _cure_ For all diseases men endure? SIGNS: HOW TO FIND IT OUT As you along the streets do trudge, To take the pains you must not grudge, To view the Posts or Broomsticks where The Signs of _Liquors_ hanged are. And if you see the great _Morat_ With Shash on's head instead of hat, Or any _Sultan_ in his dress, Or picture of a _Sultaness_, Or _John's_ admir'd curled pate, Or th' great _Mogul_ in's Chair of State, Or _Constantine_ the _Grecian_, Who fourteen years was th' onely man That made _Coffee_ for th' great _Bashaw_, Although the man he never saw; Or if you see a _Coffee_-cup Fil'd from a Turkish pot, hung up Within the clouds, and round it _Pipes_, _Wax Candles_, _Stoppers_, these are types And certain signs (with many more Would be too long to write them 'ore,) Which plainly do Spectators tell That in that house they _Coffee_ sell. Some wiser than the rest (no doubt,) Say they can by the smell find't out; In at a door (say they,) but thrust Your Nose, and if you scent _burnt Crust_, Be sure there's _Coffee_ sold that's good, For so by most 'tis understood. Now being enter'd, there's no needing Of complements or gentile breeding, For you may seat you any where, There's no respect of persons there; Then comes the _Coffee-man_ to greet you, With welcome Sir, let me entreat you, To tell me what you'l please to have, For I'm your humble, humble slave; But if you ask, what good does Coffee? He'l answer, Sir, don't think I scoff yee, If I affirm there's no disease Men have that drink it but find ease. THE VERTUES OF COFFEE Look, there's a man who takes the steem In at his Nose, has an extreme _Worm_ in his pate, and giddiness, Ask him and he will say no less. There sitteth one whose Droptick belly Was hard as flint, now's soft as jelly. There stands another holds his head 'Ore th' _Coffee_-pot, was almost dead Even now with Rhume; ask him hee'l say That all his Rhum's now past away. See, there's a man sits now demure And sober, was within this hour Quite drunk, and comes here frequently, For 'tis his daily Malady, More, it has such reviving power 'Twill keep a man awake an houre, Nay, make his eyes wide open stare Both Sermon time and all the prayer. Sir, should I tell you all the rest O' th' cures 't has done, two hours at least In numb'ring them I needs must spend, Scarce able then to make an end. Besides these vertues that's therein. For any kind of _Medicine_, The _Commonwealth-Kingdom_ I'd say, Has mighty reason for to pray That still _Arabia_ may produce Enough of Berry for it's use: For't has such strange magnetick force, That it draws after't great concourse Of all degrees of persons, even From high to low, from morn till even; Especially the _sober Party_, And News-mongers do drink't most hearty Here you'r not thrust into a _Box_ As _Taverns_ do to catch the _Fox_, But as from th' top of _Pauls_ high steeple, Th' whole _City's_ view'd, even so all _people_ May here be seen; no secrets are At th' _Court_ for _Peace_, or th' _Camp_ for _War_, But straight they'r here disclos'd and known; Men in this Age so wise are grown. Now (Sir) what profit may accrew By this, to all good men, judge you. With that he's loudly call'd upon For _Coffee_, and then whip he's gone. THE COMPANY Here at a Table sits (perplext) A griping _Usurer_, and next To him a gallant _Furioso_, Then nigh to him a _Virtuoso_; A _Player_ then (full fine) sits down, And close to him a _Country Clown_. O' th' other side sits some _Pragmatick_, And next to him some sly _Phanatick_. THE SEVERAL LIQUORS The gallant he for _Tea_ doth call, The _Usurer_ for nought at all. The _Pragmatick_ he doth intreat That they will fill him some _Beau-cheat_, The _Virtuoso_ he cries hand me Some _Coffee_ mixt with _Sugar-candy_. _Phanaticus_ (at last) says come, Bring me some _Aromaticum_. The _Player_ bawls for _Chocolate_, All which the _Bumpkin_ wond'ring at, Cries, ho, my _Masters_, what d' ye speak, D' ye call for drink in Heathen Greek? Give me some good old _Ale_ or _Beer_, Or else I will not drink, I swear. Then having charg'd their _Pipes_ around. THEIR DISCOURSE They silence break; First the profound And sage _Phanatique_, Sirs what news? Troth says the _Us'rer_ I ne'r use To tip my tongue with such discourse, 'Twere news to know how to disburse A summ of mony (makes me sad) To get ought by't, times are so bad. The other answers, truly Sir You speak but truth, for I'le aver They ne'r were worse; did you not hear What _prodigies_ did late appear At _Norwich, Ipswich, Grantham, Gotam_? And though prophane ones do not not'em, Yet we--Here th' _Virtuoso_ stops The current of his speech, with hopes Quoth he, you will not tak'd amiss, I say all's lies that's news like this, For I have Factors all about The Realm, so that no _Stars_ peep out That are unusual, much less these Strange and unheard-of _prodigies_ You would relate, but they are tost To me in letters by first Post. At which the _Furioso_ swears Such chat as this offends his ears It rather doth become this Age To talk of bloodshed, fury, rage, And t' drink stout healths in brim-fill'd _Nogans_. To th' downfall of the _Hogan Mogans_. With that the _Player_ doffs his Bonnet, And tunes his voice as if a Sonnet Were to be sung; then gently says, O what delight there is in _Plays_! Sure if we were but all in _Peace_, This noise of _Wars_ and _News_ would cease; All sorts of people then would club Their pence to see a Play that's good. You'l wonder all this while (perhaps) The _Curioso_ holds his chaps. But he doth in his thoughts devise, How to the rest he may seem wise; Yet able longer not to hold, His tedious tale too must be told, And thus begins, Sirs unto me It reason seems that liberty Of speech and words should be allow'd Where men of differing judgements croud, And that's a _Coffee-house_, for where Should men discourse so free as there? _Coffee_ and _Commonwealth_ begin Both with one letter, both came in Together for a _Reformation_, To make's a free and sober _Nation_. But now--With that _Phanaticus_ Gives him a nod, and speaks him thus, Hold brother, I know your intent, That's no dispute convenient For this same place, truths seldome find Acceptance here, they'r more confin'd To _Taverns_ and to _Ale-house_ liquor, Where men do vent their minds more quicker If that may for a truth but pass What's said, _In vino veritas_. With that up starts the _Country Clown_, And stares about with threatening frown. As if he would even eat them all up. Then bids the boy run quick and call up, A _Constable_, for he has reason To fear their Latin may be _treason_ But straight they all call what's to pay, Lay't down, and march each several way. THE COMPANY At th' other table sits a Knight, And here _a grave old man_ ore right Against his _worship_, then perhaps That _by_ and _by_ a _Drawer_ claps His bum close by them, there down squats _A dealer in old shoes and hats_; And here withouten any panick Fear, dread or care a bold _Mechanick_. HEIR DISCOURSE The _Knight_ (because he's so) he prates Of matters far beyond their pates. _The grave old man_ he makes a bustle, And his wise sentence in must justle. Up starts th' _Apprentice boy_ and he Says boldly so and so't must be. _The dealer in old shoes to_ utter His saying too makes no small sputter. Then comes the pert _mechanick blade_, And contradicts what all have said. * * * * * There by the fier-side doth sit, One freezing in an _Ague_ fit. Another poking in't with th' tongs, Still ready to cough up his lungs Here sitteth one that's melancolick, And there one singing in a frolick. Each one hath such a prety gesture, At Smithfield fair would yield a tester. Boy reach a pipe cries he that shakes, The songster no Tobacco takes, Says he who coughs, nor do I smoak, Then _Monsieur Mopus_ turns his cloak Off from his face, and with a grave Majestick beck his pipe doth crave. They load their guns and fall a smoaking Whilst he who coughs sits by a choaking, Till he no longer can abide. And so removes from th' fier side. Now all this while none calls to drink, Which makes the _Coffee boy_ to think Much they his pots should so enclose, He cannot pass but tread on toes. With that as he the _Nectar_ fills From pot to pot, some on't he spills Upon the _Songster_. Oh cries he. Pox, what dost do? thou'st burnt my knee; No says the boy, (to make a bald And blind excuse.) _Sir 'twill not scald_. With that the man lends him a cuff O' th' ear, and whips away in snuff. The other two, their pipes being out, Says _Monsieur Mopus_ I much doubt My friend I wait for will not come, But if he do, say I'm gone home. Then says the _Aguish man_ I must come According to my wonted custome, To give ye' a visit, although now I dare not drink, and so _adieu_. The boy replies, O Sir, however You'r very welcome, we do never Our _Candles_, _Pipes_ or _Fier_ grutch To daily customers and such, They'r _Company_ (without expence,) For that's sufficient recompence. Here at a table all alone, Sits (studying) _a spruce youngster_, (one Who doth conceipt himself fully witty, And's counted _one o' th' wits o' th' City_,) Till by him (with a stately grace,) A Spanish _Don_ himself doth place. Then (cap in hand) a brisk _Monsieur_ He takes his seat, and crowds as near As possibly that he can come. Then next a _Dutchman_ takes his room. The Wits glib tongue begins to chatter, Though't utters more of noise than matter, Yet 'cause they seem to mind his words, His lungs more battle still affords At last says he to _Don_, I trow You understand me? _Sennor no_ Says th' other. Here the Wit doth pause A little while, then opes his jaws, And says to _Monsieur_, you enjoy Our tongue I hope? _Non par ma foy_, Replies the _Frenchman_: nor you, Sir? Says he to th' _Dutchman, Neen mynheer_, With that he's gone, and cries, why sho'd He stay where _wit's_ not understood? There in a place of his own chusing (Alone) some _lover_ sits a musing, With arms across, and's eyes up lift, As if he were of sence bereft. Till sometimes to himself he's speaking, Then sighs as if his heart were breaking. Here in a corner sits a _Phrantick_, And there stands by a frisking Antick, Of all sorts some and all conditions Even _Vintners_, _Surgeons_ and _Physicians_. The _blind_, the _deaf_, and _aged cripple_ Do here resort and Coffee tipple. Now here (perhaps) you may expect My _Muse_ some trophies should erect In high flown verse, for to set forth The _noble praises_ of its _worth_. Truth is, _old Poets_ beat their brains To find out high and lofty strains To praise the (now too frequent) use Of the bewitching _grapes strong juice_, Some have strain'd hard for to exalt The _liquor_ of our _English Mault_ Nay _Don_ has almost crackt his _nodle_ Enough t'applaud his _Caaco Caudle_. The _Germans Mum_, _Teag's Usquebagh_, (Made him so well defend _Tredagh_,) _Metheglin_, which the _Brittains_ tope, Hot _Brandy_ wine, the _Hogans_ hope. Stout _Meade_ which makes the _Russ_ to laugh, Spic'd _Punch_ (in bowls) the _Indians quaff_. All these have had their pens to raise Them _Monuments_ of lasting praise, Onely poor _Coffee_ seems to me No subject fit for _Poetry_ At least 'tis one that none of mine is, So I do wave 't, and here write-- FINIS. [Illustration: A BROAD-SIDE OF 1667] _News from the Coffe House; in which is shewn their several sorts of Passions_ appeared in 1667. It was reprinted in 1672 as _The Coffee House or News-mongers' Hall_. Several stanzas from these broadsides have been much quoted. They serve to throw additional light upon the manners of the time, and upon the kind of conversation met with in any well frequented coffee house of the seventeenth century, particularly under the Stuarts. They are finely descriptive of the company characteristics of the early coffee houses. The fifth stanza of the edition of 1667, inimical to the French, was omitted when the broadside was amended and reprinted in 1672, the year that England joined with France and again declared war on the Dutch. The following verses with explanatory notes are from Timbs: NEWS FROM THE COFFE HOUSE You that delight in Wit and Mirth, And long to hear such News, As comes from all Parts of the _Earth_, _Dutch_, _Danes_, and _Turks_, and _Jews_, I'le send yee to a Rendezvouz, Where it is smoaking new; Go hear it at a _Coffe-house_, _It cannot but be true_. There Battles and Sea-Fights are Fought, And bloudy Plots display'd; They know more Things then ere was thought Or ever was betray'd: No Money in the Minting-house Is halfe so Bright and New; And comming from a _Coffe-house_ _It cannot but be true_. Before the _Navyes_ fall to Work, They know who shall be Winner; They there can tell ye what the _Turk_ Last _Sunday_ had to Dinner; Who last did Cut _Du Ruitters_[75] Corns, Amongst his jovial Crew; Or Who first gave the _Devil_ Horns, _Which cannot but be true_. A _Fisherman_ did boldly tell, And strongly did avouch, He Caught a Shoal of Mackarel, That Parley'd all in _Dutch_, And cry'd out _Yaw, yaw, yaw Myne Here_; But as the Draught they Drew They Stunck for fear, that _Monck[76] was there_, _Which cannot but be true_. * * * * * There's nothing done in all the World, From _Monarch_ to the _Mouse_ But every Day or Night 'tis hurld Into the _Coffe-house_. What _Lillie_[77] or what _Booker_[78] can By Art, not bring about, At _Coffe-house_ you'l find a Man, _Can quickly find it out_. They know who shall in Times to come, Be either made, or undone, From great _St. Peters street_ in _Rome_, To _Turnbull-street_[79] in _London_; * * * * * They know all that is Good, or Hurt, To Dam ye, or to Save ye; There is the _Colledge_, and the _Court_, The _Country_, _Camp_ and _Navie_; So great a _Universitie_, I think there ne're was any; In which you may a Schoolar be For spending of a Penny. * * * * * Here Men do talk of every Thing, With large and liberal Lungs, Like Women at a Gossiping, With double tyre of Tongues; They'l give a Broad-side presently, Soon as you are in view, With Stories that, you'l wonder at, Which they will swear are true. The Drinking there of _Chockalat_, Can make a _Fool_ a _Sophie_: 'Tis thought the _Turkish Mahomet_ Was first Inspir'd with _Coffe_, By which his Powers did Over-flow The Land of _Palestine_: Then let us to, the _Coffe-house_ go, 'Tis Cheaper farr then Wine. You shall know there, what Fashions are; How Perrywiggs are Curl'd; And for a Penny you shall heare, All Novells in the World. Both Old and Young, and Great and Small, And Rich, and Poore, you'l see; Therefore let's to the _Coffe_ All, Come All away with Mee. FINIS. Robert Morton made a contribution to the controversy in _Lines Appended to the Nature, Quality and Most Excellent Vertues of Coffee_ in 1670. There was published in 1672 _A Broad-side Against Coffee, or the Marriage of the Turk_, verses that attained considerable fame because of their picturesque invective. They also stressed the fact that Pasqua Rosées partner was a coachman, and imitated the broken English of the Ragusan youth: A BROAD-SIDE AGAINST COFFEE; OR, THE MARRIAGE OF THE TURK _Coffee_, a kind of _Turkish Renegade_, Has late a match with _Christian water_ made; At first between them happen'd a Demur, Yet joyn'd they were, but not without great _stir_; * * * * * _Coffee_ was cold as _Earth, Water_ as _Thames_, And stood in need of recommending Flames; * * * * * _Coffee_ so brown as berry does appear, Too swarthy for a Nymph so fair, so clear: * * * * * A Coachman was the first (here) _Coffee_ made, And ever since the rest _drive on_ the trade; _Me no good Engalash_! and sure enough, He plaid the Quack to salve his Stygian stuff; _Ver boon for de stomach, de Cough, de Ptisick_ And I believe him, for it looks like Physick. _Coffee_ a crust is charkt into a coal, The smell and taste of the Mock _China_ bowl; Where huff and puff, they labour out their lungs, Lest _Dives_-like they should bewail their tongues. And yet they tell ye that it will not burn, Though on the Jury Blisters you return; Whose furious heat does make the water rise, And still through the Alembicks of your eyes. Dread and desire, ye fall to't snap by snap, As hungry Dogs do scalding porrige lap, But to cure Drunkards it has got great Fame; _Posset_ or _Porrige_, will't not do the same? Confusion huddles all into one Scene, Like _Noah's_ Ark, the clean and the unclean. But now, alas! the Drench has credit got, And he's no Gentleman that drinks it not; That such a _Dwarf_ should rise to such a stature! But Custom is but a remove from Nature. A _little_ Dish, and a _large_ Coffee-house, What is it, but a _Mountain_ and a _Mouse_? * * * * * _Mens humana novitatis avidissima._ [Illustration: A BROAD-SIDE OF 1670] And so it came to pass that coffee history repeated itself in England. Many good people became convinced that coffee was a dangerous drink. The tirades against the beverage in that far-off time sound not unlike the advertising patter employed by some of our present-day coffee-substitute manufacturers. It was even ridiculed by being referred to as "ninny broth" and "Turkey gruel." [Illustration: A BROAD-SIDE OF 1672] _A brief description of the excellent vertues of that sober and wholesome drink called coffee_ appeared in 1674 and proved an able and dignified answer to the attacks that had preceded it. That same year, for the first time in history, the sexes divided in a coffee controversy, and there was issued _The Women's Petition against Coffee, representing to public consideration the grand inconveniences accruing to their sex from the excessive use of the drying and enfeebling Liquor_, in which the ladies, who had not been accorded the freedom of the coffee houses in England, as was the custom in France, Germany, Italy, and other countries on the Continent, complained that coffee made men as "unfruitful as the deserts where that unhappy berry is said to be bought." Besides the more serious complaint that the whole race was in danger of extinction, it was urged that "on a domestic message a husband would stop by the way to drink a couple of cups of coffee." This pamphlet is believed to have precipitated the attempt at suppression by the crown the following year, despite the prompt appearing, in 1674, of _The Men's Answer to the Women's Petition Against Coffee, vindicating ... their liquor, from the undeserved aspersion lately cast upon them, in their scandalous pamphlet_. The 1674 broadside in defense of coffee was the first to be illustrated; and for all its air of pretentious grandeur and occasional bathos, it was not a bad rhyming advertisement for the persecuted drink. It was printed for Paul Greenwood and sold "at the sign of the coffee mill and tobacco-roll in Cloath-fair near West-Smithfield, who selleth the best Arabian coffee powder and chocolate in cake or roll, after the Spanish fashion, etc." The following extracts will serve to illustrate its epic character: When the sweet Poison of the Treacherous Grape, Had Acted on the world a General Rape; Drowning our very Reason and our Souls In such deep Seas of large o'reflowing Bowls. * * * * * When Foggy Ale, leavying up mighty Trains Of muddy Vapours, had besieg'd our Brains; * * * * * Then Heaven in Pity, to Effect our Cure. * * * * * First sent amongst us this _All-healing-Berry_, At once to make us both _Sober_ and _Merry_. _Arabian_ Coffee, a Rich Cordial To Purse and Person Beneficial, Which of so many Vertues doth partake, Its Country's called Felix for its sake. From the Rich Chambers of the Rising Sun, Where Arts, and all good Fashions first begun, Where Earth with choicest Rarities is blest, And dying _Phoenix_ builds Her wondrous Nest: COFFEE arrives, that Grave and wholesome Liquor, That heals the Stomack, makes the Genius quicker, Relieves the Memory, Revives the Sad. * * * * * Do but this Rare ARABIAN Cordial Use, And thou may'st all the Doctors Slops Refuse. Hush then, dull QUACKS, your Mountebanking cease, COFFEE'S a speedier Cure for each Disease; How great its Vertues are, we hence may think, The Worlds third Part makes it their common Drink: In Breif, all you who Healths Rich Treasures Prize, And Court not Ruby Noses, or blear'd Eyes, But own Sobriety to be your Drift. And Love at once good Company and Thrift; To Wine no more make Wit and Coyn a Trophy, But come each Night and Frollique here in Coffee. [Illustration: A BROAD-SIDE OF 1674 The first one to be illustrated] An eight-page folio, the last argument to be issued in defense of coffee before Charles II sought to follow in the footsteps of Kair Bey and Kuprili, was issued in the early part of 1675. It was entitled _Coffee Houses Vindicated. In answer to the late published Character of a Coffee House. Asserting from Reason, Experience and good Authors the Excellent Use and physical Virtues of that Liquor ... With the Grand Convenience of such civil Places of Resort and ingenious Conversation_. The advantage of a coffee house compared with a "publick-house" is thus set forth: First, In regard of easy expense. Being to wait for or meet a friend, a tavern-reckoning soon breeds a purse-consumption: in an ale house, you must gorge yourself with pot after pot.... But here, for a penny or two, you may spend two or three hours, have the shelter of a house, the warmth of a fire, the diversion of company; and conveniency, if you please, of taking a pipe of tobacco; and all this without any grumbling or repining. Secondly. For sobriety. It is grown, by the ill influences of I know not what hydropick stars, almost a general custom amongst us, that no bargain can be drove, or business concluded between man and man, but it must be transacted at some publick-house ... where continual sippings ... would be apt to fly up into their brains, and render them drowsy and indisposed ... whereas, having now the opportunity of a coffee-house, they repair thither, take each man a dish or two (so far from causing, that it cures any dizziness, or disturbant fumes): and so, dispatching their business, go out more sprightly about their affairs, than before.... Lastly, For diversion ... where can young gentlemen, or shop-keepers, more innocently and advantageously spend an hour or two in the evening than at a coffee-house? Where they shall be sure to meet company, and, by the custom of the house, not such as at other places stingy and reserved to themselves, but free and communicative, where every man may modestly begin his story, and propose to, or answer another, as he thinks fit.... So that, upon the whole matter, spight of the idle sarcasms and paltry reproaches thrown upon it, we may, with no less truth than plainness, give this brief character of a well-regulated coffee-house, (for our pen disdains to be an advocate for any sordid holes, that assume that name to cloke the practice of debauchery,) that it is the sanctuary of health, the nursery of temperance, the delight of frugality, and academy of civility, and free-school of ingenuity. _The Ale Wives' Complaint Against the Coffee-houses_, a dialogue between a victualer's wife and a coffee man, at difference about spiriting away each other's trade, also was issued in 1675. As early as 1666, and again in 1672, we find the government planning to strike a blow at the coffee houses. By the year 1675, these "seminaries of sedition" were much frequented by persons of rank and substance, who, "suitable to our native genius," says Anderson,[80] "used great freedom therein with respect to the courts' proceedings in these and like points, so contrary to the voice of the people." In 1672, Charles II, seemingly eager to emulate the Oriental intolerants that preceded him, determined to try his hand at suppression. "Having been informed of the great inconveniences arising from the great number of persons that resort to coffee-houses," the king "desired the Lord Keeper and the Judges to give their opinion in writing as to how far he might lawfully proceed against them." Roger North in his _Examen_ gives the full story; and D'Israeli, commenting on it, says, "it was not done without some apparent respect for the British constitution." The courts affected not to act against the law, and the judges were summoned to a consultation; but the five who met could not agree in opinion. Sir William Coventry spoke against the proposed measure. He pointed out that the government obtained considerable revenue from coffee, that the king himself owed to these seemingly obnoxious places no small debt of gratitude in the matter of his own restoration; for they had been permitted in Cromwell's time, when the king's friends had used more liberty of speech than "they dared to do in any other." He urged, also, that it might be rash to issue a command so likely to be disobeyed. At last, being hard pressed for a reply, the judges gave such a halting opinion in favor of the king's policy as to remind us of the reluctant verdict wrung from the physicians and lawyers of Mecca on the occasion of coffee's first persecution.[81] "The English lawyers, in language which, for its civility and indefiniteness," says Robinson, "would have been the envy of their Eastern brethren," declared that: Retailing coffee _might_ be an innocent trade, as it _might_ be exercised; but as it is used at present, in the nature of a common assembly, to discourse of matters of State, news and _great Persons_, as they are Nurseries of Idleness and Pragmaticalness, and hinder the expence of our native Provisions, they _might_ be thought common nuisances. An attempt was made to mold public opinion to a favorable consideration of the attempt at suppression in _The Grand Concern of England explained_, which was good propaganda for his majesty's enterprise, but utterly failed to carry conviction to the lovers of liberty. After much backing and filling, the king, on December 23, 1675, issued a proclamation which in its title frankly stated its object--"for the suppression of coffee houses." It is here given in a somewhat condensed form: BY THE KING: A PROCLAMATION FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF COFFEE HOUSES _Charles R._ Whereas it is most apparent that the multitude of Coffee Houses of late years set up and kept within this kingdom, the dominion of Wales, and town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and the great resort of Idle and disaffected persons to them, have produced very evil and dangerous effects; as well for that many tradesmen and others, do herein mispend much of their time, which might and probably would be employed in and about their Lawful Calling and Affairs; but also, for that in such houses ... divers false, malitious and scandalous reports are devised and spread abroad to the Defamation of his Majestie's Government, and to the Disturbance of the Peace and Quiet of the Realm; his Majesty hath thought fit and necessary, that the said Coffee Houses be (for the future) Put down, and suppressed, and doth ... strictly charge and command all manner of persons, That they or any of them do not presume from and after the Tenth Day of January next ensuing, to keep any Public Coffee House, or to utter or sell by retail, in his, her or their house or houses (to be spent or consumed within the same) any Coffee, Chocolet, Sherbett or Tea, as they will answer the contrary at their utmost perils ... (all licenses to be revoked). Given at our Court at Whitehall, this third-and-twentieth day of Dec., 1675, in the seven-and-twentieth year of our Reign. GOD SAVE THE KING. And then a remarkable thing happened. It is not usual for a royal proclamation issued on the 29th of one month to be recalled on the 8th day of the next; but this is the record established by Charles II. The proclamation was made on December 23, 1675, and issued December 29, 1675. It forbade the coffee houses to operate after January 10, 1676. But so intense was the feeling aroused, that eleven days was sufficient time to convince the king that a blunder had been made. Men of all parties cried out against being deprived of their accustomed haunts. The dealers in coffee, tea, and chocolate demonstrated that the proclamation would greatly lessen his majesty's revenues. Convulsion and discontent loomed large. The king heeded the warning, and on January 8, 1676, another proclamation was issued by which the first proclamation was recalled. In order to save the king's face, it was solemnly recited that "His Gracious Majesty," out of his "princely consideration and royal compassion" would allow the retailers of coffee liquor to keep open until the 24th of the following June. But this was clearly only a royal subterfuge, as there was no further attempt at molestation, and it is extremely doubtful if any was contemplated at the time the second proclamation was promulgated. "Than both which proclamations nothing could argue greater guilt nor greater weakness," says Anderson. Robinson remarks, "A battle for freedom of speech was fought and won over this question at a time when Parliaments were infrequent and when the liberty of the press did not exist." "_Penny Universities_" We read in 1677 that "none dare venture into the coffee houses unless he be able to argue the question whether Parliament were dissolved or not." All through the years remaining in the seventeenth century, and through most of the eighteenth century, the London coffee houses grew and prospered. As before stated, they were originally temperance institutions, very different from the taverns and ale houses. "Within the walls of the coffee house there was always much noise, much clatter, much bustle, but decency was never outraged." At prices ranging from one to two pence per dish, the demand grew so great that coffee-house keepers were obliged to make the drink in pots holding eight or ten gallons. The seventeenth-century coffee houses were sometimes referred to as the "penny universities"; because they were great schools of conversation, and the entrance fee was only a penny. Two pence was the usual price of a dish of coffee or tea, this charge also covering newspapers and lights. It was the custom for the frequenter to lay his penny on the bar, on entering or leaving. Admission to the exchange of sparkling wit and brilliant conversation was within the reach of all. So great a _Universitie_ I think there ne're was any; In which you may a Schoolar be For spending of a Penny. "Regular customers," we are told, "had particular seats and special attention from the fair lady at the bar, and the tea and coffee boys." It is believed that the modern custom of tipping, and the word "tip," originated in the coffee houses, where frequently hung brass-bound boxes into which customers were expected to drop coins for the servants. The boxes were inscribed "To Insure Promptness" and from the initial letters of these words came "tip." The _National Review_ says, "before 1715 the number of coffee houses in London was reckoned at 2000." Dufour, who wrote in 1683, declares, upon information received from several persons who had staid in London, that there were 3000 of these places. However, 2000 is probably nearer the fact. In that critical time in English history, when the people, tired of the misgovernment of the later Stuarts, were most in need of a forum where questions of great moment could be discussed, the coffee house became a sanctuary. Here matters of supreme political import were threshed out and decided for the good of Englishmen for all time. And because many of these questions were so well thought out then, there was no need to fight them out later. England's great struggle for political liberty was really fought and won in the coffee house. To the end of the reign of Charles II, coffee was looked upon by the government rather as a new check upon license than an added luxury. After the revolution, the London coffee merchants were obliged to petition the House of Lords against new import duties, and it was not until the year 1692 that the government, "for the greater encouragement and advancement of trade and the greater importation of the said respective goods or merchandises," discharged one half of the obnoxious tariff. _Weird Coffee Substitutes_ Shortly after the "great fire," coffee substitutes began to appear. First came a liquor made with betony, "for the sake of those who could not accustom themselves to the bitter taste of coffee." Betony is a herb belonging to the mint family, and its root was formerly employed in medicine as an emetic or purgative. In 1719, when coffee was 7s. a pound, came bocket, later known as saloop, a decoction of sassafras and sugar, that became such a favorite among those who could not afford tea or coffee, that there were many saloop stalls in the streets of London. It was also sold at Read's coffee house in Fleet Street. _The Coffee Men Overreach Themselves_ The coffee-house keepers had become so powerful a force in the community in 1729 that they lost all sense of proportion; and we find them seriously proposing to usurp the functions of the newspapers. The vainglorious coffee men requested the government to hand over to them a journalistic monopoly; the argument being that the newspapers of the day were choked with advertisements, filled with foolish stories gathered by all-too enterprising newswriters, and that the only way for the government to escape "further excesses occasioned by the freedom of the press" and to rid itself of "those pests of society, the unlicensed newsvendors," was for it to intrust the coffee men, as "the chief supporters of liberty" with the publication of a _Coffee House Gazette_. Information for the journal was to be supplied by the habitués of the houses themselves, written down on brass slates or ivory tablets, and called for twice daily by the _Gazette's_ representatives. All the profits were to go to the coffee men--including the expected increase of custom. Needless to say, this amazing proposal of the coffee-house masters to have the public write its own newspapers met with the scorn and the derision it invited, and nothing ever came of it. The increasing demand for coffee caused the government tardily to seek to stimulate interest in the cultivation of the plant in British colonial possessions. It was tried out in Jamaica in 1730. By 1732 the experiment gave such promise that Parliament, "for encouraging the growth of coffee in His Majesty's plantations in America," reduced the inland duty on coffee coming from there, "but of none other," from two shillings to one shilling six pence per pound. "It seems that the French at Martinico, Hispaniola, and at the Isle de Bourbon, near Madagascar, had somewhat the start of the English in the new product as had also the Dutch at Surinam, yet none had hitherto been found to equal coffee from Arabia, whence all the rest of the world had theirs." Thus writes Adam Anderson in 1787, somewhat ungraciously seeking to damn England's business rivals with faint praise. Java coffee was even then in the lead, and the seeds of Bourbon-Santos were multiplying rapidly in Brazilian soil. The British East India Company, however, was much more interested in tea than in coffee. Having lost out to the French and Dutch on the "little brown berry of Arabia," the company engaged in so lively a propaganda for "the cup that cheers" that, whereas the annual tea imports from 1700 to 1710 averaged 800,000 pounds, in 1721 more than 1,000,000 pounds of tea were brought in. In 1757, some 4,000,000 pounds were imported. And when the coffee house finally succumbed, tea, and not coffee, was firmly intrenched as the national drink of the English people. A movement in 1873 to revive the coffee house in the form of a coffee "palace," designed to replace the public house as a place of resort for working men, caused the Edinburgh Castle to be opened in London. The movement attained considerable success throughout the British Isles, and even spread to the United States. _Evolution of the Club_ Every profession, trade, class, and party had its favorite coffee house. "The bitter black drink called coffee," as Mr. Pepys described the beverage, brought together all sorts and conditions of men; and out of their mixed association there developed groups of patrons favoring particular houses and giving them character. It is easy to trace the transition of the group into a clique that later became a club, continuing for a time to meet at the coffee house or the chocolate house, but eventually demanding a house of its own. _Decline and Fall of the Coffee House_ Starting as a forum for the commoner, "the coffee house soon became the plaything of the leisure class; and when the club was evolved, the coffee house began to retrograde to the level of the tavern. And so the eighteenth century, which saw the coffee house at the height of its power and popularity, witnessed also its decline and fall. It is said there were as many clubs at the end of the century as there were coffee houses at the beginning." For a time, when the habit of reading newspapers descended the social ladder, the coffee house acquired a new lease of life. Sir Walter Besant observes: They were then frequented by men who came, not to talk, but to read; the smaller tradesmen and the better class of mechanic now came to the coffee-house, called for a cup of coffee, and with it the daily paper, which they could not afford to take in. Every coffee-house took three or four papers; there seems to have been in this latter phase of the once social institution no general conversation. The coffee-house as a place of resort and conversation gradually declined; one can hardly say why, except that all human institutions do decay. Perhaps manners declined; the leaders in literature ceased to be seen there; the city clerk began to crowd in; the tavern and the club drew men from the coffee-house. A few houses survived until the early years of the nineteenth century, but the social side had disappeared. As tea and coffee entered the homes, and the exclusive club house succeeded the democratic coffee forum, the coffee houses became taverns or chop houses, or, convinced that they had outlived their usefulness, just ceased to be. _Pen Pictures of Coffee-House Life_ From the writings of Addison in the _Spectator_, Steele in the _Tatler_, Mackay in his _Journey Through England_, Macaulay in his history, and others, it is possible to draw a fairly accurate pen-picture of life in the old London coffee house. In the seventeenth century the coffee room usually opened off the street. At first only tables and chairs were spread about on a sanded floor. Later, this arrangement was succeeded by the boxes, or booths, such as appear in the Rowlandson caricatures, the picture of the interior of Lloyds, etc. The walls were decorated with handbills and posters advertising the quack medicines, pills, tinctures, salves, and electuaries of the period, all of which might be purchased at the bar near the entrance, presided over by a prototype of the modern English barmaid. There were also bills of the play, auction notices, etc., depending upon the character of the place. Then, as now, the barmaids were made much of by patrons. Tom Brown refers to them as charming "Phillises who invite you by their amorous glances into their smoaky territories." Messages were left and letters received at the bar for regular customers. Stella was instructed to address her letters to Swift, "under cover to Addison at the St. James's coffee house." Says Macaulay: Foreigners remarked that it was the coffee house which specially distinguished London from all other cities; that the coffee house was the Londoner's home, and that those who wished to find a gentleman commonly asked, not whether he lived in Fleet Street or Chancery Lane, but whether he frequented the Grecian or the Rainbow. [Illustration: MAP SHOWING THE LOCATION OF MANY OF THE OLD LONDON COFFEE HOUSES PREVIOUS TO THE FIRE OF 1748] So every man of the upper or middle classes went daily to his coffee house to learn the news and to discuss it. The better class houses were the meeting places of the most substantial men in the community. Every coffee house had its orator, who became to his admirers a kind of "fourth estate of the realm." Macaulay gives us the following picture of the coffee house of 1685: Nobody was excluded from these places who laid down his penny at the bar. Yet every rank and profession, and every shade of religious and political opinion had its own headquarters. There were houses near St. James' Park, where fops congregated, their heads and shoulders covered with black or flaxen wigs, not less ample than those which are now worn by the Chancellor and by the Speaker of the House of Commons. The atmosphere was like that of a perfumer's shop. Tobacco in any form than that of richly scented snuff was held in abomination. If any clown, ignorant of the usages of the house, called for a pipe, the sneers of the whole assembly and the short answers of the waiters soon convinced him that he had better go somewhere else. Nor, indeed, would he have far to go. For, in general, the coffee-houses reeked with tobacco like a guard room. Nowhere was the smoking more constant than at Will's. That celebrated house, situated between Covent Garden and Bow street, was sacred to polite letters. There the talk was about poetical justice and the unities of place and time. Under no roof was a greater variety of figures to be seen. There were earls in stars and garters, clergymen in cassocks and bands, pert Templars, sheepish lads from universities, translators and index makers in ragged coats of frieze. The great press was to get near the chair where John Dryden sate. In winter that chair was always in the warmest nook by the fire; in summer it stood in the balcony. To bow to the Laureate, and to hear his opinion of Racine's last tragedy, or of Bossu's treatise on epic poetry, was thought a privilege. A pinch from his snuff-box was an honour sufficient to turn the head of a young enthusiast. There were coffee-houses where the first medical men might be consulted. Dr. John Radcliffe, who, in the year 1685, rose to the largest practice in London, came daily, at the hour when the Exchange was full, from his house in Bow street, then a fashionable part of the capital, to Garraway's, and was to be found, surrounded by surgeons and apothecaries, at a particular table. There were Puritan coffee-houses where no oath was heard, and where lank-haired men discussed election and reprobation through their noses; Jew coffee-houses, where dark-eyed money changers from Venice and Amsterdam greeted each other; and Popish coffee-houses, where, as good Protestants believed, Jesuits planned over their cups another great fire, and cast silver bullets to shoot the King. Ned Ward gives us this picture of the coffee house of the seventeenth century. He is describing Old Man's, Scotland Yard: We now ascended a pair of stairs, which brought us into an old-fashioned room, where a gaudy crowd of odoriferous Tom-Essences were walking backwards and forwards, with their hats in their hands, not daring to convert them to their intended use lest it should put the foretops of their wigs into some disorder. We squeezed through till we got to the end of the room, where, at a small table, we sat down, and observed that it was as great a rarity to hear anybody call for a dish of politicians porridge, or any other liquor, as it is to hear a beau call for a pipe of tobacco; their whole exercise being to charge and discharge their nostrils and keep the curls of their periwigs in their proper order. The clashing of their snush-box lids, in opening and shutting, made more noise than their tongues. Bows and cringes of the newest mode were here exchanged 'twixt friend and friend with wonderful exactness. They made a humming like so many hornets in a country chimney, not with their talking, but with their whispering over their new Minuets and Bories, with the hands in their pockets, if only freed from their snush-box. We now began to be thoughtful of a pipe of tobacco, whereupon we ventured to call for some instruments of evaporation, which were accordingly brought us, but with such a kind of unwillingness, as if they would much rather been rid of our company; for their tables were so very neat, and shined with rubbing like the upper-leathers of an alderman's shoes, and as brown as the top of a country housewife's cupboard. The floor was as clean swept as a Sir Courtly's dining room, which made us look round to see if there were no orders hung up to impose the forfeiture of so much mop-money upon any person that should spit out of the chimney-corner. Notwithstanding we wanted an example to encourage us in our porterly rudeness, we ordered them to light the wax candle, by which we ignified our pipes and blew about our whiffs; at which several Sir Foplins drew their faces into as many peevish wrinkles as the beaux at the Bow Street Coffee-house, near Covent Garden, did when the gentleman in masquerade came in amongst them, with his oyster-barrel muff and turnip-buttons, to ridicule their foperies. In _A Brief and Merry History of Great Britain_ we read: There is a prodigious number of Coffee-Houses in London, after the manner I have seen some in Constantinople. These Coffee-Houses are the constant Rendezvous for Men of Business as well as the idle People. Besides Coffee, there are many other Liquors, which People cannot well relish at first. They smoak Tobacco, game and read Papers of Intelligence; here they treat of Matters of State, make Leagues with Foreign Princes, break them again, and transact Affairs of the last Consequence to the whole World. They represent these Coffee-Houses as the most agreeable things in London, and they are, in my Opinion, very proper Places to find People that a Man has Business with, or to pass away the Time a little more agreeably than he can do at home; but in other respects they are loathsome, full of smoak, like a Guard-Room, and as much crowded. I believe 'tis these Places that furnish the Inhabitants with Slander, for there one hears exact Account of everything done in Town, as if it were but a Village. At those Coffee-Houses, near the Courts, called White's, St. James's, Williams's, the Conversation turns chiefly upon the Equipages, Essence, Horse-Matches, Tupees, Modes and Mortgages; the Cocoa-Tree upon Bribery and Corruption, Evil ministers, Errors and Mistakes in Government; the Scotch Coffee-Houses towards Charing Cross, on Places and Pensions; the Tiltyard and Young Man's on Affronts, Honour, Satisfaction, Duels and Rencounters. I was informed that the latter happen so frequently, in this part of the Town, that a Surgeon and a Sollicitor are kept constantly in waiting; the one to dress and heal such Wounds as may be given, and the other in case of Death to bring off the Survivor with a Verdict of Se Devendendo or Manslaughter. In those Coffee-Houses about the Temple the Subjects are generally on Causes, Costs, Demurrers, Rejoinders and Exceptions; Daniel's the Welch Coffee-House in Fleet Street, on Births, Pedigrees and Descents; Child's and the Chapter upon Glebes, Tithes, Advowsons, Rectories and Lectureships; North's Undue Elections, False Polling, Scrutinies, etc.; Hamlin's, Infant-Baptism, Lay-Ordination, Free-Will, Election and Reprobation; Batson's, the Prices of Pepper, Indigo and Salt-Petre; and all those about the Exchange, where the Merchants meet to transact their Affairs, are in a perpetual hurry about Stock-Jobbing, Lying, Cheating, Tricking Widows and Orphans, and committing Spoil and Rapine on the Publick. [Illustration: WHITE'S AND BROOKES', ST. JAMES'S STREET] In the eighteenth century beer and wine were commonly sold at the coffee houses in addition to tea and chocolate. Daniel Defoe, writing of his visit to Shrewsbury in 1724, says, "I found there the most coffee houses around the Town Hall that ever I saw in any town, but when you come into them they are but ale houses, only they think that the name coffee house gives a better air." Speaking of the coffee houses of the city, Besant says: Rich merchants alone ventured to enter certain of the coffee houses, where they transacted business more privately and more expeditiously than on the Exchange. There were coffee houses where officers of the army alone were found; where the city shopkeeper met his chums; where actors congregated; where only divines, only lawyers, only physicians, only wits and those who came to hear them were found. In all alike the visitor put down his penny and went in, taking his own seat if he was an habitue; he called for a cup of tea or coffee and paid his twopence for it; he could call also, if he pleased, for a cordial; he was expected to talk with his neighbour whether he knew him or not. Men went to certain coffee houses in order to meet the well-known poets and writers who were to be found there, as Pope went in search of Dryden. The daily papers and the pamphlets of the day were taken in. Some of the coffee houses, but not the more respectable, allowed the use of tobacco. [Illustration: COFFEE HOUSE POLITICIANS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY] [Illustration: THE GREAT FAIR ON THE FROZEN THAMES--1683 From a broadside entitled _Wonders on the Deep_. Figure 2 is the Duke of York's Coffee House] Mackay, in his _Journey Through England_ (1724), says: We rise by nine, and those that frequent great men's levees find entertainment at them till eleven, or, as in Holland, go to tea-tables; about twelve the _beau monde_ assemble in several coffee or chocolate houses; the best of which are the Cocoatree and White's chocolate houses, St. James', the Smyrna, Mrs. Rochford's and the British coffee houses; and all these so near one another that in less than an hour you see the company of them all. We are carried to these places in chairs (or sedans), which are here very cheap, a guinea a week, or a shilling per hour, and your chairmen serve you for porters to run on errands, as your gondoliers do at Venice. If it be fine weather we take a turn into the park till two, when we go to dinner; and if it be dirty, you are entertained at picquet or basset at White's, or you may talk politics at the Smyrna or St. James'. I must not forget to tell you that the parties have their different places, where, however, a stranger is always well received; but a Whig will no more go to the Cocoatree than a Tory will be seen at the Coffee House, St James'. The Scots go generally to the British, and a mixture of all sorts go to the Smyrna. There are other little coffee houses much frequented in this neighborhood--Young Man's for officers; Old Man's for stock jobbers, paymasters and courtiers, and Little Man's for sharpers. I never was so confounded in my life as when I entered into this last. I saw two or three tables full at faro, and was surrounded by a set of sharp faces that I was afraid would have devoured me with their eyes. I was glad to drop two or three half crowns at faro to get off with a clear skin, and was overjoyed I so got rid of them. At two we generally go to dinner; ordinaries are not so common here as abroad, yet the French have set up two or three good ones for the convenience of foreigners in Suffolk street, where one is tolerably well served; but the general way here is to make a party at the coffee house to go to dine at the tavern, where we sit till six, when we go to the play, except you are invited to the table of some great man, which strangers are always courted to and nobly entertained. Mackay writes that "in all the coffee houses you have not only the foreign prints but several English ones with foreign occurrences, besides papers of morality and party disputes." "After the play," writes Defoe, "the best company generally go to Tom's and Will's coffee houses, near adjoining, where there is playing at picquet and the best of conversation till midnight. Here you will see blue and green ribbons and stars sitting familiarly and talking with the same freedom as if they had left their equality and degrees of distance at home." [Illustration: THE LION'S HEAD AT BUTTON'S COFFEE HOUSE Designed by Hogarth, and put up by Addison, 1713 From a water color by T.H. Shepherd] Before entering the coffee house every one was recommended by the _Tatler_ to prepare his body with three dishes of bohea and to purge his brains with two pinches of snuff. Men had their coffee houses as now they have their clubs--sometimes contented with one, sometimes belonging to three or four. Johnson, for instance, was connected with St. James's, the Turk's Head, the Bedford, Peele's, besides the taverns which he frequented. Addison and Steele used Button's; Swift, Button's, the Smyrna, and St. James's; Dryden, Will's; Pope, Will's and Button's; Goldsmith, the St. James's and the Chapter; Fielding, the Bedford; Hogarth, the Bedford and Slaughter's; Sheridan, the Piazza; Thurlow, Nando's. _Some Famous Coffee Houses_ Among the famous English coffee houses of the seventeenth-eighteenth century period were St. James's, Will's, Garraway's, White's, Slaughter's, the Grecian, Button's, Lloyd's, Tom's, and Don Saltero's. St. James's was a Whig house frequented by members of Parliament, with a fair sprinkling of literary stars. Garraway's catered to the gentry of the period, many of whom naturally had Tory proclivities. One of the notable coffee houses of Queen Anne's reign was Button's. Here Addison could be found almost every afternoon and evening, along with Steele, Davenant, Carey, Philips, and other kindred minds. Pope was a member of the same coffee house club for a year, but his inborn irascibility eventually led him to drop out of it. At Button's a lion's head, designed by Hogarth after the Lion of Venice, "a proper emblem of knowledge and action, being all head and paws," was set up to receive letters and papers for the _Guardian_.[82] The _Tatler_ and the _Spectator_ were born in the coffee house, and probably English prose would never have received the impetus given it by the essays of Addison and Steele had it not been for coffee house associations. Pope's famous _Rape of the Lock_ grew out of coffee-house gossip. The poem itself contains one charming passage on coffee.[83] Another frequenter of the coffee houses of London, when he had the money to do so, was Daniel Defoe, whose _Robinson Crusoe_ was the precursor of the English novel. Henry Fielding, one of the greatest of all English novelists, loved the life of the more bohemian coffee houses, and was, in fact, induced to write his first great novel, _Joseph Andrews_, through coffee-house criticisms of Richardson's _Pamela_. Other frequenters of the coffee houses of the period were Thomas Gray and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Garrick was often to be seen at Tom's in Birchin Lane, where also Chatterton might have been found on many an evening before his untimely death. _The London Pleasure Gardens_ The second half of the eighteenth century was covered by the reigns of the Georges. The coffee houses were still an important factor in London life, but were influenced somewhat by the development of gardens in which were served tea, chocolate, and other drinks, as well as coffee. At the coffee houses themselves, while coffee remained the favorite beverage, the proprietors, in the hope of increasing their patronage, began to serve wine, ale, and other liquors. This seems to have been the first step toward the decay of the coffee house. [Illustration: A TRIO OF NOTABLES AT BUTTON'S IN 1730 The figure in the cloak is Count Viviani; of the figures facing the reader, the draughts player is Dr. Arbuthnot, and the figure standing is assumed to be Pope] The coffee houses, however, continued to be the centers of intellectual life. When Samuel Johnson and David Garrick came together to London, literature was temporarily in a bad way, and the hack writers of the time dwelt in Grub Street. It was not until after Johnson had met with some success, and had established the first of his coffee-house clubs at the Turk's Head, that literature again became a fashionable profession. This really famous literary club met at the Turk's Head from 1763 to 1783. Among the most notable members were Johnson, the arbiter of English prose; Oliver Goldsmith; Boswell, the biographer; Burke, the orator; Garrick, the actor; and Sir Joshua Reynolds, the painter. Among the later members were Gibbon, the historian; and Adam Smith, the political economist. Certain it is that during the sway of the English coffee house, and at least partly through its influence, England produced a better prose literature, as embodied alike in her essays, literary criticisms, and novels, than she ever had produced before. The advent of the pleasure garden brought coffee out into the open in England; and one of the reasons why gardens, such as Ranelagh and Vauxhall, began to be more frequented than the coffee houses was that they were popular resorts for women as well as for men. All kinds of beverages were served in them; and soon the women began to favor tea as an afternoon drink. At least, the great development in the use of tea dates from this period; and many of these resorts called themselves tea gardens. The use of coffee by this time, however, was well established in the homes as a breakfast and dinner beverage, and such consumption more than made up for any loss sustained through the gradual decadence of the coffee house. Yet signs of the change in national taste that arrived with the Georges were not wanting; for the active propaganda of the British East India Company was fairly well launched during Queen Anne's reign. The London pleasure gardens of the eighteenth century were unique. At one time there was a "mighty maze" of them. Their season extended from April or May to August or September. At first there was no charge for admission, but Warwick Wroth[84] tells us that visitors usually purchased cheese cakes, syllabubs, tea, coffee and ale. The four best-known London gardens were Vauxhall; Marylebone; Cuper's, where the charge for admission subsequently was fixed at not less than a shilling; and Ranelagh, where the charge of half a crown included "the Elegant Regale" of tea, coffee, and bread and butter. The pleasure gardens provided walks, rooms for dancing, skittle grounds, bowling greens, variety entertainments, and promenade concerts; and not a few places were given over to fashionable gambling and racing. The Vauxhall Gardens, one of the most favored resorts of pleasure-seeking Londoners, were located on the Surrey side of the Thames, a short distance east of Vauxhall Bridge. They were originally known as the New Spring Gardens (1661), to distinguish them from the old Spring Gardens at Charing Cross. They became famous in the reign of Charles II. Vauxhall was celebrated for its walks, lit with thousands of lamps, its musical and other performances, suppers, and fireworks. High and low were to be found there, and the drinking of tea and coffee in the arbors was a feature. The illustration shows the garden brightly illuminated by lanterns and lamps on some festival occasion. Coffee and tea were served in the arbors. [Illustration: VAUXHALL GARDENS ON A GALA NIGHT] The Ranelagh, "a place of public entertainment," erected at Chelsea in 1742, was a kind of Vauxhall under cover. The principal room, known as the Rotunda, was circular in shape, 150 feet in diameter, and had an orchestra in the center and tiers of boxes all around. Promenading and taking refreshments in the boxes were the principal divertisements. Except on gala nights of masquerades and fireworks, only tea, coffee, bread and butter were to be had at Ranelagh. [Illustration: THE ROTUNDA IN RANELAGH GARDENS WITH THE COMPANY AT BREAKFAST--1751] In the group of gardens connected with mineral springs was the Dog and Duck (St. George's Spa), which became at last a tea garden and a dancing saloon of doubtful repute. Still another division, recognized by Wroth, consisted mainly of tea gardens, among them Highbury Barn, The Canonbury House, Hornsey and Copenhagen House, Bagnigge Wells, and White Conduit House. The two last named were the classic tea gardens of the period. Both were provided with "long rooms" in case of rain, and for indoor promenades with organ music. Then there were the Adam and Eve tea gardens, with arbors for tea-drinking parties, which subsequently became the Adam and Eve Tavern and Coffee House. Well known were the Bayswater Tea Gardens and the Jews Harp House and Tea Gardens. All these were provided with neat, "genteel" boxes, let into the hedges and alcoves, for tea and coffee drinkers. _Locating the Notable Coffee Houses_ GARRAWAY'S, 3 'Change Alley, Cornhill, was a place for great mercantile transactions. Thomas Garway, the original proprietor, was a tobacconist and coffee man, who claimed to be the first that sold tea in England, although not at this address. The later Garraway's was long famous as a sandwich and drinking room for sherry, pale ale, and punch, in addition to tea and coffee. It is said that the sandwich-maker was occupied two hours in cutting and arranging the sandwiches for the day's consumption. After the "great fire" of 1666 GARRAWAY'S moved into the same place in Exchange Alley where Elford had been before the fire. Here he claimed to have the oldest coffee house in London; but the ground on which BOWMAN'S had stood was occupied later by the VIRGINIA and the JAMAICA coffee houses. The latter was damaged by the fire of 1748 which consumed GARRAWAY'S and ELFORD'S (see map of the 1748 fire). WILL'S, the predecessor of BUTTON'S, first had the title of the RED COW, then of the ROSE. It was kept by William Urwin, and was on the north side of Russell Street at the corner of Bow Street. "It was Dryden who made Will's coffee house the great resort of the wits of his time." (_Pope_ and _Spence_.) The room in which the poet was accustomed to sit was on the first floor; and his place was the place of honor by the fireside in the winter, and at the corner of the balcony, looking over the street, in fine weather; he called the two places his winter and his summer seat. This was called the dining-room floor. The company did not sit in boxes as subsequently, but at various tables which were dispersed through the room. Smoking was permitted in the public room; it was then so much in vogue that it does not seem to have been considered a nuisance. Here, as in other similar places of meeting, the visitors divided themselves into parties; and we are told by Ward that the young beaux and wits, who seldom approached the principal table, thought it a great honor to have a pinch out of Dryden's snuff-box. After Dryden's death WILL'S was transferred to a house opposite, and became BUTTON'S, "over against THOMAS'S in Covent Garden." Thither also Addison transferred much company from THOMAS'S. Here Swift first saw Addison. Hither also came "Steele, Arbuthnot and many other wits of the time." BUTTON'S continued in vogue until Addison's death and Steele's retirement into Wales, after which the coffee drinkers went to the BEDFORD, dinner parties to the SHAKESPEARE. BUTTON'S was subsequently known as the CALEDONIEN. [Illustration: GARRAWAY'S COFFEE HOUSE IN 'CHANGE ALLEY Garway (or Garraway) claimed to have been first to sell Tea in England] [Illustration: BUTTON'S COFFEE HOUSE, GREAT RUSSELL STREET Afterward it became the Caledonien From a water color by T.H. Shepherd] SLAUGHTER'S, famous as the resort of painters and sculptors in the eighteenth century, was situated at the upper end of the west side of St. Martin's Lane. Its first landlord was Thomas Slaughter, 1692. A second SLAUGHTER'S (NEW SLAUGHTER'S) was established in the same street in 1760, when the original SLAUGHTER'S adopted the name of OLD SLAUGHTER'S. It was torn down in 1843-44. Among the notables who frequented it were Hogarth; young Gainsborough; Cipriani; Haydon; Roubiliac; Hudson, who painted the Dilettanti portraits; M'Ardell, the mezzotinto-scraper; Luke Sullivan, the engraver; Gardell, the portrait painter; and Parry, the Welsh harper. TOM'S, in Birchin Lane, Cornhill, though in the main a mercantile resort, acquired some celebrity from having been frequented by Garrick. TOM'S was also frequented by Chatterton, as a place "of the best resort." Then there was TOM'S in Devereux Court, Strand, and TOM'S at 17 Great Russell Street, Covent Garden, opposite BUTTON'S, a celebrated resort during the reign of Queen Anne and for more than a century after. THE GRECIAN, Devereux Court, Strand, was originally kept by one Constantine, a Greek. From this house Steele proposed to date his learned articles in the _Tatler_; it is mentioned in No. 1 of the _Spectator_, and it was much frequented by Goldsmith. The GRECIAN was Foote's morning lounge. In 1843 the premises became the Grecian Chambers, with a bust of Lord Devereux, earl of Essex, over the door. [Illustration: SLAUGHTER'S COFFEE HOUSE, ST. MARTIN'S LANE It was taken down in 1843 From a water color by T.H. Shepherd, 1841] [Illustration: TOM'S COFFEE HOUSE, 17 GREAT RUSSELL STREET Used as a coffee house until 1804 and razed in 1865 From a water color by T.H. Shepherd] LLOYD'S, Royal Exchange, celebrated for its priority of shipping intelligence and its marine insurance, originated with Edward Lloyd, who about 1688 kept a coffee house in Tower Street, later in Lombard Street corner of Abchurch Lane. It was a modest place of refreshment for seafarers and merchants. As a matter of convenience, Edward Lloyd prepared "ships' lists" for the guidance of the frequenters of the coffee house. "These lists, which were written by hand, contained," according to Andrew Scott, "an account of vessels which the underwriters who met there were likely to have offered them for insurance." Such was the beginning of two institutions that have since exercised a dominant influence on the sea-carrying trade of the whole world--the Royal Exchange Lloyd's, the greatest insurance institution in the world, and Lloyd's Register of Shipping. Lloyd's now has 1400 agents in all parts of the world. It receives as many as 100,000 telegrams a year. It records through its intelligence service the daily movements of 11,000 vessels. In the beginning one of the apartments in the Exchange was fitted up as LLOYD'S coffee room. Edward Lloyd died in 1712. Subsequently the coffee house was in Pope's Head Alley, where it was called NEW LLOYD'S coffee house, but on September 14, 1784, it was removed to the northwest corner of the Royal Exchange, where it remained until the partial destruction of that building by fire. [Illustration: LLOYD'S COFFEE HOUSE IN THE ROYAL EXCHANGE, SHOWING THE SUBSCRIPTION ROOM] In rebuilding the Exchange there were provided the Subscribers' or Underwriters' room, the Merchants' room, and the Captains' room. _The City_, second edition, 1848, contains the following description of this most famous rendezvous of eminent merchants, shipowners, underwriters, insurance, stock and exchange brokers: Here is obtained the earliest news of the arrival and sailing of vessels, losses at sea, captures, recaptures, engagements and other shipping intelligence; and proprietors of ships and freights are insured by the underwriters. The rooms are in the Venetian style with Roman enrichments. At the entrance of the room are exhibited the Shipping Lists, received from Lloyd's agents at home and abroad, and affording particulars of departures or arrivals of vessels, wrecks, salvage, or sale of property saved, etc. To the right and left are "Lloyd's Books," two enormous ledgers. Right hand, ships "spoken with" or arrived at their destined ports; left hand, records of wrecks, fires or severe collisions, written in a fine Roman hand in "double lines." To assist the underwriters in their calculations, at the end of the room is an Anemometer, which registers the state of the wind day and night; attached is a rain gauge. THE BRITISH, Cockspur Street, "long a house of call for Scotchmen," was fortunate in its landladies. In 1759 it was kept by the sister of Bishop Douglas, so well known for his works against Lauder and Bower, which may explain its Scottish fame. At another period it was kept by Mrs. Anderson, described in Mackenzie's _Life of Home_ as "a woman of uncommon talents and the most agreeable conversation." DON SALTERO'S, 18 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, was opened by a barber named Salter in 1695. Sir Hans Sloane contributed of his own collection some of the refuse gimcracks that were to be found in Salter's "museum." Vice-Admiral Munden, who had been long on the coast of Spain, where he had acquired a fondness for Spanish titles, named the keeper of the house Don Saltero, and his coffee house and museum DON SALTERO'S. SQUIRE'S was in Fulwood's Rents, Holburn, running up to Gray's Inn. It was one of the receiving houses of the _Spectator_. In No. 269 the _Spectator_ accepts Sir Roger de Coverley's invitation to "smoke a pipe with him over a dish of coffee at Squire's. As I love the old man, I take delight in complying with everything that is agreeable to him, and accordingly waited on him to the coffee-house, where his venerable figure drew upon us the eyes of the whole room. He had no sooner seated himself at the upper end of the high table, but he called for a clean pipe, a paper of tobacco, a dish of coffee, a wax candle and the 'Supplement' (a periodical paper of that time), with such an air of cheerfulness and good humour, that all the boys in the coffee room (who seemed to take pleasure in serving him) were at once employed on his several errands, insomuch that nobody else could come at a dish of tea until the Knight had got all his conveniences about him." Such was the coffee room in the _Spectator's_ day. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF DICK'S COFFEE HOUSE From the frontispiece to "The Coffee House--a dramatick Piece" (see chapter XXXII)] THE COCOA-TREE was originally a coffee house on the south side of Pall Mall. When there grew up a need for "places of resort of a more elegant and refined character," chocolate houses came into vogue, and the COCOA-TREE was the most famous of these. It was converted into a club in 1746. [Illustration: THE GRECIAN COFFEE HOUSE, DEVEREUX COURT It was closed in 1843. From a drawing dated 1809] WHITE'S chocolate house, established by Francis White about 1693 in St. James's Street, originally open to any one as a coffee house, soon became a private club, composed of "the most fashionable exquisites of the town and court." In its coffee-house days, the entrance was sixpence, as compared with the average penny fee of the other coffee houses. Escott refers to WHITE'S as being "the one specimen of the class to which it belongs, of a place at which, beneath almost the same roof, and always bearing the same name, whether as coffee house or club, the same class of persons has congregated during more than two hundred years." Among hundreds of other coffee houses that flourished during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the following more notable ones are deserving of mention: [Illustration: DON SALTERO'S COFFEE HOUSE, CHEYNE WALK From a steel engraving in the British Museum] [Illustration: THE BRITISH COFFEE HOUSE IN COCKSPUR STREET From a print published in 1770] BAKER'S, 58 'Change Alley, for nearly half a century noted for its chops and steaks broiled in the coffee room and eaten hot from the gridiron; the BALTIC, in Threadneedle Street, the rendezvous of brokers and merchants connected with the Russian trade; the BEDFORD, "under the Piazza, in Covent Garden," crowded every night with men of parts and "signalized for many years as the emporium of wit, the seat of criticism and the standard of taste"; the CHAPTER, in Paternoster Row, frequented by Chatterton and Goldsmith; CHILD'S, in St. Paul's Churchyard, one of the _Spectator's_ houses, and much frequented by the clergy and fellows of the Royal Society; DICK'S, in Fleet Street, frequented by Cowper, and the scene of Rousseau's comedietta, entitled _The Coffee House_; ST. JAMES'S, in St. James's Street, frequented by Swift, Goldsmith, and Garrick; JERUSALEM, in Cowper's Court, Cornhill, frequented by merchants and captains connected with the commerce of China, India, and Australia; JONATHAN'S, in 'Change Alley, described by the _Tatler_ as "the general mart of stock jobbers"; the LONDON, in Ludgate Hill, noted for its publishers' sales of stock and copyrights; MAN'S, in Scotland Yard, which took its name from the proprietor, Alexander Man, and was sometimes known as OLD MAN'S, or the ROYAL, to distinguish it from YOUNG MAN'S, LITTLE MAN'S, NEW MAN'S, etc., minor establishments in the neighborhood;[85] NANDO'S, in Fleet Street, the favorite haunt of Lord Thurlow and many professional loungers, attracted by the fame of the punch and the charms of the landlady; NEW ENGLAND AND NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICAN, in Threadneedle Street, having on its subscription list representatives of Barings, Rothschilds, and other wealthy establishments; PEELE'S, in Fleet Street, having a portrait of Dr. Johnson said to have been painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds; the PERCY, in Oxford Street, the inspiration for the _Percy Anecdotes_; the PIAZZA, in Covent Garden, where Macklin fitted up a large coffee room, or theater, for oratory, and Fielding and Foote poked fun at him; the RAINBOW, in Fleet Street, the second coffee house opened in London, having its token money; the SMYRNA, in Pall Mall, a "place to talk politics," and frequented by Prior and Swift; TOM KING'S, one of the old night houses of Covent Garden Market, "well known to all gentlemen to whom beds are unknown"; the TURK'S HEAD, 'Change Alley, which also had its tokens; the TURK'S HEAD, in the Strand, which was a favorite supping house for Dr. Johnson and Boswell; the FOLLY, a coffee house on a house-boat on the Thames, which became quite notorious during Queen Anne's reign. [Illustration: THE FRENCH COFFEE HOUSE IN LONDON, SECOND HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY From the original water-color drawing by Thomas Rowlandson] [Illustration] [Illustration: RAMPONAUX' ROYAL DRUMMER, ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR OF THE EARLY PARISIAN CAFÉS Started originally as a tavern, this hostelry added coffee to its cuisine and became famous in the reign of Louis XV The illustration is from an early print used to advertise the "Royal Drummer's" attractions] CHAPTER XI HISTORY OF THE EARLY PARISIAN COFFEE HOUSES _The introduction of coffee into Paris by Thévenot in 1657--How Soliman Aga established the custom of coffee drinking at the court of Louis XIV--Opening the first coffee houses--How the French adaptation of the Oriental coffee house first appeared in the real French café of François Procope--The important part played by the coffee houses in the development of French literature and the stage--Their association with the Revolution and the founding of the Republic--Quaint customs and patrons--Historic Parisian cafés_ If we are to accept the authority of Jean La Roque, "before the year 1669 coffee had scarcely been seen in Paris, except at M. Thévenot's and at the homes of some of his friends. Nor had it been heard of except in the writings of travelers." As noted in chapter V, Jean de Thévenot brought coffee into Paris in 1657. One account says that a decoction, supposed to have been coffee, was sold by a Levantine in the Petit Châtelet under the name of _cohove_ or _cahoue_ during the reign of Louis XIII, but this lacks confirmation. Louis XIV is said to have been served with coffee for the first time in 1664. Soon after the arrival, in July, 1669, of the Turkish ambassador, Soliman Aga, it became noised abroad that he had brought with him for his own use, and that of his retinue, great quantities of coffee. He "treated several persons with it, both in the court and the city." At length "many accustomed themselves to it with sugar, and others who found benefit by it could not leave it off." Within six months all Paris was talking of the sumptuous coffee functions of the ambassador from Mohammed IV to the court of Louis XIV. Isaac D'Israeli best describes them in his _Curiosities of Literature_: On bended knee, the black slaves of the Ambassador, arrayed in the most gorgeous Oriental costumes, served the choicest Mocha coffee in tiny cups of egg-shell porcelain, hot, strong and fragrant, poured out in saucers of gold and silver, placed on embroidered silk doylies fringed with gold bullion, to the grand dames, who fluttered their fans with many grimaces, bending their piquant faces--be-rouged, be-powdered and be-patched--over the new and steaming beverage. It was in 1669 or 1672 that Madame de Sévigné (Marie de Rabutin-Chantal; 1626-96), the celebrated French letter-writer, is said to have made that famous prophecy, "There are two things Frenchmen will never swallow--coffee and Racine's poetry," sometimes abbreviated into, "Racine and coffee will pass." What Madame really said, according to one authority, was that Racine was writing for Champmeslé, the actress, and not for posterity; again, of coffee she said, "_s'en dégoûterait comme; d'un indigne favori_" (People will become disgusted with it as with an unworthy favorite). Larousse says the double judgment was wrongly attributed to Mme. de Sévigné. The celebrated aphorism, like many others, was forged later. Mme. de Sévigné said, "Racine made his comedies for the Champmeslé--not for the ages to come." This was in 1672. Four years later, she said to her daughter, "You have done well to quit coffee. Mlle. de Mere has also given it up." [Illustration: COFFEE WAS FIRST SOLD AND SERVED PUBLICLY IN THE FAIR OF ST.-GERMAIN From a Seventeenth-Century Print] However it may have been, the amiable letter-writer was destined to live to see Frenchmen yielding at once to the lure of coffee and to the poetical artifices of the greatest dramatic craftsman of his day. While it is recorded that coffee made slow progress with the court of Louis XIV, the next king, Louis XV, to please his mistress, du Barry, gave it a tremendous vogue. It is related that he spent $15,000 a year for coffee for his daughters. Meanwhile, in 1672, one Pascal, an Armenian, first sold coffee publicly in Paris. Pascal, who, according to one account, was brought to Paris by Soliman Aga, offered the beverage for sale from a tent, which was also a kind of booth, in the fair of St.-Germain, supplemented by the service of Turkish waiter boys, who peddled it among the crowds from small cups on trays. The fair was held during the first two months of spring, in a large open plot just inside the walls of Paris and near the Latin Quarter. As Pascal's waiter boys circulated through the crowds on those chilly days the fragrant odor of freshly made coffee brought many ready sales of the steaming beverage; and soon visitors to the fair learned to look for the "little black" cupful of cheer, or _petit noir_, a name that still endures. When the fair closed, Pascal opened a small coffee shop on the Quai de l'École, near the Pont Neuf; but his frequenters were of a type who preferred the beers and wines of the day, and coffee languished. Pascal continued, however, to send his waiter boys with their large coffee jugs, that were heated by lamps, through the streets of Paris and from door to door. Their cheery cry of "_café! café!_" became a welcome call to many a Parisian, who later missed his _petit noir_ when Pascal gave up and moved on to London, where coffee drinking was then in high favor. [Illustration: STREET COFFEE VENDER OF PARIS--PERIOD, 1672 TO 1689--TWO SOUS PER DISH, SUGAR INCLUDED] Lacking favor at court, coffee's progress was slow. The French smart set clung to its light wines and beers. In 1672, Maliban, another Armenian, opened a coffee house in the rue Bussy, next to the Metz tennis court near St.-Germain's abbey. He supplied tobacco also to his customers. Later he went to Holland, leaving his servant and partner, Gregory, a Persian, in charge. Gregory moved to the rue Mazarine, to be near the Comédie Française. He was succeeded in the business by Makara, another Persian, who later returned to Ispahan, leaving the coffee house to one Le Gantois, of Liége. About this period there was a cripple boy from Candia, known as le Candiot, who began to cry "coffee!" in the streets of Paris. He carried with him a coffee pot of generous size, a chafing-dish, cups, and all other implements necessary to his trade. He sold his coffee from door to door at two sous per dish, sugar included. [Illustration: MANY OF THE EARLY PARISIAN COFFEE HOUSES FOLLOWED PASCAL'S LEAD AND AFFECTED ARMENIAN DECORATIONS From a Seventeenth-Century Print] A Levantine named Joseph also sold coffee in the streets, and later had several coffee shops of his own. Stephen, from Aleppo, next opened a coffee house on Pont au Change, moving, when his business prospered, to more pretentious quarters in the rue St.-André, facing St.-Michael's bridge. [Illustration: A CORNER OF THE HISTORIC CAFÉ DE PROCOPE SHOWING VOLTAIRE AND DIDEROT IN DEBATE From a rare water color] All these, and others, were essentially the Oriental style of coffee house of the lower order, and they appealed principally to the poorer classes and to foreigners. "Gentlemen and people of fashion" did not care to be seen in this type of public house. But when the French merchants began to set up, first at St.-Germain's fair, "spacious apartments in an elegant manner, ornamented with tapestries, large mirrors, pictures, marble tables, branches for candles, magnificent lustres, and serving coffee, tea, chocolate, and other refreshments", they were soon crowded with people of fashion and men of letters. In this way coffee drinking in public acquired a badge of respectability. Presently there were some three hundred coffee houses in Paris. The principal coffee men, in addition to plying their trade in the city, maintained coffee rooms in St.-Germain's and St.-Laurence's fairs. These were frequented by women as well as men. _The Progenitor of the Real Parisian Café_ It was not until 1689, that there appeared in Paris a real French adaptation of the Oriental coffee house. This was the Café de Procope, opened by François Procope (Procopio Cultelli, or Cotelli) who came from Florence or Palermo. Procope was a _limonadier_ (lemonade vender) who had a royal license to sell spices, ices, barley water, lemonade, and other such refreshments. He early added coffee to the list, and attracted a large and distinguished patronage. Procope, a keen-witted merchant, made his appeal to a higher class of patrons than did Pascal and those who first followed him. He established his café directly opposite the newly opened Comédie Française, in the street then known as the rue des Fossés-St.-Germain, but now the rue de l'Ancienne Comédie. A writer of the period has left this description of the place: "The Café de Procope ... was also called the Antre [cavern] de Procope, because it was very dark even in full day, and ill-lighted in the evenings; and because you often saw there a set of lank, sallow poets, who had somewhat the air of apparitions." Because of its location, the Café de Procope became the gathering place of many noted French actors, authors, dramatists, and musicians of the eighteenth century. It was a veritable literary salon. Voltaire was a constant patron; and until the close of the historic café, after an existence of more than two centuries, his marble table and chair were among the precious relics of the coffee house. His favorite drink is said to have been a mixture of coffee and chocolate. Rousseau, author and philosopher; Beaumarchais, dramatist and financier; Diderot, the encyclopedist; Ste.-Foix, the abbé of Voisenon; de Belloy, author of the _Siege of Callais_; Lemierre, author of _Artaxerce_; Crébillon; Piron; La Chaussée; Fontenelle; Condorcet; and a host of lesser lights in the French arts, were habitués of François Procope's modest coffee saloon near the Comédie Française. Naturally, the name of Benjamin Franklin, recognized in Europe as one of the world's foremost thinkers in the days of the American Revolution, was often spoken over the coffee cups of Café de Procope; and when the distinguished American died in 1790, this French coffee house went into deep mourning "for the great friend of republicanism." The walls, inside and out, were swathed in black bunting, and the statesmanship and scientific attainments of Franklin were acclaimed by all frequenters. The Café de Procope looms large in the annals of the French Revolution. During the turbulent days of 1789 one could find at the tables, drinking coffee or stronger beverages, and engaged in debate over the burning questions of the hour, such characters as Marat, Robespierre, Danton, Hébert, and Desmoulins. Napoleon Bonaparte, then a poor artillery officer seeking a commission, was also there. He busied himself largely in playing chess, a favorite recreation of the early Parisian coffee-house patrons. It is related that François Procope once compelled young Bonaparte to leave his hat for security while he sought money to pay his coffee score. After the Revolution, the Café de Procope lost its literary prestige and sank to the level of an ordinary restaurant. During the last half of the nineteenth century, Paul Verlaine, bohemian, poet, and leader of the symbolists, made the Café de Procope his haunt; and for a time it regained some of its lost popularity. The Restaurant Procope still survives at 13 rue de l'Ancienne Comédie. History records that, with the opening of the Café de Procope, coffee became firmly established in Paris. In the reign of Louis XV there were 600 cafés in Paris. At the close of the eighteenth century there were more than 800. By 1843 the number had increased to more than 3000. _The Development of the Cafés_ Coffee's vogue spread rapidly, and many cabaréts and famous eating houses began to add it to their menus. Among these was the Tour d'Argent (silver tower), which had been opened on the Quai de la Tournelle in 1582, and speedily became Paris's most fashionable restaurant. It still is one of the chief attractions for the epicure, retaining the reputation for its cooking that drew a host of world leaders, from Napoleon to Edward VII, to its quaint interior. [Illustration: THE CAFÉ DE PROCOPE IN 1743 From an engraving by Bosredon] Another tavern that took up coffee after Procope, was the Royal Drummer, which Jean Ramponaux established at the Courtille des Porcherons and which followed Magny's. His hostelry rightly belongs to the tavern class, although coffee had a prominent place on its menu. It became notorious for excesses and low-class vices during the reign of Louis XV, who was a frequent visitor. Low and high were to be found in Ramponaux's cellar, particularly when some especially wild revelry was in prospect. Marie Antoinette once declared she had her most enjoyable time at a wild _farandole_ in the Royal Drummer. Ramponaux was taken to its heart by fashionable Paris; and his name was used as a trade mark on furniture, clothes, and foods. [Illustration: THE CASHIER'S COUNTER IN A PARIS COFFEE HOUSE OF 1782 From a drawing by Rétif de la Bretonne] The popularity of Ramponaux's Royal Drummer is attested by an inscription on an early print showing the interior of the café. Translated, it reads: The pleasures of ease untroubled to taste, The leisure of home to enjoy without haste, Perhaps a few hours at Magny's to waste, Ah, that was the old-fashioned way! Today all our laborers, everyone knows, Go running away ere the working hours close, And why? They must be at Monsieur Ramponaux'! Behold, the new style of café! When coffee houses began to crop up rapidly in Paris, the majority centered in the Palais Royal, "that garden spot of beauty, enclosed on three sides by three tiers of galleries," which Richelieu had erected in 1636, under the name of Palais Cardinal, in the reign of Louis XIII. It became known as the Palais Royal in 1643; and soon after the opening of the Café de Procope, it began to blossom out with many attractive coffee stalls, or rooms, sprinkled among the other shops that occupied the galleries overlooking the gardens. _Life In The Early Coffee Houses_ Diderot tells in 1760, in his _Rameau's Nephew_, of the life and frequenters of one of the Palais Royal coffee houses, the Regency (_Café de la Régence_): In all weathers, wet or fine, it is my practice to go toward five o'clock in the evening to take a turn in the Palais Royal.... If the weather is too cold or too wet I take shelter in the Regency coffee house. There I amuse myself by looking on while they play chess. Nowhere in the world do they play chess as skillfully as in Paris and nowhere in Paris as they do at this coffee house; 'tis here you see Légal the profound, Philidor the subtle, Mayot the solid; here you see the most astounding moves, and listen to the sorriest talk, for if a man be at once a wit and a great chess player, like Légal, he may also be a great chess player and a sad simpleton, like Joubert and Mayot. The beginnings of the Regency coffee house are associated with the legend that Lefévre, a Parisian, began peddling coffee in the streets of Paris about the time Procope opened his café in 1689. The story has it that Lefévre later opened a café near the Palais Royal, selling it in 1718 to one Leclerc, who named it the Café de la Régence, in honor of the regent of Orleans, a name that still endures on a broad sign over its doors. The nobility had their rendezvous there after having paid their court to the regent. [Illustration: THE CAFÉ FOY IN THE PALAIS ROYAL, 1789 From an engraving by Bosredon] To name the patrons of the Café de la Régence in its long career would be to outline a history of French literature for more than two centuries. There was Philidor the "greatest theoretician of the eighteenth century, better known for his chess than his music"; Robespierre, of the Revolution, who once played chess with a girl--disguised as a boy--for the life of her lover; Napoleon, who was then noted more for his chess than his empire-building propensities; and Gambetta, whose loud voice, generally raised in debate, disturbed one chess player so much that he protested because he could not follow his game. Voltaire, Alfred de Musset; Victor Hugo, Théophile Gautier, J.J. Rousseau, the Duke of Richelieu, Marshall Saxe, Buffon, Rivarol, Fontenelle, Franklin, and Henry Murger are names still associated with memories of this historic café: Marmontel and Philidor played there at their favorite game of chess. Diderot tells in his _Memoirs_ that his wife gave him every day nine sous to get his coffee there. It was in this establishment that he worked on his _Encyclopedia_. Chess is today still in favor at the Régence, although the players are not, as were the earlier patrons, obliged to pay by the hour for their tables with extra charges for candles placed by the chess-boards. The present Café de la Régence is in the rue St.-Honoré, but retains in large measure its aspect of olden days. Michelet, the historian, has given us a rhapsodic pen picture of the Parisian cafés under the regency: Paris became one vast café. Conversation in France was at its zenith. There were less eloquence and rhetoric than in '89. With the exception of Rousseau, there was no orator to cite. The intangible flow of wit was as spontaneous as possible. For this sparkling outburst there is no doubt that honor should be ascribed in part to the auspicious revolution of the times, to the great event which created new customs, and even modified human temperament--the advent of coffee. Its effect was immeasurable, not being weakened and neutralized as it is today by the brutalizing influence of tobacco. They took snuff, but did not smoke. The cabarét was dethroned, the ignoble cabarét, where, during the reign of Louis XIV, the youth of the city rioted amid wine-casks in the company of light women. The night was less thronged with chariots. Fewer lords found a resting place in the gutter. The elegant shop, where conversation flowed, a salon rather than a shop, changed and ennobled its customs. The reign of coffee is that of temperance. Coffee, the beverage of sobriety, a powerful mental stimulant, which, unlike spirituous liquors, increases clearness and lucidity; coffee, which suppresses the vague, heavy fantasies of the imagination, which from the perception of reality brings forth the sparkle and sunlight of truth; coffee anti-erotic.... The three ages of coffee are those of modern thought; they mark the serious moments of the brilliant epoch of the soul. Arabian coffee is the pioneer, even before 1700. The beautiful ladies that you see in the fashionable rooms of Bonnard, sipping from their tiny cups--they are enjoying the aroma of the finest coffee of Arabia. And of what are they chatting? Of the seraglio, of Chardin, of the Sultana's coiffure, of the _Thousand and One Nights_ (1704). They compare the ennui of Versailles with the paradise of the Orient. Very soon, in 1710-1720, commences the reign of Indian coffee, abundant, popular, comparatively cheap. Bourbon, our Indian island, where coffee was transplanted, suddenly realizes unheard-of happiness. This coffee of volcanic lands acts as an explosive on the Regency and the new spirit of things. This sudden cheer, this laughter of the old world, these overwhelming flashes of wit, of which the sparkling verse of Voltaire, the _Persian Letters_, give us a faint idea! Even the most brilliant books have not succeeded in catching on the wing this airy chatter, which comes, goes, flies elusively. This is that spirit of ethereal nature which, in the _Thousand and One Nights_, the enchanter confined in his bottle. But what phial would have withstood that pressure? The lava of Bourbon, like the Arabian sand, was unequal to the demand. The Regent recognized this and had coffee transported to the fertile soil of our Antilles. The strong coffee of Santo Domingo, full, coarse, nourishing as well as stimulating, sustained the adult population of that period, the strong age of the encyclopedia. It was drunk by Buffon, Diderot, Rousseau, added its glow to glowing souls, its light to the penetrating vision of the prophets gathered in the cave of Procope, who saw at the bottom of the black beverage the future rays of '89. Danton, the terrible Danton, took several cups of coffee before mounting the tribune. 'The horse must have its oats,' he said. The vogue of coffee popularized the use of sugar, which was then bought by the ounce at the apothecary's shop. Dufour says that in Paris they used to put so much sugar in the coffee that "it was nothing but a syrup of blackened water." The ladies were wont to have their carriages stop in front of the Paris cafés and to have their coffee served to them by the porter on saucers of silver. Every year saw new cafés opened. When they became so numerous, and competition grew so keen, it was necessary to invent new attractions for customers. Then was born the _café chantant_, where songs, monologues, dances, little plays and farces (not always in the best taste), were provided to amuse the frequenters. Many of these _cafés chantants_ were in the open air along the Champs-Elysées. In bad weather, Paris provided the pleasure-seeker with the Eldorado, Alcazar d'Hiver, Scala, Gaieté, Concert du XIXme Siécle, Folies Bobino, Rambuteau, Concert Européen, and countless other meeting places where one could be served with a cup of coffee. [Illustration: THE CAFÉ DES MILLE COLONNES IN 1811 From an engraving by Bosredon] As in London, certain cafés were noted for particular followings, like the military, students, artists, merchants. The politicians had their favorite resorts. Says Salvandy:[86] These were senates in miniature; here mighty political questions were discussed; here peace and war were decided upon; here generals were brought to the bar of justice ... distinguished orators were victoriously refuted, ministers heckled upon their ignorance, their incapacity, their perfidy, their corruption. The café is in reality a French institution; in them we find all these agitations and movements of men, the like of which is unknown in the English tavern. No government can go against the sentiment of the cafés. The Revolution took place because they were for the Revolution. Napoleon reigned because they were for glory. The Restoration was shattered, because they understood the Charter in a different manner. In 1700 appeared the _Portefeuille Galant_, containing conversations of the cafés. _The Cafés in the French Revolution_ The Palais Royal coffee houses were centers of activity in the days preceding and following the Revolution. A picture of them in the July days of 1789 has been left by Arthur Young, who was visiting Paris at that time: The coffee houses present yet more singular and astounding spectacles; they are not only crowded within, but other expectant crowds are at the doors and windows, listening _à gorge déployée_ to certain orators who from chairs or tables harangue each his little audience; the eagerness with which they are heard, and the thunder of applause they receive for every sentiment of more than common hardiness or violence against the government, cannot easily be imagined. The Palais Royal teemed with excited Frenchmen on the fateful Sunday of July 12, 1789. The moment was a tense one, when, coming out of the Café Foy, Camille Desmoulins, a youthful journalist, mounted a table and began the harangue that precipitated the first overt act of the French Revolution. Blazing with a white hot frenzy, he so played upon the passions of the mob that at the conclusion of his speech he and his followers "marched away from the Café on their errand of Revolution." The Bastille fell two days later. As if abashed by its reputation as the starting point of the mob spirit of the Revolution, Café Foy became in after years a sedate gathering-place of artists and literati. Up to its close it was distinguished among other famous Parisian cafés for its exclusiveness and strictly enforced rule of "no smoking." Even from the first the Parisian cafés catered to all classes of society; and, unlike the London coffee houses, they retained this distinctive characteristic. A number of them early added other liquid and substantial refreshments, many becoming out-and-out restaurants. _Coffee-House Customs and Patrons_ Coffee's effect on Parisians is thus described by a writer of the latter part of the eighteenth century: I think I may safely assert that it is to the establishment of so many cafés in Paris that is due the urbanity and mildness discernible upon most faces. Before they existed, nearly everybody passed his time at the cabarét, where even business matters were discussed. Since their establishment, people assemble to hear what is going on, drinking and playing only in moderation, and the consequence is that they are more civil and polite, at least in appearance. Montesquieu's satirical pen pictured in his _Persian Letters_ the earliest cafés as follows: In some of these houses they talk news; in others, they play draughts. There is one where they prepare the coffee in such a manner that it inspires the drinkers of it with wit; at least, of all those who frequent it, there is not one person in four who does not think he has more wit after he has entered that house. But what offends me in these wits is that they do not make themselves useful to their country. Montesquieu encountered a geometrician outside a coffee house on the Pont Neuf, and accompanied him inside. He describes the incident in this manner: I observe that our geometrician was received there with the utmost officiousness, and that the coffee house boys paid him much more respect than two musqueteers who were in a corner of the room. As for him, he seemed as if he thought himself in an agreeable place; for he unwrinkled his brows a little and laughed, as if he had not the least tincture of geometrician in him.... He was offended at every start of wit, as a tender eye is by too strong a light.... At last I saw an old man enter, pale and thin, whom I knew to be a coffee house politician before he sat down; he was not one of those who are never to be intimidated by disasters, but always prophesy of victories and success; he was one of those timorous wretches who are always boding ill. Café Momus and Café Rotonde figure conspicuously in the record of French bohemianism. The Momus stood near the right bank of the River Seine in rue des Prêtres St.-Germain, and was known as the home of the bohemians. The Rotonde stood on the left bank at the corner of the rue de l'École de Médecine and the rue Hautefeuille. [Illustration: THE CAFÉ DE PARIS IN 1843 From an engraving by Bosredon] Alexandre Schanne has given us a glimpse of bohemian life in the early cafés. He lays his scene in the Café Rotonde, and tells how a number of poor students were wont to make one cup of coffee last the coterie a full evening by using it to flavor and to color the one glass of water shared in common. He says: Every evening, the first comer at the waiter's inquiry, "What will you take, sir?" never failed to reply, "Nothing just at present, I am waiting for a friend." The friend arrived, to be assailed by the brutal question, "Have you any money?" He would make a despairing gesture in the negative, and then add, loud enough to be heard by the _dame du comptoir_, "By Jove, no; only fancy, I left my purse on my console-table, with gilt feet, in the purest Louis XV style. Ah! what a thing it is to be forgetful." He would sit down, and the waiter would wipe the table as if he had something to do. A third would come, who was sometimes able to reply, "Yes. I have ten sous." "Good!" we would reply; "order a cup of coffee, a glass and a water bottle; pay and give two sous to the waiter to secure his silence." This would be done. Others would come and take their places beside us, repeating to the waiter the same chorus, "We are with this gentleman." Frequently we would be eight or nine sitting at the same table, and only one customer. Whilst smoking and reading the papers we would, however, pass the glass and bottle. When the water began to run short, as on a ship in distress, one of us would have the impudence to call out, "Waiter, some water!" The master of the establishment, who understood our situation, had no doubt given orders for us to be left alone, and made his fortune without our help. He was a good fellow and an intelligent one, having subscribed to all the scientific journals of Europe, which brought him the custom of foreign students. Another café perpetuating the best traditions of the Latin Quarter was the Vachette, which survived until the death of Jean Moréas in 1911. The Vachette is usually cited by antiquarians as a model of circumspection as compared with the scores of cafés in the Quarter that were given up to debaucheries. One writer puts it: "The Vachette traditions leaned more to scholarship than sensuality." In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the Parisian café was truly a coffee house; but as many of the patrons began to while away most of their waking hours in them, the proprietors added other beverages and food to hold their patronage. Consequently, we find listed among the cafés of Paris some houses that are more accurately described as restaurants, although they may have started their careers as coffee houses. _Historic Parisian Cafés_ Some of the historic cafés are still thriving in their original locations, although the majority have now passed into oblivion. Glimpses of the more famous houses are to be found in the novels, poetry, and essays written by the French literati who patronized them. These first-hand accounts give insights that are sometimes stirring, often amusing, and frequently revolting--such as the assassination of St.-Fargean in Février's low-vaulted cellar café in the Palais Royal. There is Magny's, originally the haunt of such literary men as Gautier, Taine, Saint-Victor, Turguenieff, de Goncourt, Soulie, Renan, Edmond. In recent years the old Magny's was razed, and on its site was built the modern restaurant of the same name, but in a style that has no resemblance to its predecessor. Even the name of the street has been changed, from rue Contrescarpe to the rue Mazet. Méot's, the Véry, Beauvilliers', Massé's, the Café Chartres, the Troi Fréres Provençaux, and the du Grand Commun, all situated in the Palais Royal, are cafés that figured conspicuously in the French Revolution, and are closely identified with the French stage and literature. Méot's and Massé's were the trysting places of the Royalists in the days preceding the outbreak, but welcomed the Revolutionists after they came in power. The Chartres was notorious as the gathering place of young aristocrats who escaped the guillotine, and, thus made bold, often called their like from adjoining cafés to partake in some of their plans for restoration of the empire. The Trois Fréres Provençaux, well known for its excellent and costly dinners, is mentioned by Balzac, Lord Lytton, and Alfred de Musset in some of their novels. The Café du Grand Commun appears in Rousseau's _Confessions_ in connection with the play _Devin du Village_. Among the most famous of the cafés on the Rue St. Honoré were Venua's, patronized by Robespierre and his companions of the Revolution, and perhaps the scene of the inhuman murder of Berthier and its revolting aftermath; the Mapinot, which has gone down in café history as the scene of the banquet to Archibald Alison, the 22-year-old historian; and Voisin's café, around which still cling traditions of such literary lights as Zola, Alphonse Daudet, and Jules de Goncourt. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF A TYPICAL PARISIAN CAFÉ OF THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY] Perhaps the boulevard des Italiens had, and still has, more fashionable cafés than any other section of the French capital. The Tortoni, opened in the early days of the Empire by Velloni, an Italian lemonade vender, was the most popular of the boulevard cafés, and was generally thronged with fashionables from all parts of Europe. Here Louis Blanc, historian of the Revolution, spent many hours in the early days of his fame. Talleyrand; Rossini, the musician; Alfred Stevens and Edouard Manet, artists, are some of the names still linked with the traditions of the Tortoni. Farther down the boulevard were the Café Riche, Maison Dorée, Café Anglais, and the Café de Paris. The Riche and the Dorée, standing side by side, were both high-priced and noted for their revelries. The Anglais, which came into existence after the snuffing out of the Empire, was also distinguished for its high prices, but in return gave an excellent dinner and fine wines. It is told that even during the siege of Paris the Anglais offered its patrons "such luxuries as ass, mule, peas, fried potatoes, and champagne." Probably the Café de Paris, which came into existence in 1822, in the former home of the Russian Prince Demidoff, was the most richly equipped and elegantly conducted of any café in Paris in the nineteenth century. Alfred de Musset, a frequenter, said, "you could not open its doors for less than 15 francs." The Café Littéraire, opened on boulevard Bonne Nouvelle late in the nineteenth century, made a direct appeal to literary men for patronage, printing this footnote on its menu: "Every customer spending a franc in this establishment is entitled to one volume of any work to be selected from our vast collection." The names of Parisian cafés once more or less famous are legion. Some of them are: The Café Laurent, which Rousseau was forced to leave after writing an especially bitter satire; the English café in which eccentric Lord Wharton made merry with the Whig habitués; the Dutch café, the haunt of Jacobites; Terre's, in the rue Neuve des Petits Champs, which Thackeray described in _The Ballad of Bouillabaisse_; Maire's, in the boulevard St.-Denis, which dates back beyond 1850; the Café Madrid, in the boulevard Montmartre, of which Carjat, the Spanish lyric poet, was an attraction; the Café de la Paix, in the boulevard des Capucines, the resort of Second Empire Imperialists and their spies; the Café Durand, in the place de la Madeleine, which started on a plane with the high-priced Riche, and ended its career early in the twentieth century; the Rocher de Cancale, memorable for its feasts and high-living patrons from all over Europe; the Café Guerbois, near the rue de St. Petersburg, where Manet, the impressionist, after many vicissitudes, won fame for his paintings and held court for many years; the Chat Noir, on the rue Victor Massé at Montmartre, a blend of café and concert hall, which has since been imitated widely, both in name and feature. [Illustration: CHESS HAS BEEN A FAVORITE PASTIME AT THE CAFÉ DE LA RÉGENCE FOR TWO HUNDRED YEARS.] CHAPTER XII INTRODUCTION OF COFFEE INTO NORTH AMERICA _Captain John Smith, founder of the Colony of Virginia, is the first to bring to North America a knowledge of coffee in 1607--The coffee grinder on the Mayflower--Coffee drinking in 1668--William Penn's coffee purchase in 1683--Coffee in colonial New England--The psychology of the Boston "tea party," and why the United States became a nation of coffee drinkers instead of tea drinkers, like England--The first coffee license to Dorothy Jones in 1670--The first coffee house in New England--Notable coffee houses of old Boston--A skyscraper coffee house_ Undoubtedly the first to bring a knowledge of coffee to North America was Captain John Smith, who founded the Colony of Virginia at Jamestown in 1607. Captain Smith became familiar with coffee in his travels in Turkey. Although the Dutch also had early knowledge of coffee, it does not appear that the Dutch West India Company brought any of it to the first permanent settlement on Manhattan Island (1624). Nor is there any record of coffee in the cargo of the Mayflower (1620), although it included a wooden mortar and pestle, later used to make "coffee powder." In the period when New York was New Amsterdam, and under Dutch occupancy (1624-64), it is possible that coffee may have been imported from Holland, where it was being sold on the Amsterdam market as early as 1640, and where regular supplies of the green bean were being received from Mocha in 1663; but positive proof is lacking. The Dutch appear to have brought tea across the Atlantic from Holland before coffee. The English may have introduced the coffee drink into the New York colony between 1664 and 1673. The earliest reference to coffee in America is 1668[87], at which time a beverage made from the roasted beans, and flavored with sugar or honey, and cinnamon, was being drunk in New York. Coffee first appears in the official records of the New England colony in 1670. In 1683, the year following William Penn's settlement on the Delaware, we find him buying supplies of coffee in the New York market and paying for them at the rate of eighteen shillings and nine pence per pound.[88] Coffee houses patterned after the English and Continental prototypes were soon established in all the colonies. Those of New York and Philadelphia are described in separate chapters. The Boston houses are described at the end of this chapter. Norfolk, Chicago, St. Louis, and New Orleans also had them. Conrad Leonhard's coffee house at 320 Market Street. St. Louis, was famous for its coffee and coffee cake, from 1844 to 1905, when it became a bakery and lunch room, removing in 1919 to Eighth and Pine Streets. In the pioneer days of the great west, coffee and tea were hard to get; and, instead of them, teas were often made from garden herbs, spicewood, sassafras-roots, and other shrubs, taken from the thickets[89]. In 1839, in the city of Chicago, one of the minor taverns was known as the Lake Street coffee house. It was situated at the corner of Lake and Wells Streets. A number of hotels, which in the English sense might more appropriately be called inns, met a demand for modest accommodation[90]. Two coffee houses were listed in the Chicago directories for 1843 and 1845, the Washington coffee house, 83 Lake Street; and the Exchange coffee house, Clarke Street between La Salle and South Water Streets. [Illustration: TYPES OF COLONIAL COFFEE ROASTERS The cylinder at the top of the picture was revolved by hand in the fireplace; the skillets were set in the smouldering ashes] The old-time coffee houses of New Orleans were situated within the original area of the city, the section bounded by the river, Canal Street, Esplanade Avenue and Rampart Street. In the early days most of the big business of the city was transacted in the coffee houses. The _brûleau_, coffee with orange juice, orange peel, and sugar, with cognac burned and mixed in it, originated in the New Orleans coffee house, and led to its gradual evolution into the saloon. _How the United States Became a Nation of Coffee Drinkers_ Coffee, tea, and chocolate were introduced into North America almost simultaneously in the latter part of the seventeenth century. In the first half of the eighteenth century, tea had made such progress in England, thanks to the propaganda of the British East India Company, that, being moved to extend its use in the colonies, the directors turned their eyes first in the direction of North America. Here, however, King George spoiled their well-laid plans by his unfortunate stamp act of 1765, which caused the colonists to raise the cry of "no taxation without representation." Although the act was repealed in 1766, the right to tax was asserted, and in 1767 was again used, duties being laid on paints, oils, lead, glass, and tea. Once more the colonists resisted; and, by refusing to import any goods of English make, so distressed the English manufacturers that Parliament repealed every tax save that on tea. Despite the growing fondness for the beverage in America, the colonists preferred to get their tea elsewhere to sacrificing their principles and buying it from England. A brisk trade in smuggling tea from Holland was started. In a panic at the loss of the most promising of its colonial markets, the British East India Company appealed to Parliament for aid, and was permitted to export tea, a privilege it had never before enjoyed. Cargoes were sent on consignment to selected commissioners in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. The story of the subsequent happenings properly belongs in a book on tea. It is sufficient here to refer to the climax of the agitation against the fateful tea tax, because it is undoubtedly responsible for our becoming a nation of coffee drinkers instead of one of tea drinkers, like England. [Illustration: AN EARLY FAMILY COFFEE ROASTER This machine, known in Holland as a "Coffee Burner," was used late in the 18th century in New England. It hung in the fireplace or stood in the embers] The Boston "tea party" of 1773, when citizens of Boston, disguised as Indians, boarded the English ships lying in Boston harbor and threw their tea cargoes into the bay, cast the die for coffee; for there and then originated a subtle prejudice against "the cup that cheers", which one hundred and fifty years have failed entirely to overcome. Meanwhile, the change wrought in our social customs by this act, and those of like nature following it, in the New York, Pennsylvania, and Charleston colonies, caused coffee to be crowned "king of the American breakfast table", and the sovereign drink of the American people. [Illustration: HISTORICAL RELICS ASSOCIATED WITH THE EARLY DAYS OF COFFEE IN NEW ENGLAND These exhibits are in the Museum of the Maine Historical Society at Portland. On the left is Kenrick's Patent coffee mill. In the center is a Britannia urn with an iron bar for heating the liquid. The bar was encased in a tin receptacle that hung inside the cover. On the right is a wall type of coffee or spice grinder] _Coffee in Colonial New England_ The history of coffee in colonial New England is so closely interwoven with the story of the inns and taverns that it is difficult to distinguish the genuine coffee house, as it was known in England, from the public house where lodgings and liquors were to be had. The coffee drink had strong competition from the heady wines, the liquors, and imported teas, and consequently it did not attain the vogue among the colonial New Englanders that it did among Londoners of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Although New England had its coffee houses, these were actually taverns where coffee was only one of the beverages served to patrons. "They were", says Robinson, "generally meeting places of those who were conservative in their views regarding church and state, being friends of the ruling administration. Such persons were terms 'Courtiers' by their adversaries, the Dissenters and Republicans." Most of the coffee houses were established in Boston, the metropolis of the Massachusetts Colony, and the social center of New England. While Plymouth, Salem, Chelsea, and Providence had taverns that served coffee, they did not achieve the name and fame of some of the more celebrated coffee houses in Boston. It is not definitely known when the first coffee was brought in; but it is reasonable to suppose that it came as part of the household supplies of some settler (probably between 1660 and 1670), who had become acquainted with it before leaving England. Or it may have been introduced by some British officer, who in London had made the rounds of the more celebrated coffee houses of the latter half of the seventeenth century. _The First Coffee License_ According to early town records of Boston, Dorothy Jones was the first to be licensed to sell "coffee and cuchaletto," the latter being the seventeenth-century spelling for chocolate or cocoa. This license is dated 1670, and is said to be the first written reference to coffee in the Massachusetts Colony. It is not stated whether Dorothy Jones was a vender of the coffee drink or of "coffee powder," as ground coffee was known in the early days. [Illustration: THE MAYFLOWER "COFFEE GRINDER" Mortar and pestle for "braying" coffee to make coffee powder, brought over in the Mayflower by the parents of Peregrine White] There is some question as to whether Dorothy Jones was the first to sell coffee as a beverage in Boston. Londoners had known and drunk coffee for eighteen years before Dorothy Jones got her coffee license. British government officials were frequently taking ship from London to the Massachusetts Colony, and it is likely that they brought tidings and samples of the coffee the English gentry had lately taken up. No doubt they also told about the new-style coffee houses that were becoming popular in all parts of London. And it may be assumed that their tales caused the landlords of the inns and taverns of colonial Boston to add coffee to their lists of beverages. _New England's First Coffee House_ The name coffee house did not come into use in New England until late in the seventeenth century. Early colonial records do not make it clear whether the London coffee house or the Gutteridge coffee house was the first to be opened in Boston with that distinctive title. In all likelihood the London is entitled to the honor, for Samuel Gardner Drake in his _History and Antiquities of the City of Boston_, published in 1854, says that "Benj. Harris sold books there in 1689." Drake seems to be the only historian of early Boston to mention the London coffee house. Granting that the London coffee house was the first in Boston, then the Gutteridge coffee house was the second. The latter stood on the north side of State Street, between Exchange and Washington Streets, and was named after Robert Gutteridge, who took out an innkeeper's license in 1691. Twenty-seven years later, his widow, Mary Gutteridge, petitioned the town for a renewal of her late husband's permit to keep a public coffee house. The British coffee house, which became the American coffee house when the crown officers and all things British became obnoxious to the colonists, also began its career about the time Gutteridge took out his license. It stood on the site that is now 66 State Street, and became one of the most widely known coffee houses in colonial New England. Of course, there were several inns and taverns in existence in Boston long before coffee and coffee houses came to the New England metropolis. Some of these taverns took up coffee when it became fashionable in the colony, and served it to those patrons who did not care for the stronger drinks. [Illustration: THE CROWN COFFEE HOUSE, BOSTON One of the first in New England to bear the distinctive name of coffee house; opened in 1711 and burned down in 1780] The earliest known inn was set up by Samuel Cole in Washington Street, midway between Faneuil Hall and State Street. Cole was licensed as a "comfit maker" in 1634, four years after the founding of Boston; and two years later, his inn was the temporary abiding place of the Indian chief Miantonomoh and his red warriors, who came to visit Governor Vane. In the following year, the Earl of Marlborough found that Cole's inn was so "exceedingly well governed," and afforded so desirable privacy, that he refused the hospitality of Governor Winthrop at the governor's mansion. [Illustration: COFFEE MAKING AND SERVING DEVICES USED IN THE MASSACHUSETTS COLONY These exhibits are in the Museum of the Essex Institute at Salem, Mass. Top row, left and right, Britannia serving pots; center, Britannia table urn; bottom row, left end, tin coffee making pot; center, Britannia serving pots; right end, tin French drip pot] Another popular inn of the day was the Red Lyon, which was opened in 1637 by Nicholas Upshall, the Quaker, who later was hanged for trying to bribe a jailer to pass some food into the jail to two Quakeresses who were starving within. Ship tavern, erected in 1650, at the corner of North and Clark Streets, then on the waterfront, was a haunt of British government officials. The father of Governor Hutchinson was the first landlord, to be succeeded in 1663 by John Vyal. Here lived the four commissioners who were sent to these shores by King Charles II to settle the disputes then beginning between the colonies and England. Another lodging and eating place for the gentlemen of quality in the first days of Boston was the Blue Anchor, in Cornhill, which was conducted in 1664 by Robert Turner. Here gathered members of the government, visiting officials, jurists, and the clergy, summoned into synod by the Massachusetts General Court. It is assumed that the clergy confined their drinking to coffee and other moderate beverages, leaving the wines and liquors to their confrères. _Some Notable Boston Coffee Houses_ In the last quarter of the seventeenth century quite a number of taverns and inns sprang up. Among the most notable that have obtained recognition in Boston's historical records were the King's Head, at the corner of Fleet and North Streets; the Indian Queen, on a passageway leading from Washington Street to Hawley Street; the Sun, in Faneuil Hall Square, and the Green Dragon, which became one of the most celebrated coffee-house taverns. The King's Head, opened in 1691, early became a rendezvous of crown officers and the citizens in the higher strata of colonial society. The Indian Queen also became a favorite resort of the crown officers from Province House. Started by Nathaniel Bishop about 1673, it stood for more than 145 years as the Indian Queen, and then was replaced by the Washington coffee house, which became noted throughout New England as the starting place for the Roxbury "hourlies," the stage coaches that ran every hour from Boston to nearby Roxbury. [Illustration: COFFEE DEVICES THAT FIGURED IN THE PIONEERING OF THE GREAT WEST Photographed for this work in the Museum of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Left to right, English decorated tin pot; coffee and spice mill from Lexington, Mass.; Globe roaster built by Rays & Wilcox Co., Berlin, Conn., under Wood's patent; sheet brass coffee mill from Lexington, Mass.; John Luther's coffee mill, Warren, R.I.; cast-iron hopper mill] The Sun tavern lived a longer life than any other Boston inn. Started in 1690 in Faneuil Hall Square, it was still standing in 1902, according to Henry R. Blaney; but has since been razed to make way for a modern skyscraper. [Illustration: METAL AND CHINA COFFEE POTS USED IN NEW ENGLAND'S COLONIAL DAYS From the collection in the Museum of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield, Mass.] _New England's Most Famous Coffee House_ The Green Dragon, the last of the inns that were popular at the close of the seventeenth century, was the most celebrated of Boston's coffee-house taverns. It stood on Union Street, in the heart of the town's business center, for 135 years, from 1697 to 1832, and figured in practically all the important local and national events during its long career. Red-coated British soldiers, colonial governors, bewigged crown officers, earls and dukes, citizens of high estate, plotting revolutionists of lesser degree, conspirators in the Boston Tea Party, patriots and generals of the Revolution--all these were wont to gather at the Green Dragon to discuss their various interests over their cups of coffee, and stronger drinks. In the words of Daniel Webster, this famous coffee-house tavern was the "headquarters of the Revolution." It was here that Warren, John Adams, James Otis, and Paul Revere met as a "ways and means committee" to secure freedom for the American colonies. Here, too, came members of the Grand Lodge of Masons to hold their meetings under the guidance of Warren, who was the first grand master of the first Masonic lodge in Boston. The site of the old tavern, now occupied by a business block, is still the property of the St. Andrew's Lodge of Free Masons. The old tavern was a two-storied brick structure with a sharply pitched roof. Over its entrance hung a sign bearing the figure of a green dragon. [Illustration: THE GREEN DRAGON, THE CENTER OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LIFE IN BOSTON FOR 135 YEARS This tavern figured in practically all the important national affairs from 1697 to 1832, and, according to Daniel Webster, was the "headquarters of the Revolution"] Patrons of the Green Dragon and the British coffee house were decidedly opposed in their views on the questions of the day. While the Green Dragon was the gathering place of the patriotic colonials, the British was the rendezvous of the loyalists, and frequent were the encounters between the patrons of these two celebrated taverns. It was in the British coffee house that James Otis was so badly pummeled, after being lured there by political enemies, that he never regained his former brilliancy as an orator. It was there, in 1750, that some British red coats staged the first theatrical entertainment given in Boston, playing Otway's _Orphan_. There, the first organization of citizens to take the name of a club formed the Merchants' Club in 1751. The membership included officers of the king, colonial governors and lesser officials, military and naval leaders, and members of the bar, with a sprinkling of high-ranking citizens who were staunch friends of the crown. However, the British became so generally disliked that as soon as the king's troops evacuated Boston in the Revolution, the name of the coffee house was changed to the American. The Bunch of Grapes, that Francis Holmes presided over as early as 1712, was another hot-bed of politicians. Like the Green Dragon over the way, its patrons included unconditional freedom seekers, many coming from the British coffee house when things became too hot for them in that Tory atmosphere. The Bunch of Grapes became the center of a stirring celebration in 1776, when a delegate from Philadelphia read the Declaration of Independence from the balcony of the inn to the crowd assembled in the street below. So enthusiastic did the Bostonians become that, in the excitement that followed, the inn was nearly destroyed when one enthusiast built a bonfire too close to its walls. Another anecdote told of the Bunch of Grapes concerns Sir William Phipps, governor of Massachusetts from 1692-94, who was noted for his irascibility. He had his favorite chair and window in the inn, and in the accounts of the period it is written that on any fine afternoon his glowering countenance could be seen at the window by the passers-by on State Street. After the beginning of the eighteenth century the title of coffee house was applied to a number of hostelries opened in Boston. One of these was the Crown, which was opened in the "first house on Long Wharf" in 1711 by Jonathan Belcher, who later became governor of Massachusetts, and still later of New Jersey. The first landlord of the Crown was Thomas Selby, who by trade was a periwig maker, but probably found the selling of strong drink and coffee more profitable. Selby's coffee house was also used as an auction room. The Crown stood until 1780, when it was destroyed in a fire that swept the Long Wharf. On its site now stands the Fidelity Trust Company at 148 State Street. Another early Boston coffee house on State Street was the Royal Exchange. How long it had been standing before it was first mentioned in colonial records in 1711 is unknown. It occupied an ancient two-story building, and was kept in 1711 by Benjamin Johns. This coffee house became the starting place for stage coaches running between Boston and New York, the first one leaving September 7, 1772. In the _Columbian Centinel_ of January 1, 1800, appeared an advertisement in which it was said: "New York and Providence Mail Stage leaves Major Hatches' Royal Exchange Coffee House in State Street every morning at 8 o'clock." In the latter half of the eighteenth century the North-End coffee house was celebrated as the highest-class coffee house in Boston. It occupied the three-storied brick mansion which had been built about 1740 by Edward Hutchinson, brother of the noted governor. It stood on the west side of North Street, between Sun Court and Fleet Street, and was one of the most pretentious of its kind. An eighteenth century writer, in describing this coffee-house mansion, made much of the fact that it had forty-five windows and was valued at $4,500, a large sum for those days. During the Revolution, Captain David Porter, father of Admiral David D. Porter, was the landlord, and under him it became celebrated throughout the city as a high-grade eating place. The advertisements of the North-End coffee house featured its "dinners and suppers--small and retired rooms for small company--oyster suppers in the nicest manner." [Illustration: METAL COFFEE POTS USED IN THE NEW YORK COLONY Left, tin coffee pot, dark brown, with "love apple" decoration in red, New Jersey Historical Society, Newark; right, weighted bottom tin pot with rose decoration, private owner] _A "Skyscraper" Coffee House_ The Boston coffee-house period reached its height in 1808, when the doors of the Exchange coffee house were thrown open after three years of building. This structure, situated on Congress Street near State Street, was the skyscraper of its day, and probably was the most ambitious coffee-house project the world has known. Built of stone, marble, and brick, it stood seven stories high, and cost a half-million dollars. Charles Bulfinch, America's most noted architect of that period, was the designer. [Illustration: EXCHANGE COFFEE HOUSE, BOSTON, 1808, PROBABLY THE LARGEST AND MOST COSTLY IN THE WORLD Built of stone, marble and brick, it stood seven stories high and cost $500,000. It was patterned after Lloyd's of London, and was the center of marine intelligence in Boston] Like Lloyd's coffee house in London, the Exchange was the center of marine intelligence, and its public rooms were thronged all day and evening with mariners, naval officers, ship and insurance brokers, who had come to talk shop or to consult the records of ship arrivals and departures, manifests, charters, and other marine papers. The first floor of the Exchange was devoted to trading. On the next floor was the large dining room, where many sumptuous banquets were given, notably the one to President Monroe in July, 1817, which was attended by former President John Adams, and by many generals, commodores, governors, and judges. The other floors were given over to living and sleeping rooms, of which there were more than 200. The Exchange coffee house was destroyed by fire in 1818; and on its site was erected another, bearing the same name, but having slight resemblance to its predecessor. [Illustration] [Illustration: PRESIDENT-ELECT WASHINGTON WELCOMED AT THE MERCHANTS COFFEE HOUSE, NEW YORK The reception took place April 23, 1789, one week before his inauguration. From a painting by Charles P. Gruppe, owned by the author] CHAPTER XIII HISTORY OF COFFEE IN OLD NEW YORK _The burghers of New Amsterdam begin to substitute coffee for "must," or beer, at breakfast in 1668--William Penn makes his first purchase of coffee in the green bean from New York merchants in 1683--The King's Arms, the first coffee house--The historic Merchants, sometimes called the "Birthplace of our Union"--The coffee house as a civic forum--The Exchange, Whitehall, Burns, Tontine, and other celebrated coffee houses--The Vauxhall and Ranelagh pleasure gardens_ The Dutch founders of New York seem to have introduced tea into New Amsterdam before they brought in coffee. This was somewhere about the middle of the seventeenth century. We find it recorded that about 1668 the burghers succumbed to coffee[91]. Coffee made its way slowly, first in the homes, where it replaced the "must", or beer, at breakfast. Chocolate came about the same time, but was more of a luxury than tea or coffee. After the surrender of New York to the British in 1674, English manners and customs were rapidly introduced. First tea, and later coffee, were favorite beverages in the homes. By 1683 New York had become so central a market for the green bean, that William Penn, as soon as he found himself comfortably settled in the Pennsylvania Colony, sent over to New York for his coffee supplies[92]. It was not long before a social need arose that only the London style of coffee house could fill. The coffee houses of early New York, like their prototypes in London, Paris, and other old world capitals, were the centers of the business, political and, to some extent, of the social life of the city. But they never became the forcing-beds of literature that the French and English houses were, principally because the colonists had no professional writers of note. There is one outstanding feature of the early American coffee houses, particularly of those opened in New York, that is not distinctive of the European houses. The colonists sometimes held court trials in the long, or assembly, room of the early coffee houses; and often held their general assembly and council meetings there. _The Coffee House as a Civic Forum_ The early coffee house was an important factor in New York life. What the perpetuation of this public gathering place meant to the citizens is shown by a complaint (evidently designed to revive the declining fortunes of the historic Merchants coffee house) in the _New York Journal_ of October 19, 1775, which, in part, said: To the Inhabitants of New York: It gives me concern, in this time of public difficulty and danger, to find we have in this city no place of daily general meeting, where we might hear and communicate intelligence from every quarter and freely confer with one another on every matter that concerns us. Such a place of general meeting is of very great advantage in many respects, especially at such a time as this, besides the satisfaction it affords and the sociable disposition it has a tendency to keep up among us, which was never more wanted than at this time. To answer all these and many other good and useful purposes, coffee houses have been universally deemed the most convenient places of resort, because, at a small expense of time or money, persons wanted may be found and spoke with, appointments may be made, current news heard, and whatever it most concerns us to know. In all cities, therefore, and large towns that I have seen in the British dominions, sufficient encouragement has been given to support one or more coffee houses in a genteel manner. How comes it then that New York, the most central, and one of the largest and most prosperous cities in British America, cannot support one coffee house? It is a scandal to the city and its inhabitants to be destitute of such a convenience for want of due encouragement. A coffee house, indeed, there is, a very good and comfortable one, extremely well tended and accommodated, but it is frequented but by an inconsiderable number of people; and I have observed with surprise, that but a small part of those who do frequent it, contribute anything at all to the expense of it, but come in and go out without calling for or paying anything to the house. In all the coffee houses in London, it is customary for every one that comes in to call for at least a dish of coffee, or leave the value of one, which is but reasonable, because when the keepers of these houses have been at the expense of setting them up and providing all necessaries for the accommodation of company, every one that comes to receive the benefit of these conveniences ought to contribute something towards the expense of them. A FRIEND TO THE CITY. _New York's First Coffee House_ Some chroniclers of New York's early days are confident that the first coffee house in America was opened in New York; but the earliest authenticated record they have presented is that on November 1, 1696, John Hutchins bought a lot on Broadway, between Trinity churchyard and what is now Cedar Street, and there built a house, naming it the King's Arms. Against this record, Boston can present the statement in Samuel Gardner Drake's _History and Antiquities of the City of Boston_ that Benj. Harris sold books at the "London Coffee House" in 1689. [Illustration: NEW YORK'S PIONEER COFFEE HOUSE, THE KING'S ARMS, OPENED IN 1696 This view shows the garden side of the historic old house as it was conducted by John Hutchins, near Trinity Church, on Broadway. The observatory may have been added later] The King's Arms was built of wood, and had a front of yellow brick, said to have been brought from Holland. The building was two stories high, and on the roof was an "observatory," arranged with seats, and commanding a fine view of the bay, the river, and the city. Here the coffee-house visitors frequently sat in the afternoons. It is not shown in the illustration. [Illustration: BURNS COFFEE HOUSE AS IT APPEARED ABOUT THE MIDDLE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY It stood for many years on Broadway, opposite Bowling Green, in the old De Lancey House, becoming known in 1763 as the King's Arms, and later the Atlantic Garden House] The sides of the main room on the lower floor were lined with booths, which, for the sake of greater privacy, were screened with green curtains. There a patron could sip his coffee, or a more stimulating drink, and look over his mail in the same exclusiveness affected by the Londoner of the time. The rooms on the second floor were used for special meetings of merchants, colonial magistrates and overseers, or similar public and private business. The meeting room, as above described, seems to have been one of the chief features distinguishing a coffee house from a tavern. Although both types of houses had rooms for guests, and served meals, the coffee house was used for business purposes by permanent customers, while the tavern was patronized more by transients. Men met at the coffee house daily to carry on business, and went to the tavern for convivial purposes or lodgings. Before the front door hung the sign of "the lion and the unicorn fighting for the crown." For many years the King's Arms was the only coffee house in the city; or at least no other seems of sufficient importance to have been mentioned in colonial records. For this reason it was more frequently designated as "the" coffee house than the King's Arms. Contemporary records of the arrest of John Hutchins of the King's Arms, and of Roger Baker, for speaking disrespectfully of King George, mention the King's Head, of which Baker was proprietor. But it is generally believed that this public house was a tavern and not rightfully to be considered as a coffee house. The White Lion, mentioned about 1700, was also a tavern, or inn. _The New Coffee House_ Under date of September 22, 1709, the _Journal of the General Assembly of the Colony of New York_ refers to a conference held in the "New Coffee House." About this date the business section of the city had begun to drift eastward from Broadway to the waterfront; and from this fact it is assumed that the name "New Coffee House" indicates that the King's Arms had been removed from its original location near Cedar Street, or that it may have lost favor and have been superseded in popularity by a newer coffee house. The _Journal_ does not give the location of the "New" coffee house. Whatever the case may be, the name of the King's Arms does not again appear in the records until 1763, and then it had more the character of a tavern, or roadhouse. The public records from 1709 up to 1729 are silent in regard to coffee houses in New York. In 1725 the pioneer newspaper in the city, the _New York Gazette_, came into existence; and four years later, 1729, there appeared in it an advertisement stating that "a competent bookkeeper may be heard of" at the "Coffee House." In 1730 another advertisement in the same journal tells of a sale of land by public vendue (auction) to be held at the Exchange coffee house. _The Exchange Coffee House_ By reason of its name, the Exchange Coffee House is thought to have been located at the foot of Broad Street, abutting the sea-wall and near the Long Bridge of that day. At that time this section was the business center of the city, and here was a trading exchange. That the Exchange coffee house was the only one of its kind in New York in 1732 is inferred from the announcement in that year of a meeting of the conference committee of the Council and Assembly "at the Coffee House." In seeming confirmation of this conclusion, is the advertisement in 1733 in the _New York Gazette_ requesting the return of "lost sleeve buttons to Mr. Todd, next door to the Coffee House." The records of the day show that a Robert Todd kept the famous Black Horse tavern which was located in this part of the city. Again we hear of the Exchange coffee house in 1737, and apparently in the same location, where it is mentioned in an account of the "Negro plot" as being next door to the Fighting Cocks tavern by the Long Bridge, at the foot of Broad Street. Also in this same year it is named as the place of public vendue of land situated on Broadway. By this time the Exchange coffee house had virtually become the city's official auction room, as well as the place to buy and to drink coffee. Commodities of many kinds were also bought and sold there, both within the house and on the sidewalk before it. _The Merchants Coffee House_ In the year 1750, the Exchange coffee house had begun to lose its long-held prestige, and its name was changed to the Gentlemen's Exchange coffee house and tavern. A year later it had migrated to Broadway under the name of the Gentlemens' coffee house and tavern. In 1753 it was moved again, to Hunter's Quay, which was situated on what is now Front Street, somewhere between the present Old Slip and Wall Street. The famous old coffee house seems to have gone out of existence about this time, its passing hastened, no doubt, by the newer enterprise, the Merchants coffee house, which was to become the most celebrated in New York, and, according to some writers, the most historic in America. It is not certain just when the Merchants coffee house was first opened. As near as can be determined, Daniel Bloom, a mariner, in 1737 bought the Jamaica Pilot Boat tavern from John Dunks and named it the Merchants coffee house. The building was situated on the northwest corner of the present Wall Street and Water (then Queen) Street; and Bloom was its landlord until his death, soon after the year 1750. He was succeeded by Captain James Ackland, who shortly sold it to Luke Roome. The latter disposed of the building in 1758 to Dr. Charles Arding. The doctor leased it to Mrs. Mary Ferrari, who continued as its proprietor until she moved, in 1772, to the newer building diagonally across the street, built by William Brownejohn, on the southeast corner of Wall and Water Streets. Mrs. Ferrari took with her the patronage and the name of the Merchants coffee house, and the old building was not used again as a coffee house. The building housing the original Merchants coffee house was a two-story structure, with a balcony on the roof, which was typical of the middle eighteenth century architecture in New York. On the first floor were the coffee bar and booths described in connection with the King's Arms coffee house. The second floor had the typical long room for public assembly. During Bloom's proprietorship the Merchants coffee house had a long, hard struggle to win the patronage away from the Exchange coffee house, which was flourishing at that time. But, being located near the Meal Market, where the merchants were wont to gather for trading purposes, it gradually became the meeting place of the city, at the expense of the Exchange coffee house, farther down the waterfront. [Illustration: MERCHANTS COFFEE HOUSE (AT THE RIGHT) AS IT APPEARED FROM 1772 TO 1804 The original coffee house of this name was opened on the northwest corner of Wall and Water Streets about 1737, the business being moved to the southeast corner in 1772] Widow Ferrari presided over the original Merchants coffee house for fourteen years, until she moved across the street. She was a keen business woman. Just before she was ready to open the new coffee house she announced to her old patrons that she would give a house-warming, at which arrack, punch, wine, cold ham, tongue, and other delicacies of the day would be served. The event was duly noted in the newspapers, one stating that "the agreeable situation and the elegance of the new house had occasioned a great resort of company to it." Mrs. Ferrari continued in charge until May 1, 1776, when Cornelius Bradford became proprietor and sought to build up the patronage, that had dwindled somewhat during the stirring days immediately preceding the Revolution. In his announcement of the change of ownership, he said, "Interesting intelligence will be carefully collected and the greatest attention will be given to the arrival of vessels, when trade and navigation shall resume their former channels." He referred to the complete embargo of trade to Europe which the colonists were enduring. When the American troops withdrew from the city during the Revolution, Bradford went also, to Rhinebeck on the Hudson. During the British occupation, the Merchants coffee house was a place of great activity. As before, it was the center of trading, and under the British régime it became also the place where the prize ships were sold. The Chamber of Commerce resumed its sessions in the upper long room in 1779, having been suspended since 1775. The Chamber paid fifty pounds rent per annum for the use of the room to Mrs. Smith, the landlady at the time. In 1781 John Stachan, then proprietor of the Queen's Head tavern, became landlord of the Merchants coffee house, and he promised in a public announcement "to pay attention not only as a Coffee House, but as a tavern, in the truest; and to distinguish the same as the City Tavern and Coffee House, with constant and best attendance. Breakfast from seven to eleven; soups and relishes from eleven to half-past one. Tea, coffee, etc., in the afternoon, as in England." But when he began charging sixpence for receiving and dispatching letters by man-o'-war to England, he brought a storm about his ears, and was forced to give up the practise. He continued in charge until peace came, and Cornelius Bradford came with it to resume proprietorship of the coffee house. Bradford changed the name to the New York coffee house, but the public continued to call it by its original name, and the landlord soon gave in. He kept a marine list, giving the names of vessels arriving and departing, recording their ports of sailing. He also opened a register of returning citizens, "where any gentleman now resident in the city," his advertisement stated, "may insert their names and place of residence." This seems to have been the first attempt at a city directory. By his energy Bradford soon made the Merchants coffee house again the business center of the city. When he died, in 1786, he was mourned as one of the leading citizens. His funeral was held at the coffee house over which he had presided so well. The Merchants coffee house continued to be the principal public gathering place until it was destroyed by fire in 1804. During its existence it had figured prominently in many of the local and national historic events, too numerous to record here in detail. Some of the famous events were: The reading of the order to the citizens, in 1765, warning them to stop rioting against the Stamp Act; the debates on the subject of not accepting consignments of goods from Great Britain; the demonstration by the Sons of Liberty, sometimes called the "Liberty Boys," made before Captain Lockyer of the tea ship Nancy which had been turned away from Boston and sought to land its cargo in New York in 1774; the general meeting of citizens on May 19, 1774, to discuss a means of communicating with the Massachusetts colony to obtain co-ordinated effort in resisting England's oppression, out of which came the letter suggesting a congress of deputies from the colonies and calling for a "virtuous and spirited Union;" the mass meeting of citizens in the days immediately following the battles at Concord and Lexington in Massachusetts; and the forming of the Committee of One Hundred to administer the public business, making the Merchants coffee house virtually the seat of government. When the American Army held the city in 1776, the coffee house became the resort of army and navy officers. Its culminating glory came on April 23, 1789, when Washington, the recently elected first president of the United States, was officially greeted at the coffee house by the governor of the State, the mayor of the city, and the lesser municipal officers. As a meeting place for societies and lodges the Merchants coffee house was long distinguished. In addition to the purely commercial organizations that gathered in its long room, these bodies regularly met there in their early days: The Society of Arts, Agriculture and Economy; Knights of Corsica; New York Committee of Correspondence; New York Marine Society; Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York; Lodge 169, Free and Accepted Masons; Whig Society; Society of the New York Hospital; St. Andrew's Society; Society of the Cincinnati; Society of the Sons of St. Patrick; Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves; Society for the Relief of Distressed Debtors; Black Friars Society; Independent Rangers; and Federal Republicans. Here also came the men who, in 1784, formed the Bank of New York, the first financial institution in the city; and here was held, in 1790, the first public sale of stocks by sworn brokers. Here, too, was held the organization meeting of subscribers to the Tontine coffee house, which in a few years was to prove a worthy rival. _Some Lesser Known Coffee Houses_ Before taking up the story of the famous Tontine coffee house it should be noted that the Merchants coffee house had some prior measure of competition. For four years the Exchange coffee room sought to cater to the wants of the merchants around the foot of Broad Street. It was located in the Royal Exchange, which had been erected in 1752 in place of the old Exchange, and until 1754 had been used as a store. Then William Keen and Alexander Lightfoot got control and started their coffee room, with a ball room attached. The partnership split up in 1756, Lightfoot continuing operations until he died the next year, when his widow tried to carry it on. In 1758 it had reverted into its original character of a mercantile establishment. [Illustration: THE TONTINE COFFEE HOUSE (SECOND BUILDING AT THE LEFT), OPENED IN 1792 This is the original structure, northwest corner of Wall and Water Streets, which was succeeded about 1850 by a five-story building (see page 122) that in turn was replaced by a modern office building] Then there was the Whitehall coffee house, which two men, named Rogers and Humphreys, opened in 1762, with the announcement that "a correspondence is settled in London and Bristol to remit by every opportunity all the public prints and pamphlets as soon as published; and there will be a weekly supply of New York, Boston and other American newspapers." This enterprise had a short life. The early records of the city infrequently mention the Burns coffee house, sometimes calling it a tavern. It is likely that the place was more an inn than a coffee house. It was kept for a number of years by George Burns, near the Battery, and was located in the historic old De Lancey house, which afterward became the City hotel. Burns remained the proprietor until 1762, when it was taken over by a Mrs. Steele, who gave it the name of the King's Arms. Edward Barden became the landlord in 1768. In later years it became known as the Atlantic Garden house. Traitor Benedict Arnold is said to have lodged in the old tavern after deserting to the enemy. The Bank coffee house belonged to a later generation, and had few of the characteristics of the earlier coffee houses. It was opened in 1814 by William Niblo, of Niblo's Garden fame, and stood at the corner of William and Pine Streets, at the rear of the Bank of New York. The coffee house endured for probably ten years, and became the gathering place of a coterie of prominent merchants, who formed a sort of club. The Bank coffee house became celebrated for its dinners and dinner parties. Fraunces' tavern, best known as the place where Washington bade farewell to his army officers, was, as its name states, a tavern, and can not be properly classed as a coffee house. While coffee was served, and there was a long room for gatherings, little, if any, business was done there by merchants. It was largely a meeting place for citizens bent on a "good time." Then there was the New England and Quebec coffee house, which was also a tavern. [Illustration: THE TONTINE BUILDING OF 1850 Northwest corner of Wall and Water Streets; an omnibus of the Broadway-Wall-Street Ferry line is passing] _The Tontine Coffee House_ The last of the celebrated coffee houses of New York bore the name, Tontine coffee house. For several years after the burning of the Merchants coffee house, in 1804, it was the only one of note in the city. Feeling that they should have a more commodious coffee house for carrying on their various business enterprises, some 150 merchants organized, in 1791, the Tontine coffee house. This enterprise was based on the plan introduced into France in 1653 by Lorenzo Tonti, with slight variations. According to the New York Tontine plan, each holder's share reverted automatically to the surviving shareholders in the association, instead of to his heirs. There were 157 original shareholders, and 203 shares of stock valued at £200 each. [Illustration: NIBLO'S GARDEN, BROADWAY AND PRINCE STREET, 1828] The directors bought the house and lot on the northwest corner of Wall and Water Streets, where the original Merchants coffee house stood, paying £1,970. They next acquired the adjoining lots on Wall and Water Streets, paying £2,510 for the former, and £1,000 for the latter. The cornerstone of the new coffee house was laid June 5, 1792; and a year later to the day, 120 gentlemen sat down to a banquet in the completed coffee house to celebrate the event of the year before. John Hyde was the first landlord. The house had cost $43,000. [Illustration: COFFEE RELICS OF DUTCH NEW YORK Spice-grinder boat, coffee roaster, and coffee pots at the Van Cortlandt Museum] A contemporary account of how the Tontine coffee house looked in 1794 is supplied by an Englishman visiting New York at the time: The Tontine tavern and coffee house is a handsome large brick building; you ascend six or eight steps under a portico, into a large public room, which is the Stock Exchange of New York, where all bargains are made. Here are two books kept, as at Lloyd's [in London] of every ship's arrival and clearance. This house was built for the accommodation of the merchants by Tontine shares of two hundred pounds each. It is kept by Mr. Hyde, formerly a woolen draper in London. You can lodge and board there at a common table, and you pay ten shillings currency a day, whether you dine out or not. [Illustration: NEW YORK'S VAUXHALL GARDEN OF 1803 From an old print] The stock market made its headquarters in the Tontine coffee house in 1817, and the early organization was elaborated and became the New York Stock and Exchange Board. It was removed in 1827 to the Merchants Exchange Building, where it remained until that place was destroyed by fire in 1835. It was stipulated in the original articles of the Tontine Association that the house was to be kept and used as a coffee house, and this agreement was adhered to up to the year 1834, when, by permission of the Court of Chancery, the premises were let for general business-office purposes. This change was due to the competition offered by the Merchants Exchange, a short distance up Wall Street, which had been opened soon after the completion of the Tontine coffee house building. As the city grew, the business-office quarters of the original Tontine coffee house became inadequate; and about the year 1850 a new five-story building, costing some $60,000, succeeded it. By this time the building had lost its old coffee-house characteristics. This new Tontine structure is said to have been the first real office building in New York City. Today the site is occupied by a large modern office building, which still retains the name of Tontine. It was owned by John B. and Charles A. O'Donohue, well known New York coffee merchants, until 1920, when it was sold for $1,000,000 to the Federal Sugar Refining Company. The Tontine coffee house did not figure so prominently in the historic events of the nation and city as did its neighbor, the Merchants coffee house. However, it became the Mecca for visitors from all parts of the country, who did not consider their sojourn in the city complete until they had at least inspected what was then one of the most pretentious buildings in New York. Chroniclers of the Tontine coffee house always say that most of the leaders of the nation, together with distinguished visitors from abroad, had foregathered in the large room of the old coffee house at some time during their careers. It was on the walls of the Tontine coffee house that bulletins were posted on Hamilton's struggle for life after the fatal duel forced on him by Aaron Burr. The changing of the Tontine coffee house into a purely mercantile building marked the end of the coffee-house era in New York. Exchanges and office buildings had come into existence to take the place of the business features of the coffee houses; clubs were organized to take care of the social functions; and restaurants and hotels had sprung up to cater to the needs for beverages and food. _New York's Pleasure Gardens_ There was a fairly successful attempt made to introduce the London pleasure-garden idea into New York. First, tea gardens were added to several of the taverns already provided with ball rooms. Then, on the outskirts of the city, were opened the Vauxhall and the Ranelagh gardens, so named after their famous London prototypes. The first Vauxhall garden (there were three of this name) was on Greenwich Street, between Warren and Chambers Streets. It fronted on the North River, affording a beautiful view up the Hudson. Starting as the Bowling Green garden, it changed to Vauxhall in 1750. Ranelagh was on Broadway, between Duane and Worth Streets, on the site where later the New York Hospital was erected. From advertisements of the period (1765-69) we learn that there were band concerts twice a week at the Ranelagh. The gardens were "for breakfasting as well as the evening entertainment of ladies and gentlemen." There was a commodious hall in the garden for dancing. Ranelagh lasted twenty years. Coffee, tea, and hot rolls could be had in the pleasure gardens at any hour of the day. Fireworks were featured at both Ranelagh and Vauxhall gardens. The second Vauxhall was near the intersection of the present Mulberry and Grand Streets, in 1798; the third was on Bowery Road, near Astor Place, in 1803. The Astor library was built upon its site in 1853. William Niblo, previously proprietor of the Bank coffee house in Pine Street, opened, in 1828, a pleasure garden, that he named Sans Souci, on the site of a circus building called the Stadium at Broadway and Prince Street. In the center of the garden remained the stadium, which was devoted to theatrical performances of "a gay and attractive character." Later, he built a more pretentious theater that fronted on Broadway. The interior of the garden was "spacious, and adorned with shrubbery and walks, lighted with festoons of lamps." It was generally known as Niblo's garden. Among other well known pleasure gardens of old New York were Contoit's, later the New York garden, and Cherry gardens, on old Cherry Hill. [Illustration: TAVERN AND GROCERS' SIGNS USED IN OLD NEW YORK Left, Smith Richards, grocer and confectioner, "at the sign of the tea canister and two sugar loaves" (1773); center, the King's Arms, originally Burns coffee house (1767); right, George Webster, Grocer, "at the sign of the three sugar loaves"] CHAPTER XIV COFFEE HOUSES OF OLD PHILADELPHIA _Ye Coffee House, Philadelphia's first coffee house, opened about 1700--The two London coffee houses--The City tavern, or Merchants coffee house--How these, and other celebrated resorts, dominated the social, political, and business life of the Quaker City in the eighteenth century_ William Penn is generally credited with the introduction of coffee into the Quaker colony which he founded on the Delaware in 1682. He also brought to the "city of brotherly love" that other great drink of human brotherhood, tea. At first (1700), "like tea, coffee was only a drink for the well-to-do, except in sips."[93] As was the case in the other English colonies, coffee languished for a time while tea rose in favor, more especially in the home. Following the stamp act of 1765, and the tea tax of 1767, the Pennsylvania Colony joined hands with the others in a general tea boycott; and coffee received the same impetus as elsewhere in the colonies that became the thirteen original states. The coffee houses of early Philadelphia loom large in the history of the city and the republic. Picturesque in themselves, with their distinctive colonial architecture, their associations also were romantic. Many a civic, sociological, and industrial reform came into existence in the low-ceilinged, sanded-floor main rooms of the city's early coffee houses. For many years, Ye coffee house, the two London coffee houses, and the City tavern (also known as the Merchants coffee house) each in its turn dominated the official and social life of Philadelphia. The earlier houses were the regular meeting places of Quaker municipal officers, ship captains, and merchants who came to transact public and private business. As the outbreak of the Revolution drew near, fiery colonials, many in Quaker garb, congregated there to argue against British oppression of the colonies. After the Revolution, the leading citizens resorted to the coffee house to dine and sup and to hold their social functions. When the city was founded in 1682, coffee cost too much to admit of its being retailed to the general public at coffee houses. William Penn wrote in his _Accounts_ that in 1683 coffee in the berry was sometimes procured in New York at a cost of eighteen shillings nine pence the pound, equal to about $4.68. He told also that meals were served in the ordinaries at six pence (equal to twelve cents), to wit: "We have seven ordinaries for the entertainment of strangers and for workmen that are not housekeepers, and a good meal is to be had there for six pence sterling." With green coffee costing $4.68 a pound, making the price of a cup about seventeen cents, it is not likely that coffee was on the menus of the ordinaries serving meals at twelve cents each. Ale was the common meal-time beverage. There were four classes of public houses--inns, taverns, ordinaries, and coffee houses. The inn was a modest hotel that supplied lodgings, food, and drink, the beverages consisting mostly of ale, port, Jamaica rum, and Madeira wine. The tavern, though accommodating guests with bed and board, was more of a drinking place than a lodging house. The ordinary combined the characteristics of a restaurant and a boarding house. The coffee house was a pretentious tavern, dispensing, in most cases, intoxicating drinks as well as coffee. _Philadelphia's First Coffee House_ The first house of public resort opened in Philadelphia bore the name of the Blue Anchor tavern, and was probably established in 1683 or 1684; colonial records do not state definitely. As its name indicates, this was a tavern. The first coffee house came into existence about the year 1700. Watson, in one place in his _Annals_ of the city, says 1700, but in another 1702. The earlier date is thought to be correct, and is seemingly substantiated by the co-authors Scharf and Westcott in their _History_ of the city, in which they say, "The first public house designated as a coffee house was built in Penn's time [1682-1701] by Samuel Carpenter, on the east side of Front Street, probably above Walnut Street. That it was the first of its kind--the only one in fact for some years--seems to be established beyond doubt. It was always referred to in old times as 'Ye Coffee House.'" Carpenter owned also the Globe inn, which was separated from Ye coffee house by a public stairway running down from Front Street to Water Street, and, it is supposed, to Carpenter's Wharf. The exact location of the old house was recently established from the title to the original patentee, Samuel Carpenter, by a Philadelphia real-estate title-guarantee company, as being between Walnut and Chestnut Streets, and occupying six and a half feet of what is now No. 137 South Front Street and the whole of No. 139. How long Ye coffee house endured is uncertain. It was last mentioned in colonial records in a real estate conveyance from Carpenter to Samuel Finney, dated April 26, 1703. In that document it is described as "That brick Messuage, or Tenement, called Ye Coffee House, in the possession of Henry Flower, and situate, lying and being upon or before the bank of the Delaware River, containing in length about thirty feet and in breadth about twenty-four." The Henry Flower mentioned as the proprietor of Philadelphia's first coffee house, was postmaster of the province for a number of years, and it is believed that Ye coffee house also did duty as the post-office for a time. Benjamin Franklin's _Pennsylvania Gazette_, in an issue published in 1734, has this advertisement: _All persons who are indebted to Henry Flower, late postmaster of Pennsylvania, for Postage of Letters or otherwise, are desir'd to pay the same to him at the old Coffee House in Philadelphia._ Flower's advertisement would indicate that Ye coffee house, then venerable enough to be designated as old, was still in existence, and that Flower was to be found there. Franklin also seems to have been in the coffee business, for in several issues of the _Gazette_ around the year 1740 he advertised: "Very good coffee sold by the Printer." _The First London Coffee House_ Philadelphia's second coffee house bore the name of the London coffee house, which title was later used for the resort William Bradford opened in 1754. The first house of this name was built in 1702, but there seems to be some doubt about its location. Writing in the _American Historical Register_, Charles H. Browning says: "William Rodney came to Philadelphia with Penn in 1682, and resided in Kent County, where he died in 1708; he built the old London coffee house at Front and Market Streets in 1702." Another chronicler gives its location as "above Walnut Street, either on the east side of Water Street, or on Delaware Avenue, or, as the streets are very close together, it may have been on both. John Shewbert, its proprietor, was a parishioner of Christ Church, and his establishment was largely patronized by Church of England people." It was also the gathering place of the followers of Penn and the Proprietary party, while their opponents, the political cohorts of Colonel Quarry, frequented Ye coffee house. The first London coffee house resembled a fashionable club house in its later years, suitable for the "genteel" entertainments of the well-to-do Philadelphians. Ye coffee house was more of a commercial or public exchange. Evidence of the gentility of the London is given by John William Wallace: The appointments of the London Coffee House, if we may infer what they were from the will of Mrs. Shubert [Shewbert] dated November 27, 1751, were genteel. By that instrument she makes bequest of two silver quart tankards; a silver cup; a silver porringer; a silver pepper pot; two sets of silver castors; a silver soup spoon; a silver sauce spoon, and numerous silver tablespoons and tea spoons, with a silver tea-pot. [Illustration: THE SECOND LONDON COFFEE HOUSE, OPENED IN 1754 BY WILLIAM BRADFORD, THE PRINTER Up to the outbreak of the American Revolution, it was more frequented than any other tavern in the Quaker city as a place of resort and entertainment, and was famous throughout the colonies] One of the many historic incidents connected with this old house was the visit there by William Penn's eldest son, John, in 1733, when he entertained the General Assembly of the province on one day and on the next feasted the City Corporation. _Roberts' Coffee House_ Another house with some fame in the middle of the eighteenth century was Roberts' coffee house, which stood in Front Street near the first London house. Though its opening date is unknown, it is believed to have come into existence about 1740. In 1744 a British army officer recruiting troops for service in Jamaica advertised in the newspaper of the day that he could be seen at the Widow Roberts' coffee house. During the French and Indian War, when Philadelphia was in grave danger of attack by French and Spanish privateers, the citizens felt so great relief when the British ship Otter came to the rescue, that they proposed a public banquet in honor of the Otter's captain to be held at Roberts' coffee house. For some unrecorded reason the entertainment was not given; probably because the house was too small to accommodate all the citizens desiring to attend. Widow Roberts retired in 1754. _The James Coffee House_ Contemporary with Roberts' coffee house was the resort run first by Widow James, and later by her son, James James. It was established in 1744, and occupied a large wooden building on the northwest corner of Front and Walnut Streets. It was patronized by Governor Thomas and many of his political followers, and its name frequently appeared in the news and advertising columns of the _Pennsylvania Gazette_. _The Second London Coffee House_ Probably the most celebrated coffee house in Penn's city was the one established by William Bradford, printer of the _Pennsylvania Journal_. It was on the southwest corner of Second and Market Streets, and was named the London coffee house, the second house in Philadelphia to bear that title. The building had stood since 1702, when Charles Reed, later mayor of the city, put it up on land which he bought from Letitia Penn, daughter of William Penn, the founder. Bradford was the first to use the structure for coffee-house purposes, and he tells his reason for entering upon the business in his petition to the governor for a license: "Having been advised to keep a Coffee House for the benefit of merchants and traders, and as some people may at times be desirous to be furnished with other liquors besides coffee, your petitioner apprehends it is necessary to have the Governor's license." This would indicate that in that day coffee was drunk as a refreshment between meals, as were spirituous liquors for so many years before, and thereafter up to 1920. [Illustration: SELLING SLAVES AT THE OLD LONDON COFFEE HOUSE] Bradford's London coffee house seems to have been a joint-stock enterprise, for in his _Journal_ of April 11, 1754, appeared this notice: "Subscribers to a public coffee house are invited to meet at the Courthouse on Friday, the 19th instant, at 3 o'clock, to choose trustees agreeably to the plan of subscription." The building was a three-story wooden structure, with an attic that some historians count as the fourth story. There was a wooden awning one-story high extending out to cover the sidewalk before the coffee house. The entrance was on Market (then known as High) Street. The London coffee house was "the pulsating heart of excitement, enterprise, and patriotism" of the early city. The most active citizens congregated there--merchants, shipmasters, travelers from other colonies and countries, crown and provincial officers. The governor and persons of equal note went there at certain hours "to sip their coffee from the hissing urn, and some of those stately visitors had their own stalls." It had also the character of a mercantile exchange--carriages, horses, foodstuffs, and the like being sold there at auction. It is further related that the early slave-holding Philadelphians sold negro men, women, and children at vendue, exhibiting the slaves on a platform set up in the street before the coffee house. The resort was the barometer of public sentiment. It was in the street before this house that a newspaper published in Barbados, bearing a stamp in accordance with the provisions of the stamp act, was publicly burned in 1765, amid the cheers of bystanders. It was here that Captain Wise of the brig Minerva, from Pool, England, who brought news of the repeal of the act, was enthusiastically greeted by the crowd in May, 1766. Here, too, for several years the fishermen set up May poles. Bradford gave up the coffee house when he joined the newly formed Revolutionary army as major, later becoming a colonel. When the British entered the city in September, 1777, the officers resorted to the London coffee house, which was much frequented by Tory sympathizers. After the British had evacuated the city, Colonel Bradford resumed proprietorship; but he found a change in the public's attitude toward the old resort, and thereafter its fortunes began to decline, probably hastened by the keen competition offered by the City tavern, which had been opened a few years before. Bradford gave up the lease in 1780, transferring the property to John Pemberton, who leased it to Gifford Dally. Pemberton was a Friend, and his scruples about gambling and other sins are well exhibited in the terms of the lease in which said Dally "covenants and agrees and promises that he will exert his endeavors as a Christian to preserve decency and order in said house, and to discourage the profanation of the sacred name of God Almighty by cursing, swearing, etc., and that the house on the first day of the week shall always be kept closed from public use." It is further covenanted that "under a penalty of £100 he will not allow or suffer any person to use, or play at, or divert themselves with cards, dice, backgammon, or any other unlawful game." [Illustration: THE CITY TAVERN, BUILT IN 1773, AND KNOWN AS THE MERCHANTS COFFEE HOUSE The tavern (at the left) was regarded as the largest inn of the colonies and stood next to the Bank of Pennsylvania (center). From a print made from a rare Birch engraving] It would seem from the terms of the lease that what Pemberton thought were ungodly things, were countenanced in other coffee houses of the day. Perhaps the regulations were too strict; for a few years later the house had passed into the hands of John Stokes, who used it as dwelling and a store. _City Tavern or Merchants Coffee House_ The last of the celebrated coffee houses in Philadelphia was built in 1773 under the name of the City tavern, which later became known as the Merchants coffee house, possibly after the house of the same name that was then famous in New York. It stood in Second Street near Walnut Street, and in some respects was even more noted than Bradford's London coffee house, with which it had to compete in its early days. The City tavern was patterned after the best London coffee houses; and when opened, it was looked upon as the finest and largest of its kind in America. It was three stories high, built of brick, and had several large club rooms, two of which were connected by a wide doorway that, when open, made a large dining room fifty feet long. Daniel Smith was the first proprietor, and he opened it to the public early in 1774. Before the Revolution, Smith had a hard struggle trying to win patronage from Bradford's London coffee house, standing only a few blocks away. But during and after the war, the City tavern gradually took the lead, and for more than a quarter of a century was the principal gathering place of the city. At first, the house had various names in the public mind, some calling it by its proper title, the City tavern, others attaching the name of the proprietor and designating it as Smith's tavern, while still others used the title, the New tavern. The gentlefolk of the city resorted to the City tavern after the Revolution as they had to Bradford's coffee house before. However, before reaching this high estate, it once was near destruction at the hands of the Tories, who threatened to tear it down. That was when it was proposed to hold a banquet there in honor of Mrs. George Washington, who had stopped in the city in 1776 while on the way to meet her distinguished husband, then at Cambridge in Massachusetts, taking over command of the American army. Trouble was averted by Mrs. Washington tactfully declining to appear at the tavern. After peace came, the house was the scene of many of the fashionable entertainments of the period. Here met the City Dancing Assembly, and here was held the brilliant fête given by M. Gerard, first accredited representative from France to the United States, in honor of Louis XVI's birthday. Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, and other leaders of public thought were more or less frequent visitors when in Philadelphia. The exact date when the City tavern became the Merchants coffee house is unknown. When James Kitchen became proprietor, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was so called. In 1806 Kitchen turned the house into a bourse, or mercantile exchange. By that time clubs and hotels had come into fashion, and the coffee-house idea was losing caste with the élite of the city. In the year 1806 William Renshaw planned to open the Exchange coffee house in the Bingham mansion on Third Street. He even solicited subscriptions to the enterprise, saying that he proposed to keep a marine diary and a registry of vessels for sale, to receive and to forward ships' letter bags, and to have accommodations for holding auctions. But he was persuaded from the idea, partly by the fact that the Merchants coffee house seemed to be satisfactorily filling that particular niche in the city life, and partly because the hotel business offered better inducements. He abandoned the plan, and opened the Mansion House hotel in the Bingham residence in 1807. [Illustration: EXCHANGE COFFEE HOUSE SCENE IN "HAMILTON" In this setting for the first act of the play by Mary P. Hamlin and George Arliss, produced in 1918, the scenic artist aimed to give a true historical background, and combined the features of several inns and coffee houses in Philadelphia, Virginia, and New England as they existed in Washington's first administration] CHAPTER XV THE BOTANY OF THE COFFEE PLANT _Its complete classification by class, sub-class, order, family, genus, and species--How the Coffea arabica grows, flowers, and bears--Other species and hybrids described--Natural caffein-free coffee--Fungoid diseases of coffee_ The coffee tree, scientifically known as _Coffea arabica_, is native to Abyssinia and Ethiopia, but grows well in Java, Sumatra, and other islands of the Dutch East Indies; in India, Arabia, equatorial Africa, the islands of the Pacific, in Mexico, Central and South America, and the West Indies. The plant belongs to the large sub-kingdom of plants known scientifically as the Angiosperms, or _Angiospermæ_, which means that the plant reproduces by seeds which are enclosed in a box-like compartment, known as the ovary, at the base of the flower. The word Angiosperm is derived from two Greek words, _sperma_, a seed, and _aggeion_, pronounced angeion, a box, the box referred to being the ovary. This large sub-kingdom is subdivided into two classes. The basis for this division is the number of leaves in the little plant which develops from the seed. The coffee plant, as it develops from the seed, has two little leaves, and therefore belongs to the class _Dicotyledoneæ_. This word _dicotyledoneæ_ is made up of the two Greek words, _di(s)_, two, and _kotyledon_, cavity or socket. It is not necessary to see the young plant that develops from the seed in order to know that it had two seed leaves; because the mature plant always shows certain characteristics that accompany this condition of the seed. In every plant having two seed leaves, the mature leaves are netted-veined, which is a condition easily recognized even by the layman; also the parts of the flowers are in circles containing two or five parts, but never in threes or sixes. The stems of plants of this class always increase in thickness by means of a layer of cells known as a cambium, which is a tissue that continues to divide throughout its whole existence. The fact that this cambium divides as long as it lives, gives rise to a peculiar appearance in woody stems by which we can, on looking at the stem of a tree of this type when it has been sawed across, tell the age of the tree. In the spring the cambium produces large open cells through which large quantities of sap can run; in the fall it produces very thick-walled cells, as there is not so much sap to be carried. Because these thin-walled open cells of one spring are next to the thick-walled cells of the last autumn, it is very easy to distinguish one year's growth from the next; the marks so produced are called annual rings. We have now classified coffee as far as the class; and so far we could go if we had only the leaves and stem of the coffee plant. In order to proceed farther, we must have the flowers of the plant, as botanical classification goes from this point on the basis of the flowers. The class _Dicotyledoneæ_ is separated into sub-classes according to whether the flower's corolla (the showy part of the flower which ordinarily gives it its color) is all in one piece, or is divided into a number of parts. The coffee flower is arranged with its corolla all in one piece, forming a tube-shaped arrangement, and accordingly the coffee plant belongs to the sub-class _Sympetalæ_, or _Metachlamydeæ_, which means that its petals are united. [Illustration: THE COFFEE TREE, SHOWING DETAILS OF FLOWERS AND FRUIT From a drawing by Ch. Emonts in Jardin's _Le Caféier et Le Café_] The next step in classification is to place the plant in the proper division under the sub-class, which is the order. Plants are separated into orders according to their varied characteristics. The coffee plant belongs to an order known as _Rubiales_. These orders are again divided into families. Coffee is placed in the family _Rubiaceæ_, or Madder Family, in which we find herbs, shrubs or trees, represented by a few American plants, such as bluets, or Quaker ladies, small blue spring flowers, common to open meadows in northern United States; and partridge berries (_Mitchella repens_). The Madder Family has more foreign representatives than native genera, among which are _Coffea_, _Cinchona_, and _Ipecacuanha_ (_Uragoga_), all of which are of economic importance. The members of this family are noted for their action on the nervous system. Coffee, as is well known, contains an active principle known as caffein which acts as a stimulant to the nervous system and in small quantities is very beneficial. _Cinchona_ supplies us with quinine, while _Ipecacuanha_ produces ipecac, which is an emetic and purgative. The families are divided into smaller sections known as genera, and to the genus _Coffea_ belongs the coffee plant. Under this genus _Coffea_ are several sub-genera, and to the sub-genus _Eucoffea_ belongs our common coffee, _Coffea arabica_. _Coffea arabica_ is the original or common Java coffee of commerce. The term "common" coffee may seem unnecessary, but there are many other species of coffee besides _arabica_. These species have not been described very frequently; because their native haunts are the tropics, and the tropics do not always offer favorable conditions for the study of their plants. All botanists do not agree in their classification of the species and varieties of the _coffea_ genus. M.E. de Wildman, curator of the royal botanical gardens at Brussels, in his _Les Plantes Tropicales de Grande Culture_, says the systematic division of this interesting genus is far from finished; in fact, it may be said hardly to be begun. _Coffea arabica_ we know best because of the important rôle it plays in commerce. COMPLETE CLASSIFICATION OF COFFEE Kingdom _Vegetable_ Sub-Kingdom _Angiospermæ_ Class _Dicotyledoneæ_ Sub-class _Sympetalæ or Metachlamydeæ_ Order _Rubiales_ Family _Rubiaceæ_ Genus _Coffea_ Sub-genus _Eucoffea_ Species _C. arabica_ The coffee plant most cultivated for its berries is, as already stated, _Coffea arabica_, which is found in tropical regions, although it can grow in temperate climates. Unlike most plants that grow best in the tropics, it can stand low temperatures. It requires shade when it grows in hot, low-lying districts; but when it grows on elevated land, it thrives without such protection. Freeman[94] says there are about eight recognized species of _coffea_. [Illustration: DETAILS OF THE GERMINATION OF THE COFFEE PLANT From a drawing by Ch. Emonts in Jardin's _Le Caféier et Le Café_] _Coffea Arabica_ _Coffea arabica_ is a shrub with evergreen leaves, and reaches a height of fourteen to twenty feet when fully grown. The shrub produces dimorphic branches, _i.e._, branches of two forms, known as uprights and laterals. When young, the plants have a main stem, the upright, which, however, eventually sends out side shoots, the laterals. The laterals may send out other laterals, known as secondary laterals; but no lateral can ever produce an upright. The laterals are produced in pairs and are opposite, the pairs being borne in whorls around the stem. The laterals are produced only while the joint of the upright, to which they are attached, is young; and if they are broken off at that point, the upright has no power to reproduce them. The upright can produce new uprights also; but if an upright is cut off, the laterals at that position tend to thicken up. This is very desirable, as the laterals produce the flowers, which seldom appear on the uprights. This fact is utilized in pruning the coffee tree, the uprights being cut back, the laterals then becoming more productive. Planters generally keep their trees pruned down to about six feet. The leaves are lanceolate, or lance-shaped, being borne in pairs opposite each other. They are three to six inches in length, with an acuminate apex, somewhat attenuate at the base, with very short petioles which are united with the short interpetiolar stipules at the base. The coffee leaves are thin, but of firm texture, slightly coriaceous. They are very dark green on the upper surface, but much lighter underneath. The margin of the leaf is entire and wavy. In some tropical countries the natives brew a coffee tea from the leaves of the coffee tree. [Illustration: BRAZIL COFFEE PLANTATION IN FLOWER] The coffee flowers are small, white, and very fragrant, having a delicate characteristic odor. They are borne in the axils of the leaves in clusters, and several crops are produced in one season, depending on the conditions of heat and moisture that prevail in the particular season. The different blossomings are classed as main blossoming and smaller blossomings. In semi-dry high districts, as in Costa Rica or Guatemala, there is one blossoming season, about March, and flowers and fruit are not found together, as a rule, on the trees. But in lowland plantations where rain is perennial, blooming and fruiting continue practically all the year; and ripe fruits, green fruits, open flowers, and flower buds are to be found at the same time on the same branchlet, not mixed together, but in the order indicated. [Illustration: COFFEA ARABICA--PORTO RICO] The flowers are also tubular, the tube of the corolla dividing into five white segments. Dr. P.J.S. Cramer, chief of the division of plant breeding, Department of Agriculture, Netherlands India, says the number of petals is not at all constant, not even for flowers of the same tree. The corolla segments are about one-half inch in length, while the tube itself is about three-eighths of an inch long. The anthers of the stamens, which are five in number, protrude from the top of the corolla tube, together with the top of the two-cleft pistil. The calyx, which is so small as to escape notice unless one is aware of its existence, is annular, with small, tooth-like indentations. While the usual color of the coffee flower is white, the fresh stamens and pistils may have a greenish tinge, and in some cultivated species the corolla is pale pink. The size and condition of the flowers are entirely dependent on the weather. The flowers are sometimes very small, very fragrant, and very numerous; while at other times, when the weather is not hot and dry, they are very large, but not so numerous. Both sets of flowers mentioned above "set fruit," as it is called; but at times, especially in a very dry season, they bear flowers that are few in number, small, and imperfectly formed, the petals frequently being green instead of white. These flowers do not set fruit. The flowers that open on a dry sunny day show a greater yield of fruit than those that open on a wet day, as the first mentioned have a better chance of being pollinated by the insects and the wind. The beauty of a coffee estate in flower is of a very fleeting character. One day it is a snowy expanse of fragrant white blossoms for miles and miles, as far as the eye can see, and two days later it reminds one of the lines from Villon's _Des Dames du Temps Jadis_. Where are the snows of yesterday? The winter winds have blown them all away. [Illustration: COFFEA ARABICA, FLOWER AND FRUIT--COSTA RICA] But here, the winter winds are not to blame: the soft, gentle breezes of the perpetual summer have wrought the havoc, leaving, however, a not unpleasing picture of dark, cool, mossy green foliage. The flowers are beautiful, but the eye of the planter sees in them not alone beauty and fragrance. He looks far beyond, and in his mind's eye he sees bags and bags of green coffee, representing to him the goal and reward of all his toil. After the flowers droop, there appear what are commercially known as the coffee berries. Botanically speaking, "berry" is a misnomer. These little fruits are not berries, such as are well represented by the grape; but are drupes, which are better exemplified by the cherry and the peach. In the course of six or seven months, these coffee drupes develop into little red balls about the size of an ordinary cherry; but, instead of being round, they are somewhat ellipsoidal, having at the outer end a small umbilicus. The drupe of the coffee usually has two locules, each containing a little "stone" (the seed and its parchment covering) from which the coffee bean (seed) is obtained. Some few drupes contain three, while others, at the outer ends of the branches, contain only one round bean, known as the peaberry. The number of pickings corresponds to the different blossomings in the same season; and one tree of the species _arabica_ may yield from one to twelve pounds a year. [Illustration: YOUNG COFFEA ARABICA TREE AT KONA, HAWAII] In countries like India and Africa, the birds and monkeys eat the ripe coffee berries. The so-called "monkey coffee" of India, according to Arnold, is the undigested coffee beans passed through the alimentary canal of the animal. [Illustration: SURVIVORS OF THE FIRST LIBERIAN COFFEE TREES INTRODUCED INTO JAVA IN 1876] The pulp surrounding the coffee beans is at present of no commercial importance. Although efforts have been made at various times by natives to use it as a food, its flavor has not gained any great popularity, and the birds are permitted a monopoly of the pulp as a food. From the human standpoint the pulp, or sarcocarp, as it is scientifically called, is rather an annoyance, as it must be removed in order to procure the beans. This is done in one of two ways. The first is known as the dry method, in which the entire fruit is allowed to dry, and is then cracked open. The second way is called the wet method; the sarcocarp is removed by machine, and two wet, slimy seed packets are obtained. These packets, which look for all the world like seeds, are allowed to dry in such a way that fermentation takes place. This rids them of all the slime; and, after they are thoroughly dry, the endocarp, the so-called parchment covering, is easily cracked open and removed. At the same time that the parchment is removed, a thin silvery membrane, the silver skin, beneath the parchment, comes off, too. There are always small fragments of this silver skin to be found in the groove of the coffee bean contained within the parchment packet. [Illustration: COFFEA ARABICA IN FLOWER ON A JAVA ESTATE From a photograph made at Dramaga, Preanger, Java, in 1907] [Illustration: LIBERIAN COFFEE TREE AT LAMOA, P.I.] We have said that the coffee tree yields from one to twelve pounds a year, but of course this varies with the individual tree and also with the region. In some countries the whole year's yield is less than 200 pounds per acre, while there is on record a patch in Brazil which yields about seventeen pounds to the tree, bringing the yield per acre much higher. The beans do not retain their vitality for planting for any considerable length of time; and, if they are thoroughly dried, or are kept for longer than three or four months, they are useless for that purpose. It takes the seed about six weeks to germinate and to appear above ground. Trees raised from seed begin to blossom in about three years; but a good crop can not be expected of them for the first five or six years. Their usefulness, save in exceptional cases, is ended in about thirty years. The coffee tree can be propagated in a way other than by seeds. The upright branches can be used as slips, which, after taking root, will produce seed-bearing laterals. The laterals themselves can not be used as slips. In Central America the natives sometimes use coffee uprights for fences and it is no uncommon sight to see the fence posts "growing." The wood of the coffee tree is used also for cabinet work, as it is much stronger than many of the native woods, weighing about forty-three pounds to the cubic foot, having a crushing strength of 5,800 pounds per square inch, and a breaking strength of 10,900 pounds per square inch. The propagation of the coffee plant by cutting has two distinct advantages over propagation by seed, in that it spares the expense of seed production, which is enormous, and it gives also a method of hybridization, which, if used, might lead not only to very interesting but also to very profitable results. [Illustration: TWO-AND-ONE-HALF-YEAR-OLD C. CONGENSIS] The hybridization of the coffee plant was taken up in a thoroughly scientific manner by the Dutch government at the experimental garden established at Bangelan, Java, in 1900. In his studies, twelve varieties of _Coffea arabica_ are recognized by Dr. P.J.S. Cramer[95], namely: _Laurina_, a hybrid of _Coffea arabica_ with C. _mauritiana_, having small narrow leaves, stiff, dense branches, young leaves almost white, berry long and narrow, and beans narrow and oblong. _Murta_, having small leaves, dense branches, beans as in the typical _Coffea arabica_, and the plant able to stand bitter cold. _Menosperma_, a distinct type, with narrow leaves and bent-down branches resembling a willow, the berries seldom containing more than one seed. [Illustration: A HEAVY FLOWERING OF FIVE-YEAR-OLD COFFEA EXCELSA This is a comparatively new species, discovered in the Tchad Lake district of West Africa in 1905. It is a small-beaned variety of _Coffea liberica_] [Illustration: BRANCHES OF COFFEA EXCELSA GROWN AT THE LAMAO EXPERIMENT STATION, P.I.] _Mokka_ (_Coffea Mokkæ_), having small leaves, dense foliage, small round berries, small round beans resembling split peas, and possessed of a stronger flavor than _Coffea arabica_. _Purpurescens_, a red-leaved variety, comparable with the red-leaved hazel and copper beech, a little less productive than the _Coffea arabica_. _Variegata_, having variegated leaves striped and spotted with white. _Amarella_, having yellow berries, comparable with the white-fruited variety of the strawberry, raspberry, etc. _Bullata_, having broad, curled leaves; stiff, thick, fragile branches, and round, fleshy berries containing a high percentage of empty beans. _Angustifolia_, a narrow-leaved variety, with berries somewhat more oblong and, like the foregoing, a poor producer. _Erecta_, a variety that is sturdier than the typical _arabica_, better suited to windy places, and having a production as in the common _arabica_. _Maragogipe_, a well-defined variety with light green leaves having colored edges: berries large, broad, sometimes narrower in the middle; a light bearer, the whole crop sometimes being reduced to a couple of berries per tree.[96] [Illustration: C. STENOPHYLLA, FROM WHICH IS OBTAINED THE HIGHLAND COFFEE OF SIERRA LEONE] _Columnaris_, a vigorous variety, sometimes reaching a height of 25 feet, having leaves rounded at the base and rather broad, but a shy bearer, recommended for dry climates. _Coffea Stenophylla_ _Coffea arabica_ has a formidable rival in the species _stenophylla_. The flavor of this variety is pronounced by some as surpassing that of _arabica_. The great disadvantage of this plant is the fact that it requires so long a time before a yield of any value can be secured. Although the time required for the maturing of the crop is so long, when once the plantation begins to yield, the crop is as large as that of _Coffea arabica_, and occasionally somewhat larger. The leaves are smaller than any of the species described, and the flowers bear their parts in numbers varying from six to nine. The tree is a native of Sierra Leone, where it grows wild. [Illustration: Copyright, 1909, by The Tea and Coffee Trade Journal NEAR VIEW OF COFFEE BERRIES OF COFFEA ARABICA] _Coffea Liberica_ The bean of _Coffea arabica_, although the principal bean used in commerce, is not the only one; and it may not be out of place here to describe briefly some of the other varieties that are produced commercially. _Coffea liberica_ is one of these plants. The quality of the beverage made from its berries is inferior to that of _Coffea arabica_, but the plant itself offers distinct advantages in its hardy growing qualities. This makes it attractive for hybridization. [Illustration: WILD "CAFFEIN-FREE" COFFEE TREE _Mantsaka_ or _Café Sauvage_--Madagascar] The _Coffea liberica_ tree is much larger and sturdier than the _Coffea arabica_, and in its native haunts it reaches a height of 30 feet. It will grow in a much more torrid climate and can stand exposure to strong sunlight. The leaves are about twice as long as those of _arabica_, being six to twelve inches in length, and are very thick, tough, and leathery. The apex of the leaf is acute. The flowers are larger than those of _arabica_, and are borne in dense clusters. At any time during the season, the same tree may bear flowers, white or pinkish, and fragrant, or even green, together with fruits, some green, some ripe and of a brilliant red. The corolla has been known to have seven segments, though as a rule it has five. The fruits are large, round, and dull red; the pulps are not juicy, and are somewhat bitter. Unlike _Coffea arabica_, the ripened drupes do not fall from the trees, and so the picking can be delayed at the planter's convenience. [Illustration: DIFFERENTIATING CHARACTERISTICS OF COFFEE BEANS, IN CROSS-SECTION Col. I. Mature bean. Col. II. Embryo. _A. Coffea arabica, R. Coffea robusta, L. Coffea liberica_] Among the allied Liberian species Dr. Cramer recognizes: _Abeokutæ_, having small leaves of a bright green, flower buds often pink just before opening (in Liberian coffee never), fruit smaller with sharply striped red and yellow shiny skin, and producing somewhat smaller beans than Liberian coffee, but beans whose flavor and taste are praised by brokers; _Dewevrei_, having curled edged leaves, stiff branches, thick-skinned berries, sometimes pink flowers, beans generally smaller than in _C. liberica_, but of little interest to the trade; _Arnoldiana_, a species near to _Coffea Abeokutæ_ having darker foliage and the even colored small berries; _Laurentii Gillet_, a species not to be confused with the _C. Laurentii_ belonging to the _robusta_ coffee, but standing near to _C. liberica_, characterized by oblong rather than thin-skinned berries; _Excelsa_, a vigorous, disease-resisting species discovered in 1905 by Aug. Chevalier in West Africa, in the region of the Chari River, not far from Lake Tchad. The broad, dark-green leaves have an under side of light green with a bluish tinge; the flowers are large and white, borne in axillary clusters of one to five; the berries are short and broad, in color crimson, the bean smaller than _robusta_, very like _Mocha_, but in color a bright yellow like _liberica_. The caffein content of the coffee is high, and the aroma is very pronounced; _Dybowskii_, another disease-resisting variety similar to _excelsa_, but having different leaf and fruit characteristics; _Lamboray_, having bent gutter-like leaves, and soft-skinned, oblong fruit; _Wanni Rukula_, having large leaves, a vigorous growth, and small berries; _Coffea aruwimensis_, being a mixture of different types. [Illustration: COFFEA ARABICA BERRIES GROWN IN THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS] The last three types were received by Dr. Cramer at Bangelan from Frère Gillet in the Belgian Congo, and were still under trial in Java in 1919. _Coffea Robusta_ Emil Laurent, in 1898, discovered a species of coffee growing wild in Congo. This was taken up by a horticultural firm of Brussels, and cultivated for the market. This firm gave to the coffee the name _Coffea robusta_, although it had already been given the name of the discoverer, being known as _Coffea Laurentii_. The plant differs widely from both _arabica_ and _liberica_, being considerably larger than either. The tree is umbrella-shaped, due to the fact that its branches are very long and bend toward the ground. The leaves of _robusta_ are much thinner than those of _liberica_, though not as thin as those of _arabica_. The tree, as a whole, is a very hardy variety and even bears blossoms when it is less than a year old. It blossoms throughout the entire year, the flowers having six-parted corollas. The drupes are smaller than those of _liberica;_ but are much thinner skinned, so that the coffee bean is actually not any smaller. The drupes mature in ten months. Although the plants bear as early as the first year, the yield for the first two years is of no account; but by the fourth year the crop is large. [Illustration: ROBUSTA COFFEE IN FLOWER, PREANGER, JAVA] [Illustration: COFFEE ESTATE IN THE LUQUILLO MOUNTAINS, PORTO RICO] [Illustration: JAPANESE LABORERS PICKING COFFEE ON KONA SIDE, ISLAND OF HAWAII] [Illustration: COFFEE UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES] Arno Viehoever, pharmacognosist in charge of the pharmacognosy laboratory of the Bureau of Chemistry, United States Department of Agriculture, has recently announced findings confirming Hartwich which appear to permit of differentiation between _robusta, arabica_, and _liberica_.[97] These are mainly the peculiar folding of the endosperm, showing quite generally a distinct hook in the case of the _robusta_ coffee bean. The size of the embryo, and especially the relation of the rootlet to hypercotyl, will be found useful in the differentiation of the species _Coffea arabica, liberica_, and _robusta_ (see cut, page 142). [Illustration: ONE-YEAR-OLD ROBUSTA ESTATE, ON SUMATRA'S WEST COAST] Viehoever and Lepper carried on a series of cup tests of _robusta_, the results as to taste and flavor being distinctly favorable. They summarized their studies and tests as follows: The time when coffee could be limited to beans obtained from plants of _Coffea arabica_ and _Coffea liberica_ has passed. Other species, with qualities which make them desirable, even in preference to the well reputed named ones, have been discovered and cultivated. Among them, the species or group of _Coffea robusta_ has attained a great economic significance, and is grown in increasing amounts. While it has, as reports seem to indicate, not as yet been possible to obtain a strain that would be as desirable in flavor as the old "standard" _Coffea_ _arabica_, well known as Java or "Fancy Java" coffee, its merits have been established. The botanical origin is not quite cleared up, and the classification of the varieties belonging to the _robusta_ group deserves further study. Anatomical means of differentiating _robusta_ coffee from other species or groups, may be applied as distinctly helpful.... As is usual in most of the coffee species, caffein is present. The amount appears to be, on an average, somewhat larger (even exceeding 2.0 percent) than in the South American coffee species. In no instance, however, did the amount exceed the maximum limits observed in coffee in general.... Due to its rapid growth, early and prolific yield, resistance to coffee blight, and many other desirable qualities, _Coffea robusta_ has established "its own". In the writers' judgment, _robusta_ coffee deserves consideration and recognition. Among the _robusta_ varieties, _Coffea canephora_ is a distinct species, well characterized by growth, leaves, and berries. The branches are slender and thinner than _robusta_; the leaves are dark green and narrower; the flowers are often tinged with red; the unripe berries are purple, the ripe berries bright red and oblong. The produce is like _robusta_, only the shape of the bean, somewhat narrower and more oblong, makes it look more attractive. _Coffea canephora_, like _C. robusta_, seems better fitted to higher altitudes. Other _canephora_ varieties include: _Madagascar_, having small, slightly striped, bright red berries and small round beans; _Quillouensis_, having dark green foliage and reddish brown young leaves; and, _Stenophylla Paris_, with purplish young berries. These last two named were under test at the Bangelan gardens in 1919. Among other allied _robusta_ species are: _Ugandæ_:, whose produce is said to possess a better flavor than _robusta_; _Bukobensis_, different from _Ugandæ_ in the color of its berries, which are a dark red; and _Quillou_, having bright red fruit, a copper-colored silver skin, three pounds of fruit producing one pound of market coffee. Some people prefer _Quillou_ to _robusta_ because of the difference in the taste of the roasted bean. _Some Interesting Hybrids_ The most popular hybrid belongs to a crossing of _liberica_ and _arabica_. Cramer states that the beans of this hybrid make an excellent coffee combining the strong taste of the _liberica_ with the fine flavor of the old Government Java _(arabica_), adding: The hybrids are not only of value to the roaster, but also to the planter. They are vigorous trees, practically free from leaf disease; they stand drought well and also heavy rains; they are not particular in regard to shade and upkeep; never fail to give a fair and often a rather heavy crop. The fruit ripens all the year around, and does not fall so easily as in the case of _arabica_. Among other hybrids (many were still under trial in 1919) may be mentioned: _Coffea excelsia x liberica_; _C. Abeokutæ x liberica_; _C. Dybowskii x excelsa_; _C. stenophylla x Abeokutæ_; _C. congensis x Ugandæ_; _C. Ugandæ x congensis_; and _C. robusta x Maragogipe_. There are many species of _Coffea_ that stand quite apart from the main groups, _arabica, robusta_ and _liberica_; but while some are of commercial value, most of them are interesting only from the scientific point of view. Among the latter may be mentioned: _Coffea bengalensis_, _C. Perieri_, _C. mauritiana_, _C. macrocarpa_, _C. madagascariensis_, and _C. schumanniana_. [Illustration: COFFEA QUILLOU FLOWERS IN FULL BLOOM] M. Teyssonnier, of the experimental garden at Camayenne, French Guinea, West Africa, has produced a promising species of coffee known as _affinis_. It is a hybrid of _C. stenophylla_ with a species of _liberica_. Among other promising species recognized by Dr. Cramer are: _Coffea congensis_, whose berry resembles that of _C. arabica_, when well prepared for the market being green or bluish; and _Coffea congensis var. Chalotii_, probably a hybrid of _C. congensis_ with _C. canephora_. _Caffein-free Coffee_ Certain trees growing wild in the Comoro Islands and Madagascar are known as caffein-free coffee trees. Just whether they are entitled to this classification or not is a question. Some of the French and German investigators have reported coffee from these regions that was absolutely devoid of caffein. It was thought at first that they must represent an entirely new genus; but upon investigation, it was found that they belonged to the genus _Coffea_, to which all our common coffees belong. Professor Dubard, of the French National Museum and Colonial Garden, studied these trees botanically and classified them as _C. Gallienii_, _C. Bonnieri_, _C. Mogeneti_, and _C. Augagneuri_. The beans of berries from these trees were analyzed by Professor Bertrand and pronounced caffein-free; but Labroy, in writing of the same coffee, states that, while the bean is caffein-free, it contains a very bitter substance, cafamarine, which makes the infusion unfit for use. Dr. O.W. Willcox[98], in examining some specimens of wild coffee from Madagascar, found that the bean was not caffein-free; and though the caffein content was low, it was no lower than in some of the Porto Rican varieties. Hartwich[99] reports that Hanausek found no caffein in _C. mauritiana_, _C. humboltiana_, _C. Gallienii_, _C. Bonnerii_, and _C. Mogeneti_. _Fungoid Disease of Coffee_ The coffee tree, like every other living thing, has specific diseases and enemies, the most common of which are certain fungoid diseases where the mycelium of the fungus grows into the tissue and spots the leaves, eventually causing them to fall, thus robbing the plant of its only means of elaborating food. Its most deadly enemy in the insect world is a small insect of the lepidopterous variety, which is known as the coffee-leaf miner. It is closely related to the clothes moth and, like the moth, bores in its larval stage, feeding on the mesophyl of the leaves. This gives the leaves an appearance of being shriveled or dried by heat. [Illustration: AN EIGHTEEN-MONTHS'-OLD COFFEA QUILLOU TREE IN BLOSSOM] There are three principal diseases, due to fungi, from which the coffee plants suffer. The most common is known as the leaf-blight fungus, _Pellicularia tokeroga_, which is a slow-spreading disease, but one that causes great loss. Although the fungus does not produce spores, the leaves die and dry, and are blown away, carrying with them the dried mycelium of the fungus. This mycelium will start to grow as soon as it is supplied with a new moist coffee leaf to nourish it. The method of getting rid of this disease is to spray the trees in seasons of drought. It was a fungoid disease known as the _Hemileia vastatrix_ that attacked Ceylon's coffee industry in 1869, and eventually destroyed it. It is a microscopic fungus whose spores, carried by the wind, adhere to and germinate upon the leaves of the coffee tree[100]. Another common disease is known as the root disease, which eventually kills the tree by girdling it below the soil. It spreads slowly, but seems to be favored by collections of decaying matter around the base of the tree. Sometimes the digging of ditches around the roots is sufficient to protect it. The other common disease is due to _Stilbium flavidum_, and is found only in regions of great humidity. It affects both the leaf and the fruit and is known as the spot of leaf and fruit. [Illustration: COFFEA UGANDÆ BENT OVER BY A HEAVY CROP] CHAPTER XVI THE MICROSCOPY OF THE COFFEE FRUIT _How the beans may be examined under the microscope, and what is revealed--Structure of the berry, the green, and the roasted bean--The coffee leaf disease under the microscope--Value of microscopic analysis in detecting adulteration_ The microscopy of coffee is, on the whole, more important to the planter than to the consumer and the dealer; while, on the other hand, the microscopy is of paramount importance to the consumer and the dealer as furnishing the best means of determining whether the product offered is adulterated or not. Also, from this standpoint, the microscopy of the plant is less important than that of the bean. [Illustration: Fig. 331. Coffee (_Coffea arabica_). I--Cross-section of berry, natural size; _Pk_, outer pericarp; _Mk_, endocarp; _Ek_, spermoderm; _Sa_, hard endosperm; Sp, soft endosperm. II--Longitudinal section of berry, natural size; _Dis_, bordered disk; _Se_, remains of sepals; _Em_, embryo. III--Embryo, enlarged; _cot_, cotyledon; _rad_, radicle. (Tschirch and Oesterle.)] _The Fruit and the Bean_ The fruit, as stated in chapter XV, consists of two parts, each one containing a single seed, or bean. These beans are flattened laterally, so as to fit together, except in the following instances: in the peaberry, where one of the ovules never develops, the single ovule, having no pressure upon it, is spherical; in the rare instances where three seeds are found, the grains are angular. The coffee bean with which the consumer is familiar is only a small part of the fruit. The fruit, which is the size of a small cherry, has, like the cherry, an outer fleshy portion called the pericarp. Beneath this is a part like tissue paper, spoken of technically as the parchment, but known scientifically as the endocarp. Next in position to this, and covering the seed, is the so-called spermoderm, which means the seed skin, referred to in the trade as the silver skin. Small portions of this silver skin are always to be found in the cleft of the coffee bean. The coffee bean is the embryo and its food supply; the embryo is that part of the seed which, when supplied with food and moisture, develops into a new plant. The embryo of the coffee is very minute (Fig. 331, II, _Em_)[101]; and the greater part of the seed is taken up by the food supply, consisting of hard and soft endosperm (Fig. 331, I and II, _Sa_, _Sp_). The minute embryo consists of two small thick leaves, the cotyledons (Fig. 331, III, _cot_), a short stem, invisible in the undissected embryo, and a small root, the radicle (Fig. 331, III, _rad_). [Illustration: Fig. 332. Coffee. Cross section of bean showing folded endosperm with hard and soft tissues. x6. (Moeller)] _Fruit Structure_ In order to examine the structure of these layers of the fruit under the microscope, it is necessary to use the pericarp dry, as it is not easily obtainable in its natural condition. If desired, an alcoholic specimen may be used, but it has been found that the dry method gives more satisfactory results. The dried pericarp is about 0.5 mm thick. Great difficulty is experienced in cutting microtome sections of pericarp when the specimen is embedded in paraffin, because the outer layers are soft and the endocarp is hard, and the two parts of the section separate at this point. To overcome this, the sections might also be embedded in celloidin. When the sections are satisfactory, they may be stained with any of the double stains ordinarily used in the study of plant histology. [Illustration: Fig. 333. Coffee. Cross section of hull and bean. Pericarp consists of: 1, epicarp; 2-3, layers of mesocarp, with 4, fibro-vascular bundle; 5, palisade layer; and 6, endocarp; _ss_, spermoderm, consists of 8, sclerenchyma, and 9, parenchyma; _End_, endosperm (Tschirch and Oesterle)] A section cut crosswise through the entire fruit would present the appearance shown in Fig. 333. The cells of the epicarp are broad and polygonal, sometimes regularly four-sided, about 15-35 µ broad. At intervals along the surface of the epicarp are stomata, or breathing pores, surrounded by guard cells. The next layer of the pericarp is the mesocarp (Figs. 333, 334, 335), the cells of which are larger and more regular in outline than the epicarp. The cells of the mesocarp become as large as 100 µ broad, but in the inner parts of the layer they become very much flattened. Fibrovascular bundles are scattered through the compressed cells of the mesocarp. The cell walls are thick; and large, amorphous, brown masses are found within the cell; occasionally, large crystals are found in the outer part of the layer. The fibro-vascular bundles consist mainly of bast and wood fibers and vessels. The bast fibers are as large as 1 mm long and 25 µ broad, with thick walls and very small _lumina_. Spiral and pitted vessels are also present. [Illustration: Fig. 334. Coffee. Surface view of _ep_, epicarp, and _p_, outer parenchyma of mesocarp. x160. (Moeller)] The layer next to this is a soft tissue, parenchyma (Fig. 333, 5; Fig. 334, _p_). The parenchyma, or palisade cells as they are called, is a thin-walled tissue in which the cells are elongated, from which fact they receive their name. The walls of these cells, though very thin, are mucilaginous, and capable of taking up large amounts of water. They stain well with the aniline stains. The endocarp (Fig. 336) is closely connected with the palisade layer and has thin-walled cells that closely resemble, in all respects, the endocarp of the apple. The outer layer consists of thick-walled fibers, which are remarkably porous (Fig. 333, 6; Fig. 336) while the fibers of the inner layer are thin-walled and run in the transverse direction. _The Bean Structure_ Spermoderm, or silver skin, is not difficult to secure for microscopic analysis; because shreds of it remain in the groove of the berry, and these shreds are ample for examination. It can readily be removed without tearing, if soaked in water for a few hours. The spermoderm is thin enough not to need sectioning. It consists of two elements--sclerenchyma and parenchyma cells. (Figs. 333, 337, _st_, _p_). [Illustration: Fig. 335. Coffee. Elements of pericarp in surface view. _p_, parenchyma; _bp_, parenchyma of fibro-vascular bundle; _b_, bast fiber; _sp_, spiral vessel. x160. (Moeller)] Sclerenchyma forms an uninterrupted covering in the early stages of the seed; but as the seed develops, surrounding tissues grow more rapidly than the sclerenchyma, and the cells are pushed apart and scattered. The cells occurring in the cleft of the berry are straight, narrow, and long, becoming as long as 1 mm, and resemble bast fibers somewhat. On the surface of the berry, and sometimes in the cleft, there are found smaller, thicker cells, which are irregular in outline, club-shaped and vermiform types predominating. Parenchyma cells form the remainder of the spermoderm; and these are partially obliterated, so that the structure is not easily seen, appearing almost like a solid membrane. The raphe runs through the parenchyma found in the cleft of the berry. The endosperm (Figs. 333; 338) consist of small cells in the outer part, and large cells, frequently as thick as 100 µ, in the inner part. The cell walls are thickened and knotted. Certain of the inner cells have mucilaginous walls which when treated with water disappear, leaving only the middle lamellae, which gives the section a peculiar appearance. The cells contain no starch, the reserve food supply being stored cellulose, protein, and aleurone grains. Various investigators report the presence of sugar, tannin, iron, salts, and caffein. The embryo (Fig. 331, III) may be obtained by soaking the bean in water for several hours, cutting through the cleft and carefully breaking apart the endosperm. If it is now soaked in diluted alkali, the embryo protrudes through the lower end of the endosperm. It is then cleared in alkali, or in chloral hydrate. The cotyledons shown have three pairs of veins, which are slightly netted. The radicle is blunt and is about 3/4 mm in length, while the cotyledons are 1/2 mm long. [Illustration: Fig. 336. Coffee. Sclerenchyma fibers of endocarp. x160. (Moeller)] _The Coffee-Leaf Disease_ The coffee tree has many pests and diseases; but the disease most feared by planters is that generally referred to as the coffee-leaf disease, and by this is meant the fungoid _Hemileia vastatrix_, which as told in chapter XV, destroyed Ceylon's once prosperous coffee industry. As it has since been found in nearly all coffee-producing countries, it has become a nightmare in the dreams of all coffee planters. The microscope shows how the spores of this dreaded fungus, carried by the winds upon a leaf of the coffee tree, proceed to germinate at the expense of the leaf; robbing it of its nourishment, and causing it to droop and to die. A mixture of powdered lime and sulphur has been found to be an effective germicide, if used in time and diligently applied. [Illustration: Fig. 337. Coffee. Spermoderm in surface view. _st._ sclerenchyma; _p_, compressed parenchyma. x160. (Moeller)] [Illustration: Fig. 338. Coffee. Cross-section of outer layers of endosperm, showing knotty thickenings of cell walls. x160. (Moeller)] [Illustration: Fig. 339. Coffee. Tissues of embryo in section. x160. (Moeller)] _Value of Microscopic Analysis_ The value of the microscopic analysis of coffee may not be apparent at first sight; but when one realizes that in many cases the microscopic examination is the only way to detect adulteration in coffee, its importance at once becomes apparent. In many instances the chemical analysis fails to get at the root of the trouble, and then the only method to which the tester has recourse is the examination of the suspected material under the scope. The mixing of chicory with coffee has in the past been one of the commonest forms of adulteration. The microscopic examination in this connection is the most reliable. The coffee grain will have the appearance already described. Microscopically, chicory shows numerous thin-walled parenchymatous cells, lactiferous vessels, and sieve tubes with transverse plates. There are also present large vessels with huge, well-defined pits. [Illustration: COFFEE LEAF DISEASE (HEMILEIA VASTATRIX) 1. under surface of affected leaf, x 1/2; 2, section through same showing mycelium, haustoria, and a spore-cluster; 3, a spore-cluster seen from below; 4, a uredospore; 5, germinating uredospore; 6, appressorial swellings at tips of germ-tubes; 7, infection through stoma of leaf; 8, teleutospores; 9, teleutospore germinating with promycelium and sporidia; 10, sporidia and their germination (2 after Zimmermann, 3 after Delacroix, 4-10 after Ward)] Roasted date stones have been used as adulterants, and these can be detected quite readily with the aid of the microscope, as they have a very characteristic microscopic appearance. The epidermal cells are almost oblong, while the parenchymatous cells are large, irregular and contain large quantities of tannin. Adulteration and adulterants are considered more fully in chapter XVII. [Illustration: GREEN AND ROASTED COFFEE UNDER THE MICROSCOPE Green bean, showing the size and form of the cells as well as the drops of oil contained within their cavities. Drawn with the camera lucida, and magnified 140 diameters. A fragment of roasted coffee under the microscope. Drawn with the camera lucida, and magnified 140 diameters.] [Illustration: BOGOTA, GREEN Longitudinal--Magnified 200 diameters] [Illustration: BOGOTA, GREEN Cross Section--Magnified 200 diameters] [Illustration: BOGOTA, GREEN Tangential--Magnified 200 diameters] [Illustration: BOGOTA, ROASTED Tangential--Magnified 200 diameters] [Illustration: GREEN AND ROASTED BOGOTA COFFEE UNDER THE MICROSCOPE These pictures serve to demonstrate that the coffee bean is made up of minute cells that are not broken down to any extent by the roasting process. Note that the oil globules are more prominent in the green than in the roasted product] CHAPTER XVII THE CHEMISTRY OF THE COFFEE BEAN _Chemistry of the preparation and treatment of the green bean--Artificial aging--Renovating damaged coffees--Extracts--"Caffetannic acid"--Caffein, caffein-free coffee--Caffeol--Fats and oils--Carbohydrates--Roasting--Scientific aspects of grinding and packaging--The coffee brew--Soluble coffee--Adulterants and substitutes--Official methods of analysis_ By Charles W. Trigg Industrial Fellow of the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, Pittsburgh, 1916-1920 When the vast extent of the coffee business is considered, together with the intimate connection which coffee has with the daily life of the average human, the relatively small amount of accurate knowledge which we possess regarding the chemical constituents and the physiological action of coffee is productive of amazement. True, a painstaking compilation of all the scientific and semi-scientific work done upon coffee furnishes quite a compendium of data, the value of which is not commensurate with its quantity, because of the spasmodic nature of the investigations and the non-conclusive character of the results so far obtained. The following general survey of the field argues in favor of the promulgation of well-ordered and systematic research, of the type now in progress at several places in the United States, into the chemical behavior of coffee throughout the various processes to which it is subjected in the course of its preparation for human consumption. _Green Coffee_ One of the few chemical investigations of the growing tree is the examination by Graf of flowers from 20-year-old coffee trees, in which he found 0.9 percent caffein, a reducing sugar, caffetannic acid, and phytosterol. Power and Chestnut[102] found 0.82 percent caffein in air-dried coffee leaves, but only 0.087 percent of the alkaloid in the stems of the plant separated from the leaves. In the course of a study[103] instituted for the purpose of determining the best fertilizers for coffee trees, it developed that the cherries in different stages of growth show a preponderance of potash throughout, while the proportion of P_2_O_5 attains a maximum in the fourth month and then steadily declines. Experiments are still in progress to ascertain the precise mineral requirements of the crop as well as the most suitable stage at which to apply them. During the first five months the moisture content undergoes a steady decrease, from 87.13 percent to 65.77 percent, but during the final ripening stage in the last month there is a rise of nearly 1 percent. This may explain the premature falling and failure to ripen of the crop on certain soils, especially in years of low rainfall. Malnutrition of the trees may result also in the production of oily beans.[104] The coffee berry comprises about 68 percent pulp, 6 percent parchment, and 26 percent clean coffee beans. The pulp is easily removed by mechanical means; but in order to separate the soft, glutinous, saccharine parchment, it is necessary to resort