All About Coffee by William H. Ukers (best new books to read .TXT) đź“•
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 Europe
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Vienna cafés are famous, but the World War has dimmed their glory. It used to be said that their equal could not be found for general excellence and moderate prices. From half-past eight to ten in the morning, large numbers of people were wont to breakfast in them on a cup of coffee or tea, with a roll and butter. Mélangé is with milk; "brown" coffee is darker, and a schwarzer is without milk. In all the cafés the visitor may obtain coffee, tea, liqueurs, ices, bottled beer, ham, eggs, etc. The Café Schrangl in the Graben is typical. Then there are the dairies, with coffee, a unique institution. In the Prater (public park) there are many interesting cafés.
Charles J. Rosebault says in the New York Times:
The café of Vienna has been imitated all over the world—but the result has never failed to be an imitation. The nearest approach to the genuine in my experience was the upstairs room of the old Fleischman Café in New York. That was because the average New Yorker knew it not and it remained sacred to the internationalists: the musicians, artists, writers, and other Bohemians to whom had been intrusted the secret of its existence. It is the spirit that counts, and it was the spirit of its frequenters that made the Vienna café. It was everyman's club, and everywoman's, too, where one went to relax and forget all the worries of existence, to look over papers and magazines from all parts of the world and printed in every known language, to play chess or skat or taracq, to chat with friends and to drink the inimitable Viennese coffee, the fragrance of which can no more be described than the perfume of last year's violets.
The café was filled after the noon meal, when busy men took their coffee and smoked; again around five o'clock, when all the world and his wife paraded along the Graben and the Karntner Strasse, and then dropped into a favorite café for coffee or chocolate and cakes—horns and crescents of delicious dough filled with jam or, possibly, the wonderful Kugelhupf, in comparison with which our sponge is like unto lead; finally in the evening, when there were family parties and those returning from theatres and concerts and opera.
The Café Schrangl in the Graben, Vienna, the City That Coffee Made Famous
Photograph by Burton Holmes
While the café life of Vienna has been nearly killed by the World War, it is to be hoped that time will restore at least something of its former glory. In spite of the stories of plundering bands of Bolshevists that in the latter part of 1921 wrecked some of the better known places, we read that Oscar Straus, composer of The Chocolate Soldier, is living in comparative luxury in Vienna, and spends most of his time in the cafés, where he is to be found usually from two until five in the afternoon and from eleven o'clock at night until some early hour of the morning "surrounded by musicians of lesser note and wealth, whom, to a degree, he supports; also with him being many of the leading composers, librettists, actors, actresses, and singers of Vienna."
For Vienna coffee, the liquor is usually made in a pumping percolator or by the drip process. In normal times it is served two parts coffee to one of hot milk topped with whipped cream. During 1914–18 and the recent post-war period, however, the sparkling crown of delicious whipped cream gave way to condensed milk, and saccharine took the place of sugar.
Belgium. In Belgium, the French drip method is most generally employed. Chicory is freely used as a modifier. The greatest coffee drinker among reigning monarchs is said to be the King of the Belgians. His majesty takes a cup of coffee before breakfast, after breakfast, at his noonday meal, in the afternoon, after dinner, and again in the evening.
British Isles. In the British Isles coffee is still being boiled; although the infusion, true percolation (drip), and filtration methods have many advocates. A favorite device is the earthenware jug with or without the cotton sack that makes it a coffee biggin. When used without the sack, the best practise is first to warm the jug. For each pint of liquor, one ounce (three dessert-spoonfuls) of freshly ground coffee is put in the pot. Upon it is poured freshly boiling water—three-fourths of the amount required. After stirring with a wooden spoon, the remainder of the water is poured in, and the pot is returned to the "hob" to infuse, and to settle for from three to five minutes. Some stir it a second time before the final settling.
The best trade authorities stress home-grinding, and are opposed to boiling the beverage. They advocate also its use as a breakfast beverage, after lunch, and after the evening meal.
From an American point of view, the principal defects in the English method of making coffee lie in the roasting, handling, and brewing. It has been charged that the beans are not properly cooked in the first place, and that they are too often stale before being ground. The English run to a light or cinnamon roast, whereas the best American practise requires a medium, high, or city roast. A fairly high shade of brown is favored on the South Downs with a light shade for Lancashire, the West Riding of Yorkshire, and the south of Scotland. The trade demands, for the most part, a ripe chestnut brown. Wholesale roasting is done by gas and coke machines; while retail dealers use mostly a small type of inner-heated gas machine. The large gas machines (with capacities running from twenty-five to seven hundred pounds) have external air-blast burners, direct and indirect burners, sliding burners, etc. The best known are the Faulder and Moorewood machines. In the Uno, a popular retail machine, roasting seven to fourteen pounds at a time, the coffee beans are placed in the space between outer and inner concentric cylinders, one made of perforated steel, and the other of wire gauze, revolving together. A gas flame of the Bunsen type burns inside the inner cylinder, its heat traversing the outer, or coffee cylinder, while the fumes are driven off through the open ends. The roasting coffee may be viewed through a mica or wire-gauze panel inserted in the wall of the outer cylinder. The Faulder machine has an external flame, a capacity of from seven to fourteen pounds; and there are quick gas machines, with capacities ranging from three pounds to two hundred and twenty-four pounds, for the retail trade.
In recent years there has been a marked improvement in English coffee roasting, due to the intelligent study brought to bear upon the subject by leaders of the trade's thought, and by the retail distributer, who, in the person of the retail grocer, is, generally speaking, better educated to his business than the retail grocer in any other country. Years ago, it was the practise to use butter or lard to improve the appearance of the bean in roasting; but this is not so common as formerly.
The British consumer, however, will need much instruction before the national character of the beverage shows a uniform improvement. While the coffee may be more carefully roasted, better "cooked" than it was formerly, it is still remaining too long unsold after roasting, or else it is being ground too long a time before making. These abuses are, however, being corrected; and the consumer is everywhere being urged to buy his coffee freshly roasted and to have it freshly ground. Another factor has undoubtedly contributed to give England a bad name among lovers of good coffee, and that is certain tinned "coffees," composed of ground coffee and chicory, mixtures that attained some vogue for a time as "French" coffee. They found favor, perhaps, because they were easily handled. Package coffees have not been developed in England as in America; but there is a more or less limited field for them, and there are several good brands of absolutely pure coffee on the market.
The demi-tasse is a popular drink after luncheon, after dinner, and even during the day, especially in the cities. In London, there are cafés that make a specialty of it; places like Peel's, Groom's, and the Café Nero in the city; also the shops of the London Café Co., and Ye Mecca Co.
While, in the home, it is customary to steep the coffee; in hotels and restaurants some form of percolating apparatus, extractor, or steam machine is employed. There are the Criterion (employing a drip tray for making coffee in the Etzenberger style); Fountain; Platow; Syphon (Napier); and Verithing extractors, put out by Sumerling & Co. of London; and the well-known J. & S. rapid coffee-making machine, having an infuser, and producing coffee by steam pressure, manufactured by W.M. Still & Sons, Ltd., London.
American visitors complain that coffee in England is too thick and syrupy for their liking. Coffee in restaurants is served "white" (with milk), or black, in earthen, stoneware, or silver pots. In chain restaurants, like Lyons' or the A.B.C., there is to be found on the tariff, "hot milk with a dash of coffee."
As to the boiling method, this is already generally discredited in the countries of western Europe. The steeping method so much favored in England may be responsible for some of the unkind things said about English coffee; because it undoubtedly leads to the abuse of over-infusion, so that the net result is as bad as boiling.
The vast majority of the English people are, however, confirmed tea drinkers, and it is extremely doubtful if this national habit, ingrained through centuries of use of "the cup that cheers" at breakfast and at tea time in the afternoon can ever be changed.
As already mentioned in this work, the London coffee houses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries gave way to a type of coffee house whose mainstay was its food rather than its drink. In time, these too began to yield to the changing influences of a civilization that demanded modern hotels, luxurious tea lounges, smart restaurants, chain shops, tea rooms, and cafés with and without coffee. A certain type of "coffee shop," with rough boarded stalls, sanded floors and "private rooms," frequented by lower class workingmen, were to be found in England for a time; but because of their doubtful character, they were closed up by the police.
Among other places in London where coffee may be had in English or continental style, mention should be made of the Café Monico, a good place to drop in for a coffee and liqueur, and one of the pioneers of the modern restaurant; Gatti's, where café filtré, or coffee produced by the filtration method, is a specialty; the cosmopolitan Savoy with its popular tea lounge (teas, sixty cents); the Piccadilly Hotel, with its Louis XIV restaurant catering to refined and luxurious tastes; the Waldorf Hotel, with its American clientèle and its palm court (teas, thirty-six cents); the Cecil, with its palm court and tea balcony, also having a special attraction for Americans; Lyons' Popular Café (iced coffee, twelve cents); the Trocadero with its special Indian curries prepared by native cooks once each week; the Temple Bar restaurant, an attractive
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