All About Coffee Part 124

The Emmerich Machine Factory and Iron Foundry acquired certain Danish and Austrian coffee-roaster patents in 1881, and in 1892 it was granted a German patent on a ball roaster. In the eighties this concern began the manufacture of a closed ball, or globular, roaster with gas-heater attachment. It acquired, in 1889, the rights for Germany to manufacture gas roasters under the Dutch Henneman patents of 1888. In 1892, Theodore von Gimborn was granted French and English patents on a coffee roaster employing a naked gas flame in a rotary cylinder. In 1897, the Emmericher concern was granted a German patent on an automatic circular tipping cooler with power drive. Today, this factory features the Probat and Perfekt roasters, but manufactures a general line of cylinder and ball machines for coal, c.o.ke, and gas.

Among others engaged in the manufacture of coffee machines in Germany are G. W. Barth, Ludwigsburg, and Ferd. Gothot, Mulheim on Rhur. The latter manufactures a c.o.ke or gas heated quick-roaster known as the Ideal-Rapid, and a smaller hand-power machine, of the same type, called Favour.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OTHER GERMAN COFFEE ROASTERS

Left, globular machine--Right, Meteor quick-roasting outfit]

_American, French, and British Machines_

In 1869, elie Moneuse and L. Duparquet, of New York, were granted three United States patents on a coffee pot or urn made of sheet copper and lined with pure sheet block tin. These patents were the foundation of the successful coffee-urn business afterward built up under the name of the Duparquet, Huot & Moneuse Co.

Thomas Smith & Son (Elkington & Co., Ltd., successors) began, in 1870, the manufacture of the Napierian coffee-making machine at Glasgow, Scotland. This was a device for making coffee by distillation, employing a metal globe syphon and brewer with filter cloth. The principle was subsequently used in the Napier-List steam coffee machine for ships and inst.i.tutions, patented in England in 1891.

John Gulick Baker, of Philadelphia, one of the founders of the Enterprise Manufacturing Co. of Pennsylvania, was granted a United States patent in 1870, on a coffee grinder introduced to the trade as the Enterprise Champion No. 1 store mill. Another Baker patent was granted in 1873, and this became known as the Enterprise Champion Globe No. 0. These mills were the pioneer machines for store use.

In 1870, Delphine, Sr., of Marourme, France, was granted a French patent on a tubular coffee roaster which turned over a flame.

In the sixties and seventies, French inventors became quite active on coffee-roaster improvements. Many patents were granted, and quite a few were for practical small-capacity machines that have survived, and are in use today in France and on the continent. Some supplied inspiration for inventors in neighboring countries. Among the more notable names, mention should be made of Martin, of St. Quentin, who produced a sheet-iron cylinder roaster with "interior gatherer" in 1860; Marchand, of Paris, "fan roaster with movable fire box," 1866 and 1869; Lauzaune, Paris, "rocking system of roasting coffee in a round stove," 1873; Ittel's gla.s.s sphere, Lyons, 1874; and Marchand and Hignette, Paris, 1877, a ball coffee roaster.

_Evolution of the Gas Roaster_

According to the patent records, Roure, of Ma.r.s.eilles, appears to have produced the original gas coffee roaster in 1877. The evolution of the gas roasting-machine was as follows:

In 1879, H. Faulder, of Stockport, England, obtained an English patent on an external air-blast burner applied to a cylinder gas machine, which is still being manufactured by the Grocers Engineering and Whitmee, Ltd., of London. Fleury and Barker, of London, followed with another English gas machine in 1880, the heat being supplied from gas jets over the roasting cylinder. In 1881, Peter Pearson, of Manchester, produced a gas roaster which consisted of a wire-gauze cylinder revolving under a metal plate heated by gas.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ORIGINAL ENTERPRISE MILL]

Beeston Tupholme, of London, was granted an English patent in 1887, on a direct-flame gas roaster which he a.s.signed to Joseph Baker & Sons.

Karel F. Henneman, the Hague, Netherlands, took out his first patent on the Henneman direct-flame gas roaster in Spain in 1888; and the following year, he obtained patents in Belgium, France, and England. His United States patents were granted in 1893-95.

Postulart secured a patent in France for a gas coffee roaster in 1888.

The Germans also began, in the eighties, to take the quick gas coffee roaster seriously. In 1889, Carl Alexander Otto, of Dresden, secured a German patent on a spiral tubular machine to roast coffee in three and a half minutes. It was first manufactured and sold by Max Thurmer, of Dresden, in 1891-93.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAX THURMER'S QUICK GAS ROASTER]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOADING COFFEE ON ZAMBOEKS AT HODEIDA

These boats then transfer their cargoes to steamships lying in the roads]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PICTURESQUE CAMEL AND BULLOCK CARTS

Used for local coffee transport in Aden and Hodeida]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PRIMITIVE TRANSPORTATION METHODS IN ARABIA]

The subject of quick roasting has greatly agitated German and French coffee men. Otto found that coffee roasted in small quant.i.ties (say fifty grams) on a sample-roaster produced a finer flavor and aroma than that roasted in the big machines. He set out to produce a machine that would roast continuous small quant.i.ties in the shortest time. He built the first commercial machine under his patent in 1893. It was shown at the International Food Exhibition in Dresden in 1894. The latest type manufactured by Max Thurmer, Dresden, in which firm Otto is a partner, has a spiral five meters long and an hourly production of about 450 pounds. The Thurmer machine, as it is called, has been sold to the trade since 1914.

Quick roasting is gone in for quite extensively in Germany, even in the big trade-roasting plants, where machines to roast in ten to seventeen minutes are common. Natural, slow cooling is most necessary with quick roasting, according to Thurmer. On the other hand, A. Mottant, of Paris, who also manufactures a line of quick gas-roasting machines, called Magic, argues that quick cooling is essential after quick roasting.

Three of the Mottant machines are ill.u.s.trated on pages 642 and 644.

Other quick-roasting machines of German make are the Combinator, Tornado, and Rekord.

In a lecture before the Society of Medical Officers of Health, London, October 24, 1912, William Lawton demonstrated to the satisfaction of his audience that coffee could be roasted in 3 minutes, using a perforated gas-roaster of his own invention.[365]

The first direct-flame gas coffee roaster in America was installed in the plant of the Potter-Parlin Co., New York, by F.T. Holmes, in 1893.

This was Tupholme's machine, patented in England in 1887, and in the United States in 1896-97. The Potter-Parlin Co. subsequently placed the Tupholme machines throughout the United States on a daily rental basis, limiting its leases to one firm in a city, having obtained the exclusive American rights from the Waygood, Tupholme Co., now the Grocers Engineering and Whitmee, Ltd.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN ENGLISH GAS COFFEE-ROASTING PLANT

The machines are the Morewood (Improved Faulder) sliding-burner indirect type]

Natural gas was first used in the United States as fuel for roasting coffee in 1896, when it was introduced under coal roasting cylinders in Pennsylvania and Indiana by improvised gas burners.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRENCH GLOBULAR ROASTER]

Edwin Crawley and W.T. Johnston, Newport, Ky., a.s.signors to the Potter-Parlin Co., New York, were granted four United States patents on gas coffee-roasting machines.

In 1897, a special gas burner, not to be confused with the direct-flame machine, was first attached to a regular Burns roaster in the United States, and was made the basis of application for a patent.

In 1897-99, David B. Fraser, of New York, began to market in the United States a central-heated gas-fuel machine with an inner wire-cloth cylinder to keep the coffee from dropping into the flame, developed under United States patents granted to Carl H. Duehring, of Hoboken, in 1897, and to D.B. Fraser in 1899.

M.F. Hamsley, of Brooklyn, was granted a United States patent on an improved direct-flame gas roaster in 1898.

Ellis M. Potter, New York, was granted in 1899, a United States patent on an improved direct-flame gas roaster in which the flame was spread over a large area to avoid scorching and to insure a more thorough and uniform roast. In the Tupholme machine, the gas flame entered at one end, and the smoke and flame went out through a stack on top. In the Potter machine, the stack was put on the end opposite the gas intake, with a fan to pull the flame all the way through.

The Burns direct-flame gas roaster, with patented swing-gate head for feeding and discharging, was introduced to the trade in 1900. The Burns gas sample-roaster followed.

In 1901, Joseph Lambert, of Marshall, Mich., introduced to the trade one of the earliest indirect gas roasting machines.

In 1901, also, T.C. Morewood, of Brentford, England, was granted an English patent on a gas roaster fitted with a sliding burner and a removable sampling tube. This machine is now being made by the Grocers Engineering and Whitmee, Ltd.

In the same year, 1901, F.T. Holmes, formerly with the Potter-Parlin Co., joined the Huntley Manufacturing Co., Silver Creek, N.Y., which then began to build the Monitor direct-flame gas coffee roaster. Mr.

Holmes still further improved the Tupholme idea by putting gas burners in both ends of the roasting cylinder, with the pipes bent down so as to cause the gas flame to go first to the bottom and then up to the stack on top. This improvement was never patented.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIROCCO MACHINE (FRENCH)]

The Henneman direct-flame gas roaster was introduced to the United States trade in 1905, by C.A. Cross & Co., wholesale grocers, of Fitchburg, Ma.s.s. It was marketed here seven years, but was never a great success.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ENGLISH ROASTING AND GRINDING EQUIPMENT

Showing one 168-pound Simplex gas roaster, with a Rapid disk grinding machine having a capacity of 300 to 400 pounds per hour]

In 1906, F.T. Holmes was granted a United States patent on a coffee roaster which he a.s.signed to the Huntley Manufacturing Co.