Composition of roasted coffee (Church)

In 100 parts there are: water 2.0, albuminoids 12.5, caffeine 1.o, fat or oil 12.5, tannin 5.0, minor extractives 14.4, cellulose, etc., 48.0, mineral matter 4.6.

The coffee plant, it is said, was introduced into Arabia in the fifteenth century, but it was not until 1652 that the first coffee-shop was opened in London. Napoleon, like Voltaire, was as excessively fond of coffee as Boswell informs us the great Dr. Johnson was of Mrs. Thrale's cup of tea.

Drunk in moderation, without cream and sugar, coffee is a mild stimulant to gastric digestion, hence after-dinner, or black coffee. Coffee also possesses a distinctly laxative effect.

In most households a cup of coffee is considered the one thing needful at the breakfast hour. But how often this exhilarating beverage, that "comforteth the brain and heart and helpeth digestion " is made muddy and ill-flavored ! To-day, although we really have less to do than our foremothers, the individual housekeeper scarcely ever takes the time to roast her own coffee. The operation is a rather nice one, simply because it requires attention. The object in roasting is to bring out the naturally delicate aroma of the coffee-bean; and the aroma, once developed, is to be retained. The French are said to accomplish this perfectly by adding to every three pounds of roasting berries a tablespoonful, each, of butter and powdered sugar. These, in melting, spread over the beans in a thin coating, and so confine the volatile aroma. The browned sugar also gives to the coffee a slight flavor of caramel, which is much prized by the French.

In the absence of a revolving drum, a thick iron frying pan is probably the best utensil for roasting coffee-berries. In wholesale stores, where the coffee-berry is roasted, ground, and transformed into amber-colored liquid to be tested by the buyer, a small quantity is quickly roasted in an ordinary corn-popper. After roasting, the berries, whether ground, or unground, must be set aside in an air-tight receptacle. This is essential, for two reasons: to hold within the aroma of the coffee, and to keep out the exhalations from other substances. Indeed, on account of the facility with which coffee appropriates undesirable flavors, the whole process, from the roasting to the serving, must be guarded.

You may roast the berries "to the queen's taste," and grind them fresh every morning, and yet, if the golden liquid be not prepared in the most immaculate of coffee-pots, with each return of morning a new disappointment awaits you.

Now, it is not meant that one need possess a shining silver, or even a nickel-plated, coffee-pot, but the vessel that does serve as a coffee-pot must be kept nearly, if not quite, as clean as the "plates" for a "pure culture of germs." In cleaning a coffee-pot, only fresh water and a cloth kept specially for the purpose should be used. Never set the coffee-pot aside with coffee in it. Occasionally cleanse by boiling in it a solution of sal-soda.

There is another point upon which at least one author lays much stress. Brillat-Savarin, in his "Physiology of Taste," says: "The Turks do not use a mill to grind the coffee. They break it up in mortars with wooden pestles." He also adds that, after carefully experimenting with the ground and the powdered coffee, and soliciting experts to test the two decoctions, the unanimous opinion of himself and friends was that "the coffee made with the pounded berry was evidently superior to that made with the ground powder."