Mr. Donovan found, that what we shall call the medicinal quality of coffee resides in it independent of its aromatic flavor,—that it is possible to obtain the exhilarating effect of the beverage without gratifying the palate,—and, on the other hand, that all the aromatic quality may be enjoyed without its producing any effect upon the animal economy. His object was to combine the two.

The roasting of coffee is requisite for the production of both these qualities; but, to secure them in their full degree, it is necessary to conduct the process with some skill. The first thing to be done is to expose the raw coffee to the heat of a gentle fire, in an open vessel, stirring it continually until it assumes a yellowish colour. It should then be roughly broken,—a thing very easily done,—so that each berry is divided into about four or five pieces, when it must be put into the roasting apparatus. This, as most commonly used, is made of sheet-iron, and is of a cylindrical shape: it no doubt answers the purpose well, and is by no means a costly machine, but coffee may be very well roasted in a common iron or earthenware pot, the main circumstances to be observed being the degree to which the process is carried, and the prevention of partial burning, by constant stirring. One of the requisites for having good coffee is that it shall have been recently roasted.

Coffee should be ground very fine for use, and only at the moment when it is wanted, or the aromatic flavour will in some measure be lost. To extract all its good qualities, the powder requires two separate and somewhat opposite modes of treatment, but which do not offer any difficulty when explained. On the one hand, the fine flavour would be lost by boiling, while, on the other, it is necessary to subject the coffee to that degree of heat in order to extract its medicinal quality. The mode of proceeding, which, after many experiments, Mr. Donovan found to be the most simple and efficacious for attaining both these ends, was the following:—

The whole water to be used must be divided into two equal parts. One half must be put first to the coffee "cold", and this must be placed over the fire until it "just comes to a boil", when it must be immediately removed. Allowing it then to subside for a few moments the liquid must be poured off as clear as it will run. The remaining half of the water, which during this time should have been on the fire, must then be added "at a boiling heat" to the grounds, and placed on the fire, where it must be kept "boiling" for about three minutes. This will extract the medicinal virtue, and if then the liquid be allowed again to subside, and the clear fluid be added to the first portion, the preparation will be found to combine all the good properties of the berry in as great perfection as they can be obtained. If any fining ingredient is used it should be mixed with the powder at the beginning of the process.

Several kinds of apparatus, some of them very ingenious in their construction, have been proposed for preparing coffee, but they are all made upon the principle of extracting only the aromatic flavour, while Professor Donovan's suggestions not only enable us to accomplish that desirable object, but superadd the less obvious but equally essential matter of extracting and making our own all the medicinal virtues.

Put fresh ground coffee into a coffee-pot, with a sufficient quantity of water, and set this on the fire till it boils for a minute or two; then remove it from the fire, pour out a cupful, which is to be returned into the coffee-pot to throw down the grounds that may be floating; repeat this, and let the coffee-pot stand near the fire, but not on too hot a place, until the grounds have subsided to the bottom; in a few minutes the coffee will be clear without any other preparation, and may be poured into cups; in this manner, with good materials in sufficient quantity, and proper care, excellent coffee may be made. The most valuable part of the coffee is soon extracted, and it is certain that long boiling dissipates the fine aroma and flavour. Some make it a rule not to suffer the coffee to boil, but only to bring it just to the boiling point; but it is said by Mr. Donovan that it requires boiling for a little time to extract the whole of the bitter, in which he conceives much of the exhilarating qualities of the coffee reside.

The clearing of coffee is a circumstance demanding particular attention. After the heaviest parts of the grounds have settled, there are still fine particles suspended for some time, and if the coffee be poured off before these have subsided, the liquor is deficient in that transparency which is one test of its perfection; for coffee not well cleared has always an unpleasant bitter taste. In general, the coffee becomes clear by simply remaining quiet for a few minutes, as we have stated; but those who are anxious to have it as clear as possible employ some artificial means of assisting the clearing. The addition of a little isinglass, hartshorn shavings, skins of eels or soles, white of eggs, egg shells, etc., has been recommended for clearing; but it is evident that these substances, to produce their effect, which is upon the same principle as the fining of beer or wine, should be dissolved previously, for if put in without, it would require so much time to dissolve, that the flavour of the coffee would vanish.

With regard to the making of coffee, there is no doubt that the Turkish method of pounding the coffee in a mortar is infinitely superior to grinding it in a mill, as with us. But after either method the process recommended by M. Soyer may be advantageously adopted; namely, "Put two ounces of ground coffee into a stew-pan, which set upon the fire, stirring the coffee round with a spoon until quite hot, then pour over a pint of boiling water; cover over closely for five minutes, pass it through a cloth, warm again, and serve."

Those who wish to enjoy really good coffee must have it fresh roasted. On the Continent, in every well-regulated household, the daily supply of coffee is roasted every morning. In England this is rarely done.

If roasted coffee has to be kept, it must be kept in an air-tight vessel. In France, coffee used to be kept in a wrapper of waxed leather, which was always closely tied over the contained coffee. In this way the coffee was kept from contact with any air.

The Viennese say that coffee should be kept in a glass bottle closed with a bung, and that coffee should on no account be kept in a tin canister.

The coffee having been roasted, it has to be reduced to a coarse powder before the infusion is made. The grinding and powdering of coffee should be done just before it is wanted, for if the whole coffee seeds quickly lose their aroma, how much more quickly will the aroma be dissipated from coffee which has been reduced to a fine powder? Nothing need be said in the matter of coffee mills. They are common enough, varied enough, and cheap enough to suit all tastes.

To insure a really good cup of coffee attention must be given to the following points:

1. Be sure that the coffee is good in quality, freshly roasted, and fresh ground.

2. Use sufficient coffee. I have made some experiments on this point, and I have come to the conclusions that one ounce of coffee to a pint of water makes poor coffee, 11⁄2 ounces of coffee to a pint of water makes fairly good coffee, two ounces of coffee to a pint of water makes excellent coffee.

3. As to the form of coffee pot I have nothing to say. The varieties of coffee machines are very numerous and many of them are useless incumbrances. At the best, they can not be regarded as absolutely necessary. The Brazilians insist that coffee pots should on no account be made of metal, but that porcelain or earthenware is alone permissible. I have been in the habit of late of having my coffee made in a common jug provided with a strainer, and I believe there is nothing better.

4. Warm the jug, put the coffee into it, boil the water, and pour the boiling water on the coffee, and the thing is done.

5. Coffee must not be boiled, or at most it must be allowed just to "come to a boil", as cook says. If violent ebullition takes place, the aroma of the coffee is dissipated, and the beverage is spoiled.

The most economical way of making coffee is to put the coffee into a jug and pour cold water upon it. This should be done some hours before the coffee is wanted—over night, for instance, if the coffee be required for breakfast. The light particles of coffee will imbibe the water and fall to the bottom of the jug in course of time. When the coffee is to be used stand the jug in a saucepan of water or a bainmarie and place the outer vessel over the fire till the water contained in it boils. The coffee in this way is gently brought to the boiling point without violent ebullition, and we get the maximum extract without any loss of aroma.

Always make your coffee strong. Café au lait is much better if made with one-fourth strong coffee and three-fourths milk than if made half-and-half with a weaker coffee; this is evident.

It is a mistake to suppose that coffee can not be made without a great deal of costly and cumbersome apparatus.

Formerly small bags of baize were used to percolate coffee. The water was poured on the coffee, and when they were new the coffee percolated through them was pretty good, but when they had been used a few times they became greasy and it was very difficult to clean them by any means. The greasy baize altered the quality of the coffee, and in spite of all efforts to keep it clean the coffee had a tarnished appearance very disagreeable to the view. Very few persons use them at present. The apparatus most in use for the percolation of coffee is a tin coffee-pot composed of two parts. The upper one has a filter or sieve on which the coffee powder is placed and through which the filtered coffee must pass. Boiling water is poured on the coffee. The liquor which percolates falls in the second part. Then the upper part is removed and the coffee is ready as a beverage. There are very many systems of coffee pots. One of the best is the Russian one, which consists of a receptacle composed of two parts resembling two halves of an egg screwed together. One part contains the hot water and the other the ground coffee. In the center there is a filter. Turning the pot upside down the percolation takes place very slowly and no aroma is lost.

The tin plate which is generally used to make the coffee pot has many drawbacks. One of them is the dissolution of iron which takes place after it has been used for a short time.

The quality of coffee, as a beverage, depends principally on the degree of heat of the water. Experience has shown that a medium class of coffee prepared at a moderate heat gives a very good liquor, while excellent coffee on which boiling water has been poured did not give a very good liquor. Therefore, instead of pouring boiling water at 100°C. in a porcelain or silver coffee-pot, those who desire to make a perfect coffee must use water heated from 60° to 75°C.

Let the powder be poured into the coffee-pot filled with boiling water, in the proportion of two ounces and a half to two pounds, or two English pints of water. Let the mixture be stirred with a spoon, and the coffee-pot be soon taken off the fire, but suffered to remain closely shut, for about at least two hours, on the warm ashes of a wood fire. During the infusion the liquor should be several times agitated by a chocolate frother, or something of the same kind, and be finally left for about a quarter of an hour to settle.

Coffee should be put in an iron pot and dried near a moderate fire for several hours before roasting (in pot over hot coals and stirring constantly). It is sufficiently roasted when biting one of the lightest colored kernels—if brittle the whole is done. A coffee roaster is better than an open pot. Use a tablespoonful ground to a pint of boiling water. Boil in tin pot twenty to twenty-five minutes. If boiled longer it will not taste fresh and lively. Let stand four or five minutes to settle, pour off grounds into a coffee pot or urn. Put fish skin or isinglass size of a nine pence in pot when put on to boil or else the white and shell of half an egg to a couple of quarts of coffee. French coffee is made in a German filter, the water is turned on boiling hot and one-third more coffee is needed than when boiled in the common way.

Coffee, if you would have its best flavor, should be roasted at home; but not in an open pan, for this permits a large amount of aroma to escape. The roaster should be a closed sphere or cylinder. The aroma, upon which the good taste of the coffee depends, is only developed in the berry by the roasting process, which also is necessary to diminish its toughness, and fit it for grinding. While roasting, coffee loses from fifteen to twenty-five percent of its weight, and gains from thirty to fifty percent in bulk. More depends upon the proper roasting than upon the quality of the coffee itself. One or two scorched or burned berries will materially injure the flavor of several cupfuls. Even a slight overheating diminishes the good taste.

The best mode of roasting, where it is done at home, is to dry the coffee first, in an open vessel, until its color is slightly changed. This allows the moisture to escape. Then cover it closely and scorch it, keeping up a constant agitation, so that no portion of a kernel may be unequally heated. Too low and too slow a heat dries it up without producing the full aromatic flavor; while too great heat dissipates the oily matter and leaves only bitter charred kernels. It should be heated so as to acquire a uniform deep cinnamon color, and an oily appearance, but never a deep, dark brown color. It then should be taken from the fire and kept closely covered until cold, and further until used. While unroasted coffee improves by age, the roasted berries will very generally lose their aroma if not covered very closely. The ground stuff kept on sale in barrels, or boxes, or in papers, is not worthy the name of coffee.

Coffee should not be ground until just before using. If ground over night, it should be covered: or, what is quite as well, put into the boiler and covered with water. The water not only retains the valuable oil and other aromatic elements, but also prepares it by soaking for immediate boiling in the morning.

If the coffee pot (the "Old Dominion", of course, for in a common boiler this process would ruin the coffee by wasting the aroma) be set on the range or stove, or near the fire, so as to be kept hot all night preparatory to boiling in the morning, the beverage will be found in the morning, rich, mellow, and of a most delicious flavor.

Coffee used at supper time should be placed on or near the fire immediately after dinner and kept hot or simmering—not boiling—all the afternoon.

Try this method if you wish coffee in perfection.

Wood's improved coffee roaster is acknowledged to be the best article of the kind now in use.

This patent coffee roaster has been improved by the introduction of a triangular flange inside of each of the hemispheres, as seen in the cut. These flanges, as the roaster is turned, catch the coffee and throw it from the inner surface, thus insuring a perfect uniformity in the burning.

Roasting Coffee Beans

Put the beans in the roaster, set this before a moderate fire, and turn slowly until the Coffee takes a good brown colour; for this it should require about twenty-five minutes. Open the cover to see when it is done. If browned, transfer it to an earthen jar, cover it tightly, and use when needed.

Or a more simple plan, and even more effectual, is to take a tin baking-dish, butter well the bottom, put the Coffee in it, and set it in a moderate oven until the beans take a strong golden colour, twenty minutes sufficing for this. Toss them frequently with a wooden spoon as they are cooking.

Another plan is to put in a small frying-pan 1 1b. of raw Coffee-beans and set the pan on the fire, stirring and shaking occasionally till the beans are yellow: then cover the frying-pan and shake the Coffee about till it is a dark brown. Move the pan off the fire, keep the cover on, and when the beans are a little cool, break an egg over them and stir them until they are all well coated with the egg. Then store the Coffee in tins or jars with tight-fitting lids, and grind it as wanted for use.

Coffee should always be bought in the bean and ground as required, otherwise it is liable to extensive adulteration with chicory (or succory); some persons like the addition, but the epicure who is really fond of Coffee would not admit of its introduction.

Making Breakfast Coffee.

Allow 1 tablespoonful of Coffee to each person. The Coffee when ground should be measured, put into the Coffee-pot, and boiling water poured over it in the proportion of 3⁄4 pint to each tablespoonful of Coffee, and the pot put on the fire; the instant it boils, take the pot off, uncover it, and let it stand a minute or two; then cover it again, put it back on the fire, and let it boil up again. Take it from the fire and let it stand for five minutes to settle. It is then ready to pour out.

Which is the best way of making coffee? In this particular notions differ. For example, the Turks do not trouble themselves to take off the bitterness by sugar, nor do they seek to disguise the flavor by milk, as is our custom. But they add to each dish a drop of the essence of amber, or put a couple of cloves in it, during the process of preparation. Such flavoring would not, we opine, agree with western tastes. If a cup of the very best coffee, prepared in the highest perfection and boiling hot, be placed on a table in the middle of a room and suffered to cool, it will, in cooling, fill the room with its fragrance: but becoming cold, it will lose much of its flavor. Being again heated, its taste and flavor will be still further impaired, and heated a third time, it will be found vapid and nauseous. The aroma diffused through the room proved that the coffee has been deprived of its most volatile parts, and hence of its agreeableness and virtue. By pouring boiling water on the coffee, and surrounding the containing vessel with boiling water, the finer qualities of the coffee will be preserved.

Boiling coffee in a coffee-pot is neither economical or judicious, so much of the aroma being wasted by this method. Count Rumford (no mean authority) states that one pound of good Mocha, when roasted and ground, will make fifty-six cups of the very best coffee, but it must be ground finely, or the surfaces of the particles only will be acted upon by the hot water, and much of the essence will be left in the grounds.

In the East, coffee is said to arouse, exhilarate, and keep awake, allaying hunger, and giving to the weary renewed strength and vigor, while it imparts a feeling of comfort and repose. The Arabians, when they take their coffee off the fire, wrap the vessel in a wet cloth, which fines the liquor instantly, and makes it cream at the top. There is one great essential to be observed, namely, that coffee should not be ground before it is required for use, as in a powdered state its finer qualities evaporate.

We pass over the usual modes of making coffee, as being familiar to every lady who presides over every household; and content ourselves with the most modern and approved Parisian methods, though we may add that a common recipe for good coffee is—two ounces of coffee and one quart of water. Filter or boil ten minutes, and leave to clear ten minutes.

The French make an extremely strong coffee. For breakfast, they drink one-third of the infusion, and two-thirds of hot milk. The café noir used after dinner, is the very essence of the berry. Only a small cup is taken, sweetened with white sugar or sugar-candy, and sometimes a little eau de vie is poured over the sugar in a spoon held above the surface, and set on fire; or after it, a very small glass of liqueur, called a chasse-café, is immediately drunk. But the best method, prevalent in France, for making coffee (and the infusion may be strong or otherwise as taste may direct) is to take a large coffee-pot with an upper receptacle made to fit close into it, the bottom of which is perforated with small holes, containing in its interior two movable metal strainers, over the second of which the powder is to be placed, and immediately under the third. Upon this upper strainer pour boiling water, and continue to do so gently; until it bubbles up through the strainer: then shut the cover of the machine close down, place it near the fire, and so soon as the water has drained through the coffee, repeat the operation until the whole intended quantity be passed. No finings are required. Thus all the fragrance of its perfume will be retained with all the balsamic and stimulating powers of its essence. This is a true Parisian mode, and voila! a cup of excellent coffee.

There are two classes of beverages: 1, alcoholic, and 2, nitrogenized. Nitrogenized foods are effective to replace the substance of the different organs of the body wasted away by the process of vitality. Coffee is one of these.

Besides the tannin, the coffee berry contains two substances, one the nitrogenized quality, caffeine, which is about one percent and is not altered in roasting, and the other a volatile oil which is developed in roasting and which gives the coffee its flavor. Dr. Julius Lehmann (Liebig's Annales LXXXVII. 205) says that coffee retards the waste tissues of the body and diminishes the amount of food necessary to preserve life. This effect is due to the oil. Much of the nutritive portion of coffee is lost by European methods of making.

Good coffee is very rare. These experiments were made to ascertain whether a potable coffee could not be offered to the public at as low a price as the raw or roasted now is. In order to be successful we needed to extract a larger portion of the nutritive substance than is extracted in the household. The experiments have proved vain.

As a result of our experiments with different ways of roasting and brewing coffee, we have found the following plan to be the most convenient and the best: the coffee will taste the same every time and it will taste good. If a good berry be properly roasted and the infusion be of the proper strength, good coffee must result. A Mocha berry should be selected and roasted seven or eight pounds at a time in a cylindrical drum. After roasting it should be placed in a stone jar with a mouth three inches in diameter. The jar should be closed air-tight. This will furnish two cups of coffee daily for six months. A quart should be taken from the jar at a time and ground. The ground coffee should be kept in covered glass jars.

The best coffee pot was found to be the common biggin having an upper compartment with a perforated bottom upon which to place the coffee. To make one cup of this infusion, place half an ounce of ground coffee in the upper compartment and six fluid ounces of water into the bottom. Put the biggin over a gas lamp. After three minutes the water will boil. When steam appears, take the biggin from the fire and pour the water into a cup and thence immediately into the top of the biggin where it will extract the berry by replacement. (Here follows an experiment.)

This experiment shows that loss of weight is no criterion that coffee is properly roasted, neither is the color (by itself) nor the temperature, nor the time.

Next we experimented to ascertain whether the aroma developed by roasting coffee and which is lost might not be collected and added to the coffee at pleasure. An attempt was made to drive the volatile oils from roasted coffee by steam and make a dried extract of the residual coffee to which the oils were to be later added. Two attempts were made and both failed. It appears that but a small quantity of the aroma is lost in roasting and that is mixed with bad smelling vapors from which it is impossible to free it.

Then we tried to make a potable coffee by making an aqueous extract of raw coffee, evaporating to dryness and roasting the residue. (Here follows the experiment.)

This also was unsuccessful. The great trouble here is a dark shiny residue, which, while tasteless, is very disagreeable to look at. In the preparation of coffee by boiling, two and a half times as much matter is extracted as by biggin.

The proper method of roasting coffee is as follows: It should be placed in a cylinder and turned constantly over a bright fire. When white smoke begins to appear, the contents should be closely watched. Keep testing the grains. As soon as a grain breaks easily at a slight blow, at which time the color will be a light chestnut brown, the coffee is done. Cool it by lifting some up and dropping it back with a tin cup. If it be left to cool in a heap there is great danger of over-roasting. Keep the coffee only in air-tight vessels. Measure the infusions, a half ounce of coffee to six ounces of water per cup.

All "extracts of coffee" are worthless. Most of them are composed of burned sugar, chicory, carrots, etc.

Grind moderately fine a large cup or small bowl of coffee; break into it one egg with shell; mix well, adding enough cold water to thoroughly wet the grounds; upon this pour one pint of boiling water: let it boil slowly for ten to fifteen minutes, according to the variety of coffee used and the fineness to which it is ground. Let it stand three minutes to settle, then pour through a fine wire-sieve into a warm coffee pot; this will make enough for four persons. At table, first put the sugar into the cup, then fill half-full of boiling milk, add your coffee, and you have a delicious beverage that will be a revelation to many poor mortals who have an indistinct remembrance of, and an intense longing for, an ideal cup of coffee. If cream can be procured so much the better, and in that case boiling water can be added either in the pot or cup to make up for the space occupied by the milk as above; or condensed milk will be found a good substitute for cream.