All About Coffee Part 26

_The James Coffee House_

Contemporary with Roberts' coffee house was the resort run first by Widow James, and later by her son, James James. It was established in 1744, and occupied a large wooden building on the northwest corner of Front and Walnut Streets. It was patronized by Governor Thomas and many of his political followers, and its name frequently appeared in the news and advertising columns of the _Pennsylvania Gazette_.

_The Second London Coffee House_

Probably the most celebrated coffee house in Penn's city was the one established by William Bradford, printer of the _Pennsylvania Journal_.

It was on the southwest corner of Second and Market Streets, and was named the London coffee house, the second house in Philadelphia to bear that t.i.tle. The building had stood since 1702, when Charles Reed, later mayor of the city, put it up on land which he bought from Let.i.tia Penn, daughter of William Penn, the founder. Bradford was the first to use the structure for coffee-house purposes, and he tells his reason for entering upon the business in his pet.i.tion to the governor for a license: "Having been advised to keep a Coffee House for the benefit of merchants and traders, and as some people may at times be desirous to be furnished with other liquors besides coffee, your pet.i.tioner apprehends it is necessary to have the Governor's license." This would indicate that in that day coffee was drunk as a refreshment between meals, as were spirituous liquors for so many years before, and thereafter up to 1920.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SELLING SLAVES AT THE OLD LONDON COFFEE HOUSE]

Bradford's London coffee house seems to have been a joint-stock enterprise, for in his _Journal_ of April 11, 1754, appeared this notice: "Subscribers to a public coffee house are invited to meet at the Courthouse on Friday, the 19th instant, at 3 o'clock, to choose trustees agreeably to the plan of subscription."

The building was a three-story wooden structure, with an attic that some historians count as the fourth story. There was a wooden awning one-story high extending out to cover the sidewalk before the coffee house. The entrance was on Market (then known as High) Street.

The London coffee house was "the pulsating heart of excitement, enterprise, and patriotism" of the early city. The most active citizens congregated there--merchants, s.h.i.+pmasters, travelers from other colonies and countries, crown and provincial officers. The governor and persons of equal note went there at certain hours "to sip their coffee from the hissing urn, and some of those stately visitors had their own stalls."

It had also the character of a mercantile exchange--carriages, horses, foodstuffs, and the like being sold there at auction. It is further related that the early slave-holding Philadelphians sold negro men, women, and children at vendue, exhibiting the slaves on a platform set up in the street before the coffee house.

The resort was the barometer of public sentiment. It was in the street before this house that a newspaper published in Barbados, bearing a stamp in accordance with the provisions of the stamp act, was publicly burned in 1765, amid the cheers of bystanders. It was here that Captain Wise of the brig Minerva, from Pool, England, who brought news of the repeal of the act, was enthusiastically greeted by the crowd in May, 1766. Here, too, for several years the fishermen set up May poles.

Bradford gave up the coffee house when he joined the newly formed Revolutionary army as major, later becoming a colonel. When the British entered the city in September, 1777, the officers resorted to the London coffee house, which was much frequented by Tory sympathizers. After the British had evacuated the city, Colonel Bradford resumed proprietors.h.i.+p; but he found a change in the public's att.i.tude toward the old resort, and thereafter its fortunes began to decline, probably hastened by the keen compet.i.tion offered by the City tavern, which had been opened a few years before.

Bradford gave up the lease in 1780, transferring the property to John Pemberton, who leased it to Gifford Dally. Pemberton was a Friend, and his scruples about gambling and other sins are well exhibited in the terms of the lease in which said Dally "covenants and agrees and promises that he will exert his endeavors as a Christian to preserve decency and order in said house, and to discourage the profanation of the sacred name of G.o.d Almighty by cursing, swearing, etc., and that the house on the first day of the week shall always be kept closed from public use." It is further covenanted that "under a penalty of 100 he will not allow or suffer any person to use, or play at, or divert themselves with cards, dice, backgammon, or any other unlawful game."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CITY TAVERN, BUILT IN 1773, AND KNOWN AS THE MERCHANTS COFFEE HOUSE

The tavern (at the left) was regarded as the largest inn of the colonies and stood next to the Bank of Pennsylvania (center). From a print made from a rare Birch engraving]

It would seem from the terms of the lease that what Pemberton thought were unG.o.dly things, were countenanced in other coffee houses of the day. Perhaps the regulations were too strict; for a few years later the house had pa.s.sed into the hands of John Stokes, who used it as dwelling and a store.

_City Tavern or Merchants Coffee House_

The last of the celebrated coffee houses in Philadelphia was built in 1773 under the name of the City tavern, which later became known as the Merchants coffee house, possibly after the house of the same name that was then famous in New York. It stood in Second Street near Walnut Street, and in some respects was even more noted than Bradford's London coffee house, with which it had to compete in its early days.

The City tavern was patterned after the best London coffee houses; and when opened, it was looked upon as the finest and largest of its kind in America. It was three stories high, built of brick, and had several large club rooms, two of which were connected by a wide doorway that, when open, made a large dining room fifty feet long.

Daniel Smith was the first proprietor, and he opened it to the public early in 1774. Before the Revolution, Smith had a hard struggle trying to win patronage from Bradford's London coffee house, standing only a few blocks away. But during and after the war, the City tavern gradually took the lead, and for more than a quarter of a century was the princ.i.p.al gathering place of the city. At first, the house had various names in the public mind, some calling it by its proper t.i.tle, the City tavern, others attaching the name of the proprietor and designating it as Smith's tavern, while still others used the t.i.tle, the New tavern.

The gentlefolk of the city resorted to the City tavern after the Revolution as they had to Bradford's coffee house before. However, before reaching this high estate, it once was near destruction at the hands of the Tories, who threatened to tear it down. That was when it was proposed to hold a banquet there in honor of Mrs. George Was.h.i.+ngton, who had stopped in the city in 1776 while on the way to meet her distinguished husband, then at Cambridge in Ma.s.sachusetts, taking over command of the American army. Trouble was averted by Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton tactfully declining to appear at the tavern.

After peace came, the house was the scene of many of the fas.h.i.+onable entertainments of the period. Here met the City Dancing a.s.sembly, and here was held the brilliant fete given by M. Gerard, first accredited representative from France to the United States, in honor of Louis XVI's birthday. Was.h.i.+ngton, Jefferson, Hamilton, and other leaders of public thought were more or less frequent visitors when in Philadelphia.

The exact date when the City tavern became the Merchants coffee house is unknown. When James Kitchen became proprietor, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was so called. In 1806 Kitchen turned the house into a bourse, or mercantile exchange. By that time clubs and hotels had come into fas.h.i.+on, and the coffee-house idea was losing caste with the elite of the city.

In the year 1806 William Renshaw planned to open the Exchange coffee house in the Bingham mansion on Third Street. He even solicited subscriptions to the enterprise, saying that he proposed to keep a marine diary and a registry of vessels for sale, to receive and to forward s.h.i.+ps' letter bags, and to have accommodations for holding auctions. But he was persuaded from the idea, partly by the fact that the Merchants coffee house seemed to be satisfactorily filling that particular niche in the city life, and partly because the hotel business offered better inducements. He abandoned the plan, and opened the Mansion House hotel in the Bingham residence in 1807.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EXCHANGE COFFEE HOUSE SCENE IN "HAMILTON"

In this setting for the first act of the play by Mary P. Hamlin and George Arliss, produced in 1918, the scenic artist aimed to give a true historical background, and combined the features of several inns and coffee houses in Philadelphia, Virginia, and New England as they existed in Was.h.i.+ngton's first administration]

CHAPTER XV

THE BOTANY OF THE COFFEE PLANT

_Its complete cla.s.sification by cla.s.s, sub-cla.s.s, order, family, genus, and species--How the Coffea arabica grows, flowers, and bears--Other species and hybrids described--Natural caffein-free coffee--Fungoid diseases of coffee_

The coffee tree, scientifically known as _Coffea arabica_, is native to Abyssinia and Ethiopia, but grows well in Java, Sumatra, and other islands of the Dutch East Indies; in India, Arabia, equatorial Africa, the islands of the Pacific, in Mexico, Central and South America, and the West Indies. The plant belongs to the large sub-kingdom of plants known scientifically as the Angiosperms, or _Angiospermae_, which means that the plant reproduces by seeds which are enclosed in a box-like compartment, known as the ovary, at the base of the flower. The word Angiosperm is derived from two Greek words, _sperma_, a seed, and _aggeion_, p.r.o.nounced angeion, a box, the box referred to being the ovary.

This large sub-kingdom is subdivided into two cla.s.ses. The basis for this division is the number of leaves in the little plant which develops from the seed. The coffee plant, as it develops from the seed, has two little leaves, and therefore belongs to the cla.s.s _Dicotyledoneae_. This word _dicotyledoneae_ is made up of the two Greek words, _di(s)_, two, and _kotyledon_, cavity or socket. It is not necessary to see the young plant that develops from the seed in order to know that it had two seed leaves; because the mature plant always shows certain characteristics that accompany this condition of the seed.

In every plant having two seed leaves, the mature leaves are netted-veined, which is a condition easily recognized even by the layman; also the parts of the flowers are in circles containing two or five parts, but never in threes or sixes. The stems of plants of this cla.s.s always increase in thickness by means of a layer of cells known as a cambium, which is a tissue that continues to divide throughout its whole existence. The fact that this cambium divides as long as it lives, gives rise to a peculiar appearance in woody stems by which we can, on looking at the stem of a tree of this type when it has been sawed across, tell the age of the tree.

In the spring the cambium produces large open cells through which large quant.i.ties of sap can run; in the fall it produces very thick-walled cells, as there is not so much sap to be carried. Because these thin-walled open cells of one spring are next to the thick-walled cells of the last autumn, it is very easy to distinguish one year's growth from the next; the marks so produced are called annual rings.

We have now cla.s.sified coffee as far as the cla.s.s; and so far we could go if we had only the leaves and stem of the coffee plant. In order to proceed farther, we must have the flowers of the plant, as botanical cla.s.sification goes from this point on the basis of the flowers. The cla.s.s _Dicotyledoneae_ is separated into sub-cla.s.ses according to whether the flower's corolla (the showy part of the flower which ordinarily gives it its color) is all in one piece, or is divided into a number of parts. The coffee flower is arranged with its corolla all in one piece, forming a tube-shaped arrangement, and accordingly the coffee plant belongs to the sub-cla.s.s _Sympetalae_, or _Metachlamydeae_, which means that its petals are united.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE COFFEE TREE, SHOWING DETAILS OF FLOWERS AND FRUIT

From a drawing by Ch. Emonts in Jardin's _Le Cafeier et Le Cafe_]

The next step in cla.s.sification is to place the plant in the proper division under the sub-cla.s.s, which is the order. Plants are separated into orders according to their varied characteristics. The coffee plant belongs to an order known as _Rubiales_. These orders are again divided into families. Coffee is placed in the family _Rubiaceae_, or Madder Family, in which we find herbs, shrubs or trees, represented by a few American plants, such as bluets, or Quaker ladies, small blue spring flowers, common to open meadows in northern United States; and partridge berries (_Mitch.e.l.la repens_).

The Madder Family has more foreign representatives than native genera, among which are _Coffea_, _Cinchona_, and _Ipecacuanha_ (_Uragoga_), all of which are of economic importance. The members of this family are noted for their action on the nervous system. Coffee, as is well known, contains an active principle known as caffein which acts as a stimulant to the nervous system and in small quant.i.ties is very beneficial.

_Cinchona_ supplies us with quinine, while _Ipecacuanha_ produces ipecac, which is an emetic and purgative.

The families are divided into smaller sections known as genera, and to the genus _Coffea_ belongs the coffee plant. Under this genus _Coffea_ are several sub-genera, and to the sub-genus _Eucoffea_ belongs our common coffee, _Coffea arabica_. _Coffea arabica_ is the original or common Java coffee of commerce. The term "common" coffee may seem unnecessary, but there are many other species of coffee besides _arabica_. These species have not been described very frequently; because their native haunts are the tropics, and the tropics do not always offer favorable conditions for the study of their plants.

All botanists do not agree in their cla.s.sification of the species and varieties of the _coffea_ genus. M.E. de Wildman, curator of the royal botanical gardens at Brussels, in his _Les Plantes Tropicales de Grande Culture_, says the systematic division of this interesting genus is far from finished; in fact, it may be said hardly to be begun.

_Coffea arabica_ we know best because of the important role it plays in commerce.

COMPLETE CLa.s.sIFICATION OF COFFEE

Kingdom _Vegetable_ Sub-Kingdom _Angiospermae_ Cla.s.s _Dicotyledoneae_ Sub-cla.s.s _Sympetalae or Metachlamydeae_ Order _Rubiales_ Family _Rubiaceae_ Genus _Coffea_ Sub-genus _Eucoffea_ Species _C. arabica_

The coffee plant most cultivated for its berries is, as already stated, _Coffea arabica_, which is found in tropical regions, although it can grow in temperate climates. Unlike most plants that grow best in the tropics, it can stand low temperatures. It requires shade when it grows in hot, low-lying districts; but when it grows on elevated land, it thrives without such protection. Freeman[94] says there are about eight recognized species of _coffea_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DETAILS OF THE GERMINATION OF THE COFFEE PLANT

From a drawing by Ch. Emonts in Jardin's _Le Cafeier et Le Cafe_]

_Coffea Arabica_