All About Coffee Part 127

In 1916, Orville W. Chamberlain, New Orleans, was granted a United States patent on an automatic drip coffee pot.

In 1916, Jules Le Page, Darlington, Ind., obtained two United States patents on cutting rolls to cut--and not to grind or crush--corn, wheat, or coffee. These were subsequently incorporated in the Ideal steel-cut coffee mill and marketed to the trade by the B.F. Gump Co., Chicago.

In 1917, Richard A. Greene and William G. Burns, a.s.signors to Jabez Burns & Sons, New York, were granted patents in the United States on the Burns flexible-arm cooler (for roasted batches) providing full fan-suction to a cooler box at all points in its track travel.

In 1919, Joseph F. Smart, a.s.signor to Landers, Frary & Clark, New Britain, Conn., was granted a United States patent on a percolator.

In 1919, Charles Morgan, a.s.signor to the Arcade Manufacturing Co., Freeport, Ill., was granted a United States patent on an improved grinding mill.

In 1919, Edward F. Schnuck, a.s.signor to Jabez Burns & Sons, New York, was granted a United States patent on an improvement for a gas coffee roaster. In 1920, he was granted a United States patent on an improved process of twice cutting coffee and removing the chaff after each cutting.

In 1920, Natale de Mattei, of Turin, Italy, was granted a United States patent on a rapid coffee-filtering machine.

In 1920, Frederick H. Muller, of Chicago, was granted a United States patent on "an art of making coffee," and on an improved apparatus for hotels and restaurants, which comprised a series of superposed metal containers, or cartridges, of ground coffee placed in a perforated bucket designed to rest in a coffee urn, the cartridges being lifted out as the boiling water poured on them sinks with the drawing off of the "decoction" at the faucet.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE N.C.R.A. HOME COFFEE MILL]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MANTHEY-ZORN RAPID COFFEE INFUSER AND DISPENSER]

In 1920, Alfredo M. Salazar, of New York, was granted a United States patent on a coffee urn in which the coffee is made at the time of serving by using steam pressure to force the boiling water through ground coffee held in a cloth sack attached to the faucet.

In 1920, William H. Bruning, Evansville, Ind., was granted a United States patent on an improved French drip pot made of aluminum and provided with a vacuum jacket in the dripper section, and a hot-water jacket in the serving portion, to keep the beverage hot.

In 1921, the Manthey-Zorn Laboratories Co., of Cleveland, brought out a rapid coffee-infuser and dispenser employing in the infuser a centrifugal to make an extract in thirty-eight seconds, and designed to deliver a gallon of concentrated liquid, or coffee base, every three minutes. The dispenser automatically combines the coffee base with boiling water in a differential faucet in the proportion desired, usually one of base to four of water. The dispenser serves 600 cups per hour. An additional faucet may be added which will double the capacity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TRICOLETTE, A PAPER-FILTER DEVICE FOR A SINGLE CUP

Above; In position on cup--Below; opened, showing parts]

Among foreign coffee makers applying the French drip principle, the Vienna coffee-making machine, known in the United States as the Bohemian coffee pot, has met with much favor in this country. Elsewhere it is known as the Carlsbad. It is made of china, and the European manufacturer has a patent on the porcelain strainer, or grid, which is provided with slits that are very fine on the inner side but that widen on the outer side to permit careful straining and to facilitate cleaning.

Some of the latest developments in coffee apparatus were shown at the industrial exposition at the National Coffee Roasters a.s.sociation, held in New York, November 1-3, 1921. Among items of distinction not heretofore included in this work, mention should be made of: an American-French coffee biggin, being a French drip pot made of American porcelain and fitted with a muslin strainer; a gla.s.s urn-liner, intended to supplant the porcelain liner; and an electric repouring pump, designed to be attached to any type of coffee urn.

Careful research of the records of the United States patent office discloses that the number of patents relating to coffee apparatus and coffee preparations, issued from 1789 to 1921, is as follows:

UNITED STATES COFFEE PATENTS

_Devices_ _Patents_ Coffee Mills 185 Coffee-roasting devices, and improvements thereon 312 Coffee-making devices 835 Coffee-cleaning, hulling, drying, polis.h.i.+ng, and plantation machinery in general 175 Miscellaneous patents (for coating, glazing, treated coffees, subst.i.tutes, etc.) 300 ________

Total 1,807

It must be borne in mind that there was a number of patents granted on machines that were intended for, and used for, coffee, but that did not mention coffee in the specifications. Many coffee driers were listed as "grain driers," for instance. Also, many excellent devices have been made that were never patented.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER x.x.xV

WORLD'S COFFEE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS

_How coffee is roasted, prepared, and served in all the leading civilized countries--The Arabian coffee ceremony--The present-day coffee houses of Turkey--Twentieth-century improvements in Europe and the United States_

Coffee manners and customs have shown little change in the Orient in the six hundred-odd years since the coffee drink was discovered by Sheik Omar in Arabia. As a beverage for western peoples, however, and more particularly in America, there have been many improvements in making and serving it.

A brief survey of the coffee conventions and coffee service in the princ.i.p.al countries where coffee has become a fixed item in the dietary is presented here, with a view to show how different peoples have adapted the universal drink to their national needs and preferences.

To proceed in alphabetical order, and beginning with Africa, coffee drinking is indulged in largely in Abyssinia, Algeria, Egypt, Portuguese East Africa, and the Union of South Africa.

_Coffee Manners and Customs in Africa_

In Abyssinia and Somaliland, among the native population, the most primitive methods of coffee making still obtain. Here the wandering Galla still mix their pulverized coffee beans with fats as a food ration, and others of the native tribes favor the _kisher_, or beverage made from the toasted coffee hulls. An hour's boiling produces a straw-colored decoction, of a slightly sweetish taste. Where the Arabian customs have taken root, the drink is prepared from the roasted beans after the Arabian and Turkish method. The white inhabitants usually prepare and serve the beverage as in the homeland; so that it is possible to obtain it after the English, French, German, Greek, or Italian styles. Adaptations of the French sidewalk cafe, and of the Turkish coffee house, may be seen in the larger towns.

In the equatorial provinces of Egypt, and in Uganda, the natives eat the raw berries; or first cook them in boiling water, dry them in the sun, and then eat them. It is a custom to exchange coffee beans in friendly greeting.

Individual earthen vessels for making coffee, painted red and yellow, are made by some of the native tribes in Abyssinia, and usually accompany disciples of Islam when they journey to Mecca, where the vessels find a ready sale among the pilgrims, most of whom are coffee-devotees.

Turkish and Arabian coffee customs prevail in Algeria and Egypt, modified to some extent by European contact. The Moorish cafes of Cairo, Tunis, and Algiers have furnished inspiration and copy for writers, artists, and travelers for several centuries. They change little with the years. The _mazagran_--sweetened cold coffee to which water or ice has been added--originated in Algeria. It probably took its name from the fortress of the same name reserved to France by the treaty of the Tafna in 1837. It is said that the French colonial troops were first served with a drink made from coffee syrup and cold water on marches near Mazagran, formerly spelled Masagran. Upon their return to the French capital, they introduced the idea, with the added fillip of service in tall gla.s.ses, in their favorite cafes, where it became known as _cafe mazagran_. Variants are coffee syrup with seltzer, and with hot water. "This fas.h.i.+on of serving coffee in gla.s.ses", says Jardin, "has no _raison d'etre_, and nothing can justify abandoning the cup for coffee."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOORISH COFFEE HOUSE IN ALGIERS]

In the princ.i.p.al streets and public squares of any town in Algeria it is a common sight to find a group of Arabs squatting about a portable stove, and a table on which cups are in readiness to receive the boiling coffee. The thirsty Arab approaches the dealer, and for a modest sum he gets his drink and goes his way; unless he prefers to go inside the cafe, where he may get several drinks and linger over them, sitting on a mat with his legs crossed and smoking his _chibouque_. Indeed, this is a typical scene throughout the Near East, where sheds or coffee tents--sketches of the more pretentious coffee houses--coffee shops, and itinerant coffee-venders are to be met at almost every turn.

In an unpublished work, Baron Antoine Rousseau and Th. Roland de Bussy have the following description of a typical Moorish cafe at Algiers:

We entered without ceremony into a narrow deep cave, decorated with the name of the cafe. On the right and on the left, along its length, were two benches covered with mats; notched cups, tongs, a box of brown sugar, all placed near a small stove, completed the furniture of the place. In the evening, the dim light from a lamp hanging from the ceiling shows the indistinct figures of a double row of natives listening to the nasal cadences of a band who play a pizzicato accompaniment on small three-stringed violins.

Here, as in Europe, the cafes are the providential rendezvous for idlers and gossips, exchanges for real-estate brokers and players at cards.

Europeans recently arrived frequent them particularly. Some go only to satisfy their curiosity; others out of an inborn scorn for the customs of civilization. They go to sleep as Frenchmen, they awake Mohammedans! Their love for "Turkish art" only leads them to haunt the native shops and to affect oriental poses.

If we quit for a moment the interior of the city to follow between two hedgerows of mastics or aloes, one of those capricious paths which lead one, now up to the summit of a hill, now to the depths of some ravine, very soon the tones of a rustic flute, the modulations of the _Djou-wak_, will betray some cool and peaceful retreat, some rustic cafe, easily recognized by its facade, pierced with large openings. To my eyes, nothing equals the charm of these little buildings scattered here and there along the edges of a stream, sheltered under the thick foliage, and constantly enlivened by the coming and going of the husbandmen of the neighborhood.

Certain old Moors from the neighboring districts, fleeing the noises of the city, are the faithful habitues of these agreeable retreats. Here they instal themselves at dawn, and know how to enjoy every moment of their day with tales of their travels and youthful adventures, and many a legend for which their imagination takes all the responsibility.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COFFEE HOUSE IN CAIRO]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HULLING COFFEE IN ADEN, ARABIA]

Gerome's painting of the "Coffee House at Cairo," which hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, gives one a good idea of the atmosphere of the Egyptian cafe. The preparation and service is modified Turkish-Arabian. The coffee is ground to a powder, boiled in an _ibrik_ with the addition of sugar, and served frothing in small cups.

Story-tellers, singers, and dancers furnish amus.e.m.e.nt as of yore. The Oriental customs have not changed much in this respect. Trolley cars, victorias, and taxis may have replaced the donkeys in the new sections of the larger Egyptian cities; but in old Alexandria and Cairo, the approach to the native coffee house is as dirty and as odorous as ever.

Coffee is always served in all business transactions. Nowadays, the Egyptian women chew gum and the men smoke cigarettes, French department stores offer bargain sales, and the hotels advertise tea dances; but the Egyptian coffee drink is still the tiny cup of coffee grounds and sugar that it was three hundred years ago, when sugar was first used to sweeten coffee in Cairo.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COFFEE SERVICE AT A BARBER SHOP IN CAIRO]