Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1884 — SOMETHING ABOUT COFFEE. [ARTICLE]

SOMETHING ABOUT COFFEE.

Perhaps the most important individual of the Cinchona tribe is the coffee plant. Coffee is the produce of an evergree shrub, a native of Abyssinia and Arabia. The fruit is a berry about the size of a cherry, covered with a pulp sweet in taste and not very thick Inside this pulp are two seeds, separated from each other by a parchmentlike membrane. These seeds are the well-known coffee. The coffee-seed has been frequently analyzed; chemists have found in it .several oily gums and albuminous matters, but the valuable principle is crystalline, and denominated caffeine. Every person knows that coffee is rendered fit for culinary purposes by the process of roasting, but the precise agency of this roasting process is not understood. It is supposed that it was only in the fifteenth century that coffee was transported from Abyssinia to Arabia Felix. But if Arabia be not the native land of coffee, it is at least its most prosperous adopted home. Nowhere else does the plant flourish better, nowhere is the resulting coffee so delicious in flavor, especially that raised in the country of Yemen, in the environs of Mocha. The Orientals, it is well known, first introduced the use of coffee into Europe; but when they, the Orientals, first became acquainted with the beverage is still uncertain. An Arabian author of the fifteenth century, named Shehabeddin, states that the Mufti of Aden, in the ninth century, was the first who used coffee as a beverage; but it is certain that at this period the use of the infusion was known in Persia. According to vulgar tradition, the discoveiy of'coffee is due to the Mollah Chadelly, whose memory is held in reverence by all true Mussulmans. This pious man, afflicted with sorrow at the thought that he could not keep awake for the performance of his nocturnal devotions, besought Mohammed to indicate some means by which sleep might be chased away. Mohammed, touched with pity, as well he might, seeing that his own honor was concerned, so brought matters about that a herdsman came to acquaint MollA Chadelly of the curious fact that lar (the herdsman’s) goats could not go to

sleep after they had partaken of coffee berries, but kept frisking about all night long. The Mollah, taking the hint, at once prepared a good strong dose of coffee. He drank it, and was delighted beyond measure at the result. Not a wink of sleep did he get; delicious sensations crowded on the brain; and his midnight devotions were so fervent that he at once communicated the precious secret to some dervisos, who, imitating his example, beleaguered the prophet, now in the seventh heaven of bliss, with unceasing prayers. According to another tale, the discovery was made by the prior of a convent at Maronites, who, on receiving the report of a camel-driver to the effect that his beasts could get no sleep after having browsed on the coffee plant, at once bethought himself what a good thing coffee would be for his monks, who, like the Mollah Chadelly, appear to have been torpid, sleepy fellows, and had acquired the disreputable habit—not quite obsolete now—of going to sleep in church. The practice, we are told, was quite successful. But coffee, like many other good things, had its enemies, and, strange to say, the very Mohammedan priests who were the first to patronize it became its most rancorous foes. The fact was this: So generally was coffee approved of by the Arabian populace that people, instead of going to the mosque, spent their days in coffee-shops; and as there does not appear to have been any act of Parliament to enforce the closing of coffee-houses during church—or rather mosque—hours, the priests had an audience of empty benches. Forthwith the mollahs anathematized the seductive berry and those who used it. Coffee, they said, was as bad as wine or spirituous liquors, if not worse. Its employment was interdicted throughout every part of the Turkish Empire. ReUgious anathemas, however, being insufficient to check the growing evil, at length an appeal was made to physical force. “In the year of the Hegira 945” (A. D. 1538), says an Arabian historian, “while large numbers were assembled in the month of Rhamadan, employed in drinking coffee, the captain of the guard surprised them, hunted them ignominiouslv from the shops, locked them up all night in the Pasha’s house, and the next morning administered to each individual, by way of a salutary admonition, seventeen stripes.” Persecution, as usual, accomplished a result the very opposite of that intended. Coffee speedily became universally popular. In the first half of the seventeenth century there numbered in Cairo no less than 2,000 coffee shops. At the present time coffee is among Eastern Mussulmans one of the first necessaries of life. When a Turk adds a new wife to his associated beauties he formally contracts with her friends that she is always to have plenty of coffee. If certain modem accounts, however, are to be trusted, Turkish ladies have got into the habit of drinking brandy. According to Mohammed, they have no souls to lose; hence they may drink spirituous liquor with impunity. \ Before the Seventeenth century coffee was scarcely known in France, even by name. At length certain travelers returning from the East brought a little coffee with them for their own private ue. In the year 1647, Thevenot invited some friends to a party, and gave them coffee to drink; but he had been preceded by a Levantine, who, three years before, had established at Paris a coffee shop; his speculation, however, did not succeed. It was in the beau monde that coffee first became popularized. The Turkish Ambassador at the French Court, Soli man Aga, was in the habit of offering coffee, after the manner of his country, to those who attended his levees. The ladies of the French Court no sooner heard of this custom than they expressed their desire of tasting the seductive liquor; whereupon the Turk, being a polite man, as all Turks are, invited the ladies to his house, and gave them coffee to their hearts’ content. Madame de Sevigne was opposed to this fashion; she did not approve of coffee; said it was only a short-lived taste; that it

I would pass away and be forgotten, like I Racine. Well, the lady was right, after all, though not after the fashion she intended; coffee has passed away and been forgotten “like Racine!” About the same time it was that coffee first came into favor at Vienna. The Turks, driven from before tho walls of that city by Sobieski, left their camp in the hands of the conqueror. In this camp here was abundance of coffee and at retinue of slaves whose office was to prepare it. Coffee had already been introduced among the Londoners in the following manner: An English merchant, named Edwards, returning from Smyrna, brought with him a Greek servant, Pasquet by name, who opened a coffee-shop in Newman’s Court, Cornhill, in 1652. Other coffee-shops speedily arose; but Cromwell, then in power, set himself against them, and closed them, fearing lest they might injure the taverns. Another account says that the first coffee shop in England was opened by a Jew named Jacobs, at Oxford, in 1650. All the supplies of coffee imported for a long time into Europe were obtained from Arabia. It was brought by way of Alexandria and the Levant; but the Pashas of Egypt and Syria imposed enormous taxes upon it. Europeans then began to obtain it by the channel of the Red Sea. Holland'took the lead in this commerce; next followed France; and, lastly, England. In 1699,, the Dutch, under the direction of Van Horne, first President of the Dutch East India colonies, having procured certain coffee plants, sent them to Batavia, where they flourished well. The French next introduced coffee into Martinique; and the English following their example, planted the coffee shrub in many of their tropical colonies. In the United States coffee is consumed to the amount of about sixteen million dollars annually, and is constantly increasing, not in strength, but in importation.