All About Coffee Part 119

[Ill.u.s.tration:

London Pot, 1773-74 By Jacob Hurd By Paul Revere FROM FRANCIS HILL BIGELOW'S "HISTORIC SILVER OF THE COLONIES"

[Ill.u.s.tration: ENGLISH SHEFFIELD PLATE COFFEE POTS AND COFFEE URN, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SILVER COFFEE POTS IN AMERICAN COLLECTIONS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: COFFEE POT BY WM. SHAW AND WM. PRIEST

Made for Peter Faneuil (about 1751-52), who gave to Boston Faneuil Hall, called the cradle of American liberty]

[Ill.u.s.tration: POT OF SHEFFIELD PLATE, 18TH CENTURY

In the Metropolitan Museum]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SILVER POT BY EPHRAIM BRASHER

In the Clearwater Collection, Metropolitan Museum]

In the Halsey collection is shown a silver coffee pot by Samuel Minott, and several beautiful specimens of the handiwork of Paul Revere, whose name is more often connected with the famous "midnight ride" than with the art of the silversmith. Of all the American silversmiths, Paul Revere was the most interesting. Not only was he a silversmith of renown, but a patriot, soldier, grand master Mason, confidential agent of the state of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, engraver, picture-frame designer, and die-sinker. He was born in Boston in 1735, and died in 1818. He was the most famous of all the Boston silversmiths, although he is more widely known as a patriot. He was the third of a family of twelve children, and early entered his father's shop. When only nineteen, his father died; but he was able to carry on the business. The engraving on his silver bears witness to his ability. He engraved also on copper, and made many political cartoons. He joined the expedition against the French at Crown Point, and in the war of the Revolution was a lieutenant-colonel of artillery. After the close of the war, he resumed his business of a goldsmith and silversmith in 1783. Decidedly a man of action, he well played many parts; and in all his manifold undertakings achieved brilliant success. There clings, therefore, to the articles of silver made by him an element of romantic and patriotic a.s.sociation which endears them to those who possess them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRENCH SILVER COFFEE POT

Grand Prize, Union Centrale, 1886.]

Revere had a real talent that enabled him to impart an unwonted elegance to his work, and he was famous as an engraver of the beautiful crests, armorial designs, and floral wreaths that adorn much of his work. His tea pots and coffee pots are unusually beautiful.

Revere coffee pots are to be seen in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts as well as in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts has also a coffee pot made by William Shaw and William Priest in 1751-52 for Peter Faneuil, the wealthiest Bostonian of his time, who gave to Boston Faneuil Hall, New England's cradle of American liberty.

Among other American silversmiths who produced striking designs in coffee pots, mention should be made of G. Aiken (1815); Garrett Eoff (New York, 1785-1850); Charles Faris (who worked in Boston about 1790); Jacob Hurd (1702-1758, known in Boston as Captain Hurd); John McMullin (mentioned in the Philadelphia _Directory_ for 1796); James Musgrave (mentioned in Philadelphia directories of 1797, 1808, and 1811); Myer Myers (admitted as freeman, New York, 1746; active until 1790; president of the New York Silversmiths Society, 1786); and Anthony Rasch (who is known to have worked in Philadelphia, 1815).

In the museums of the many historical societies throughout the United States are to be seen interesting specimens of coffee pots in pewter, Britannia metal, and tin ware, as well as in pottery, porcelain, and silver. Some of these are ill.u.s.trated.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GREEN DRAGON TAVERN COFFEE URN]

As in other branches of art during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the United States were indebted to England, Holland, and France for much of the early pottery and porcelain. Elers, Astbury, Whieldon, Wedgwood, their imitators, and the later Staffords.h.i.+re potters, flooded the American market with their wares. Porcelain was not made in this country previous to the nineteenth century. Decorative pottery was made here, however, from an early period. Britannia ware began to take the place of pewter in 1825; and the introduction of j.a.panned tin ware and pottery gradually caused the manufacture of pewter to be abandoned.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

By an unknown silversmith By Paul Revere By Paul Revere

COFFEE POTS BY AMERICAN SILVERSMITHS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN COFFEE SERVICE

The Portsmouth Pattern, by the Gorham Co.]

An interesting relic is in the collection of the Bostonian Society. It is a coffee urn of Sheffield ware, formerly in the Green Dragon tavern, which stood on Union Street from 1697 to 1832, and was a famous meeting place of the patriots of the Revolution. It is globular in form, and rests on a base; and inside is still to be seen the cylindrical piece of iron which, when heated, kept the delectable liquid contents of the urn hot until imbibed by the frequenters of the tavern. The iron bar was set in a zinc or tin jacket to keep such fireplace ashes as still clung to it from coming in contact with the coffee, which was probably brewed in a stew kettle before being poured into the urn for serving. The Green Dragon tavern site, now occupied by a business structure, is owned by the St. Andrew's Lodge of Freemasons of Boston; and at a recent gathering of the lodge on St. Andrew's Day, the urn was exhibited to the a.s.sembled brethren.

When the contents of the tavern were sold, the urn was bought by Mrs.

Elizabeth Harrington, who then kept a famous boarding-house on Pearl Street, in a building owned by the Quincy family. The house was razed in 1847, and was replaced by the Quincy Block; and Mrs. Harrington removed to High Street, and from there to Chauncey Place. Some of the prominent men of Boston boarded with her for many years. At her death, the urn was given to her daughter, Mrs. John R. Bradford. It was presented to the society by Miss Phebe C. Bradford, of Boston, granddaughter of Mrs.

Elizabeth Harrington.

A somewhat similar urn, made of pewter, is in the Museum of the Maine Historical Society of Portland, Me.; another in the Museum of the Ess.e.x Inst.i.tute at Salem, Ma.s.s.

Among the many treasured relics of Abraham Lincoln is an old Britannia coffee pot from which he was regularly served while a boarder with the Rutledge family at the Rutledge inn in New Salem (now Menard), Ill. It was a valued utensil, and Lincoln is said to have been very fond of it.

It is ill.u.s.trated on page 690.

The pot is now the property of the Old Salem Lincoln League, of Petersburg, Ill., and was donated to it, with other relics, by Mrs.

Saunders, of Sisquoc, Cal., the only surviving child of James and Mary Ann Rutledge. Mrs. Rutledge carefully preserved this and other relics of New Salem days; and shortly before her death in 1878, she gave them into the keeping of her daughter, Mrs. Saunders, advising her to preserve them until such time as a permanent home for them would be provided by a grateful people back at New Salem, where they were a.s.sociated with the immortal Lincoln and his tragic romance with her daughter Ann.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TURKISH COFFEE SET, PETER COLLECTION, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM, WAs.h.i.+NGTON]

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

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_

A book could be written on the subject of this chapter. We shall have to be content to touch briefly upon the important developments in the devices employed. The changes that have taken place in the preparation of the drink itself will be discussed in chapter x.x.xVI.

In the beginning, that is, in Ethiopia, about 800 A.D., coffee was looked upon as a food. The whole ripe berries, beans and hulls, were crushed, and molded into food b.a.l.l.s held in shape with fat. Later, the dried berries were so treated. So the primitive stone mortar and pestle were the original coffee grinder.

The dried hulls and the green beans were first roasted, some time between 1200 and 1300, in crude burnt clay dishes or in stone vessels, over open fires. These were the original roasting utensils.

Next, the coffee beans were ground between little mill-stones, one turning above the other. Then came the mill used by the Greeks and Romans for grain. This mill consisted of two conical mill stones, one hollow and fitted over the other, specimens of which have been found in Pompeii. The idea is the same as that employed in the most modern metal grinder.

Between 1400 and 1500, individual earthenware and metal coffee-roasting plates appeared. These were circular, from four to six inches in diameter, about 1/16 inch thick, slightly concave and pierced with small holes, something like the modern kitchen skimmer. They were used in Turkey and Persia for roasting a few beans at a time over braziers (open pans, or basins, for holding live coals). The braziers were usually mounted on feet and richly ornamented.

About the same time we notice the first appearance of the familiar Turkish pocket cylinder coffee mill and the original Turkish _ibrik_, or coffee boiler, made of metal. Little drinking cups of Chinese porcelain completed the service.

The original coffee boiler was not unlike the English ale mug with no cover, smaller at the top than at the bottom, fitted with a grooved lip for pouring, and a long straight handle. They were made of bra.s.s, and in sizes to hold from one to six tiny cupfuls. A later improvement was of the ewer design, with bulbous body, collar top, and cover.

The Turkish coffee grinder seems to have suggested the individual cylinder roaster which later (1650) became common, and from which developed the huge modern cylinder commercial roasting machines.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLDEST COFFEE GRINDER

Ancient Egyptian mortar and pestle, probably used for pounding coffee]

The individual coffee service of early civilization first employed crude clay bowls or dishes for drinking; but as early as 1350, Persian, Egyptian, and Turkish ewers, made of pottery, were used for serving. In the seventeenth century, ewers of similar pattern, but made of metal, were the favorite coffee-serving devices in oriental countries and in western Europe.