All About Coffee Part 120

Between 1428 and 1448, a spice grinder standing on four legs was invented; and this was later used for grinding coffee. The drawer to receive the ground coffee was added in the eighteenth century.

Between 1500 and 1600, shallow iron dippers with long handles and foot-rests, designed to stand in open fires, were used in Bagdad, and by the Arabs in Mesopotamia, for roasting coffee. These roasters had handles about thirty-four inches long, and the bowls were eight inches in diameter. They were accompanied by a metal stirrer (spatula) for turning the beans.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRAIN MILL OF GREEKS AND ROMANS

Also used for grinding coffee]

Another type of roaster was developed about 1600. It was in the shape of an iron spider on legs, and was designed, like that just described, to sit in open fires. At this period pewter serving pots were first used.

Between 1600 and 1632, mortars and pestles of wood, iron, bra.s.s, and bronze came into common use in Europe for braying the roasted beans. For several centuries, coffee connoisseurs held that pounding the beans in a mortar was superior to grinding in the most efficient mill. Peregrine White's parents brought to America on the _Mayflower_, in 1620, a wooden mortar and pestle that were used for braying coffee to make coffee "powder."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIRST COFFEE ROASTER, ABOUT 1400]

When La Roque speaks of his father bringing back to Ma.r.s.eilles from Constantinople in 1644 the instruments for making coffee, he undoubtedly refers to the individual devices which at that time in the Orient included the roaster plate, the cylinder grinder, the small long-handled boiler, and _fenjeyns_ (findjans), the little porcelain drinking cups.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIRST CYLINDER ROASTER, ABOUT 1650]

When Bernier visited Grand Cairo about the middle of the seventeenth century, in all the city's thousand-odd coffee houses he found but two persons who understood the art of roasting the bean.

About 1650, there was developed the individual cylinder coffee roaster made of metal, usually tin plate or tinned copper, suggested by the original Turkish pocket grinder. This was designed for use over open fires in braziers. There appeared about this time also a combined making-and-serving metal pot which was undoubtedly the original of the common type of pot that we know today.

There appeared in England about 1660, Elford's white iron machine (sheet iron coated with tin) which was "turned on a spit by a jack.[362]" This was simply a larger size of the individual cylinder roaster, and was designed for family or commercial use. Modifications were developed by the French and Dutch. In the seventeenth century the Italians produced some beautiful designs in wrought-iron coffee roasters.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HISTORICAL RELICS IN THE PETER COLLECTION, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM

1--Bagdad coffee-roasting pan and stirrer. 2--Iron mortar and pestle used for pounding coffee. 3--Coffee mill used by General and Mrs.

Was.h.i.+ngton. 4--Coffee-roasting pan used at Mt. Vernon. 5--Bagdad coffee pot with crow-bill spout]

Before the advent of the Elford machine, and indeed, for two centuries thereafter, it was the common practise in the home to roast coffee in uncovered earthenware tart dishes, old pudding pans, and fry pans.

Before the time of the modern kitchen stove, it was usually done over charcoal fires without flame.

The improved Turkish combination coffee grinder with folding handle and cup receptacle for the beans, used for grinding, boiling, and drinking, was first made in Damascus in 1665. About this period, the Turkish coffee set, including the long-handled boiler and the porcelain drinking cups in bra.s.s holders, also came into vogue.

In 1665, Nicholas Book, "living at the Sign of the Frying Pan in St.

Tulies street," London, advertised that he was "the only known man for making of mills for grinding of coffee powder, which mills are sold by him from forty to forty-five s.h.i.+llings the mill."

By combining the long-handle idea contained in the Bagdad roaster with that of the original cylinder roaster, the Dutch perfected a small, closed, sheet-iron cylinder-roaster with a long handle that permitted its being held and turned in open fire places. From 1670, and well into the middle of the nineteenth century, this type of family roaster enjoyed great favor in Holland, France, England, and the United States, more especially in the country districts. The museums of Europe and the United States contain many specimens. The iron cylinder measured about five inches in diameter, and was from six to eight inches long, being attached to a three or four foot iron rod provided with a wooden handle.

The green coffee was put into the cylinder through a sliding door.

Balancing the roaster over the blaze by resting the end of the iron rod projecting from the far end of the roasting cylinder in a hook of the usual fireplace crane, the housekeeper was wont slowly to revolve the cylinder until the beans had turned the proper color.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TURKISH COFFEE MILL

A fine specimen in the Peter collection, United States National Museum]

Portable coffee-making outfits to fit the pocket were much in vogue in France in 1691. These included a roaster, a grinder, a lamp, the oil, cups, saucers, spoons, coffee, and sugar. The roaster was first made of tin plate or tinned copper; but for the aristocracy silver and gold were used. In 1754, a white-silver coffee roaster eight inches long and four inches in diameter was mentioned among the deliveries made to the army of the king at Versailles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EARLY FRENCH WALL AND TABLE GRINDERS

Left, seventeenth-century coffee grinder in the Musee de la Porte de Hal--Center, wall mill, eighteenth century--Right, iron mill, eighteenth century]

Humphrey Broadbent, "the London coffee man" wrote in 1722:

I hold it best to roast coffee berries in an iron vessel full of little holes, made to turn on a spit over a charcoal fire, keeping them continually turning, and sometimes shaking them that they do not burn, and when they are taken out of the vessel, spread 'em on some tin or iron plate 'till the vehemency of the heat is vanished; I would recommend to every family to roast their own coffee, for then they will be almost secure from having any damaged berries, or any art to increase the weight, which is very injurious to the drinkers of coffee. Most persons of distinction in Holland roast their own berries.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRONZE AND BRa.s.s MORTARS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY USED FOR MAKING COFFEE POWDER

Left, bronze (Germany)--Center, bra.s.s (England)--Right, bronze (Holland, 1632)]

Between 1700 and 1800, there was developed a type of small portable household stove to burn c.o.ke or charcoal, made of iron and fitted with horizontal revolving cylinders for coffee roasting. These were provided with iron handles for turning. A modification of this type of roaster under a three-sided hood, and standing on three legs, was designed to sit on the hearth of open fireplaces, close to the fire or in the smoldering ashes. Because of its greater capacity, it was probably used in the inns and coffee houses for roasting large batches. Still another type, which made its appearance late in the eighteenth century, was the sheet-iron roaster suspended at the top of a tall, iron, box-like compartment, or stove, in which the fire was built. This, too, was designed to roast coffee in comparatively large quant.i.ties. In some examples it was provided with legs.

Great silver coffee pots ("with all the utensils belonging to them of the same metal") were first used by Pascal at St.-Germain's fair in Paris in 1672. It remained for the English and American silversmiths to produce the most beautiful forms of silver coffee pots; and there are some notable collections of these in England and the United States.

The oriental serving pot was nearly always of metal, tall, and, in old models, of graceful curve, with a slightly twisted ornamental beak in the form of an S, attached below the middle of the vessel. A handle ornamented in the same way formed a decorative balance.

In 1692, the lantern straight-line coffee serving pot with true cone lid, thumb-piece, and handle fixed at right angle to the spout, was introduced into England, succeeding the curved oriental serving pot. In 1700, coffee pots made of cheaper metals, like tin and Britannia ware, began to appear on the home tables of the people. In 1701, silver coffee pots appeared in England having perfect domes and bodies less tapering.

Between 1700 and 1800, silver, gold, and delicate porcelain serving pots were the vogue among European royalty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EARLY AMERICAN COFFEE ROASTERS

Both the cast-iron spiders and the long-handled roasters were used in open fireplaces previous to 1770]

In 1704, Bull's machine for roasting coffee was patented in England.

This probably marks the first use of coal for commercial roasting.

In 1710, the popular coffee roaster in French homes was a dish of varnished earthenware. This same year a novelty was introduced in France in the shape of a fustian (linen) bag for infusing ground coffee.

By 1714, the thumb-piece on English serving pots had disappeared, and the handle was no longer set at a right angle to the spout. English coffee-pot bodies showed a further modification in 1725, the taper becoming less and less.

Coffee grinders were so common in France in 1720 that they were to be had for a dollar and twenty cents each. Their development by the French had been rapid from the original spice grinder. At first, they were known as coffee mills; but in the eighteenth century, roasters came to be known by that name. They were made of iron, retaining the same principle of the horizontal mill-stones--one of which is fixed while the other moves--that the ancients employed for grinding wheat. They were squat, box-shaped affairs, having in the center a shank of iron that revolved upon a fixed, corrugated iron plate. There was also the style that fastened to the wall. At first, the drawer to receive ground coffee was missing, but this was supplied in later types. Before its invention, the ground coffee was received in a sack of greased leather, or in one treated on the outside with beeswax--probably the original of the duplex paper bag for conserving the flavor.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROASTER WITH THREE-SIDED HOOD

It succeeded the cast-iron spider, and was suspended from a crane, or stood in the embers]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROASTING, MAKING, AND SERVING DEVICES

Early seventeenth century, as pictured by Dufour]

The French brought their innate artistic talents to bear upon coffee grinders, just as they did upon roasters and serving pots. In many instances they made the outer parts of silver and of gold.

By 1750, the straight-line serving pot in England had begun to yield to the reactionary movement in art favoring bulbous bodies and serpentine spouts.

About 1760, French inventors began to devote themselves to improvements in coffee-making devices. Donmartin, a Paris tinsmith, in 1763, invented an urn pot that employed a flannel sack for infusing. Another infusion device, produced the same year by L'Aine, also a tinsmith of Paris, was known as a _diligence_.

A complete revolution in the style of English serving pots took place in 1770, with a return to the flowing lines of the Turkish ewer; and between 1800 and 1900, there was a gradual return to the style of serving pot having the handle at a right angle to the spout.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ENGLISH AND FRENCH COFFEE GRINDERS