All About Coffee Part 133

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOTEL BARS REPLACED BY COFFEE ROOMS IN THE UNITED STATES

One effect of prohibition has been to lead many hotels to feature their coffee service, bringing back the modern type of coffee room ill.u.s.trated above]

The important and indispensable part that sugar plays in the make-up of the American cup of coffee was ably set forth by Fred Mason,[372]

vice-president of the American Sugar Refining Co., when he said:

The coffee cup and the sugar bowl are inseparable table companions.

Most of us did not realize this until the war came, with its attendant restrictions on everything we did, and we found that the sugar bowl had disappeared from all public eating places. No longer could we make an unlimited number of trips to the sugar bowl to sweeten our coffee; but we had to be content with what was doled out to us with scrupulous care--a quant.i.ty so small at times that it gave only a hint of sweetness to our national beverage.

Then it was that we really appreciated how indispensable the proper amount of sugar was to a good, savory cup of coffee, and we missed it as much as we would seasoning from certain cooked foods.

Secretly we consoled ourselves with the promise that if the day ever came when sugar bowls made their appearance once more, filled temptingly with the sweet granules that were "gone but not forgotten," we should put an extra lump or an additional spoonful of sugar into our coffee to help us forget the joyless war days.

Since sugar is so necessary to our enjoyment of this popular beverage, it is obvious that a considerable part of all the sugar we consume must find its way into the national coffee cup. The stupendous amount of 40,000,000,000 cups of coffee is consumed in this country each year. Taking two teaspoonfuls or two lumps as a fair average per cup, we find that about 800,000,000 pounds of sugar, almost one-tenth of our total annual consumption, are required to sweeten Uncle Sam's coffee cup. This is specially significant when one considers that, with the single exception of Australia, the United States consumes more sugar per capita than any country on earth.

Sugar adds high food value to the stimulative virtues of coffee.

The beverage itself stimulates the mental and physical powers, while the sugar it contains is fuel for the body and furnishes it with energy. Sugar is such a concentrated food that the amount used by the average person in two cups of coffee is enough to furnish the system with more energy than could be derived from 40 oysters on the half-sh.e.l.l.

Since prohibition, the average citizen is drinking one hundred more cups of coffee a year than he did in the old days; and a good part of the increase is attributed to newly formed habits of drinking coffee between meals, at soda fountains, in tea and coffee shops, at hotels, and even in the homes. In other words, the increase is due to coffee drinking that directly takes the place of malt and spirituous liquors. There have come into being the hotel coffee room; the custom of afternoon coffee drinking; and free coffee-service in many factories, stores, and offices.

In colonial days, must or ale first gave way to tea, and then to coffee as a breakfast beverage. The Boston "tea party" clinched the case for coffee; but in the meantime, coffee was more or less of an after-dinner function, or a between-meals drink, as in Europe. In Washington's time, dinner was usually served at three o'clock in the afternoon, and at informal dinner parties the company "sat till sunset--then coffee."

In the early part of the nineteenth century, coffee became firmly intrenched as the one great American breakfast beverage; and its security in this position would seem to be una.s.sailable for all time.

Today, all cla.s.ses in the United States begin and end the day with coffee. In the home, it is prepared by boiling, infusion or steeping, percolation, and filtration; in the hotels and restaurants, by infusion, percolation, and filtration. The best practise favors true percolation (French drip), or filtration.

Steeping coffee in American homes (an English heirloom) is usually performed in a china or earthenware jug. The ground coffee has boiling water poured upon it until the jug is half full. The infusion is stirred briskly. Next, the jug is filled by pouring in the remainder of the boiling water, the infusion is again stirred, then permitted to settle, and finally is poured through a strainer or filter cloth before serving.

When a pumping percolator or a double gla.s.s filtration device is used, the water may be cold or boiling at the beginning as the maker prefers.

Some wet the coffee with cold water before starting the brewing process.

For genuine percolator, or drip coffee, French and Austrian china drip pots are mostly employed. The latest filtration devices are described in chapter x.x.xIV.

The Creole, or French market, coffee for which New Orleans has long been famous is made from a concentrated coffee extract prepared in a drip pot. First, the ground coffee has poured over it sufficient boiling water thoroughly to dampen it, after which further additions of boiling water, a tablespoonful at a time, are poured upon it at five minute intervals. The resulting extract is kept in a tightly corked bottle for making _cafe au lait_ or _cafe noir_ as required. A variant of the Creole method is to brown three tablespoonfuls of sugar in a pan, to add a cup of water, and to allow it to simmer until the sugar is dissolved; to pour this liquid over ground coffee in a drip pot, to add boiling water as required, and to serve black or with cream or hot milk, as desired.

In New Orleans, coffee is often served at the bedside upon waking, as a kind of early breakfast function.

The Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876 served to introduce the Vienna cafe to America. Fleischmann's Vienna Cafe and Bakery was a feature of our first international exposition. Afterward, it was transferred to Broadway, New York, where for many years it continued to serve excellent coffee in Vienna style next door to Grace Church.

The opportunity is still waiting for the courageous soul who will bring back to our larger cities this Vienna cafe or some Americanized form of the continental or sidewalk cafe, making a specialty of tea, coffee, and chocolate.

The old Astor House was famous for its coffee for many years, as was also Dorlon's from 1840 to 1922.

Members of the family of the late Colonel Roosevelt began to promote a Brazil coffee-house enterprise in New York in 1919. It was first called Cafe Paulista, but it is now known as the Double R coffee house, or Club of South America, with a Brazil branch in the 40's and an Argentine branch on Lexington Avenue. Coffee is made and served in Brazilian style; that is, full city roast, pulverized grind, filtration made; service, black or with hot milk. Sandwiches, cakes, and crullers are also to be had.

One of New York's newest clubs is known as the Coffee House. It is in West Forty-fifth Street, and has been in existence since December, 1915, when it was opened with an informal dinner, at which the late Joseph H.

Choate, one of the original members, outlined the purpose and policies of the club.

The founders of the Coffee House were convinced--as the result of the high dues and constantly increasing formality and discipline in the social clubs in New York--that there was need here for a moderate-priced eating and meeting place, which should be run in the simplest possible way and with the least possible expense.

At the beginning of its career, the club framed, adopted, and has since lived up to, a most informal const.i.tution: "No officers, no liveries, no tips, no set speeches, no charge accounts, no RULES."

The membership is made up, for the most part, of painters, writers, sculptors, architects, actors, and members of other professions. Members are expected to pay cash for all orders. There are no proposals of candidates for membership. The club invites to join it those whom it believes to be in sympathy with the ideals of its founders.

The method of preparing coffee for individual service in the Waldorf-Astoria, New York, which has been adopted by many first-cla.s.s hotels and restaurants that do not serve urn-made coffee exclusively, is the French drip plus careful attention to all the contributing factors for making coffee in perfection, and is thus described by the hotel's steward:

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRITANNIA COFFEE POT FROM WHICH ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS OFTEN SERVED IN NEW SALEM

Its story is told on page 614]

A French china drip coffee pot is used. It is kept in a warm heater; and when the coffee is ordered, this pot is scalded with hot water. A level tablespoonful of coffee, ground to about the consistency of granulated sugar, is put into the upper and percolator part of the coffee pot. Fresh boiling water is then poured through the coffee and allowed to percolate into the lower part of the pot. The secret of success, according to our experience, lies in having the coffee freshly ground, and the water as near the boiling point as possible, all during the process. For this reason, the coffee pot should be placed on a gas stove or range. The quant.i.ty of coffee can be varied to suit individual taste. We use about ten percent more ground coffee for after dinner cups than we do for breakfast. Our coffee is a mixture of Old Government Java and Bogota.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COFFEE SERVICE, HOTEL ASTOR, NEW YORK]

C. Scotty, chef at the Hotel Amba.s.sador, New York, thus describes the method of making coffee in that hostelry:

In the first place, it is essential that the coffee be of the finest quality obtainable; secondly, better results are obtained by using the French filterer, or coffee bag.

Twelve ounces of coffee to one gallon of water for breakfast.

Sixteen ounces of coffee to one gallon of water for dinner.

Boiling water should be poured over the coffee, sifoned, and put back several times. We do not allow the coffee grounds to remain in the urn for more than fifteen to twenty minutes at any time.

The coffee service at the best hotels is usually in silver pots and pitchers, and includes the freshly made coffee, hot milk or cream (sometimes both), and domino sugar.

Within the last year (1921) many of the leading hotels, and some of the big railway systems, have adopted the custom of serving free a demi-ta.s.se of coffee as soon as the guest-traveler seats himself at the breakfast table or in the dining car. "Small blacks," the waiters call them, or "coffee c.o.c.ktails," according to their fancy.

At the Pequot coffee house, 91 Water Street, New York, a noonday restaurant in the heart of the coffee trade, an attempt has been made to introduce something of the old-time coffee house atmosphere.

The Childs chain of restaurants recently began printing on its menus, in brackets before each item, the number of calories as computed by an expert in nutrition. Coffee with a mixture of milk and cream is credited with eighty-five calories, a well known coffee subst.i.tute with seventy calories, and tea with eighteen calories. The Childs chain of 92 restaurants serves 40,000,000 cups of coffee a year, made from 375 tons of ground coffee, and figuring an average of 53 cups to the pound.

The Thompson chain of one hundred restaurants serves 160,000 cups of coffee per day, or more than 58,000,000 cups per year.

_Coffee Customs in South America_

ARGENTINE. Coffee is very popular as a beverage in Argentina. _Cafe con leche_--coffee with milk, in which the proportion of coffee may vary from one-fourth to two-thirds--is the usual Argentine breakfast beverage. A small cup of coffee is generally taken after meals, and it is also consumed to a considerable extent in cafes.

BRAZIL. In Brazil every one drinks coffee and at all hours. Cafes making a specialty of the beverage, and modeled after continental originals, are to be found a-plenty in Rio de Janeiro, Santos, and other large cities. The custom prevails of roasting the beans high, almost to carbonization, grinding them fine, and then boiling after the Turkish fashion, percolating in French drip pots, steeping in cold water for several hours, straining and heating the liquid for use as needed, or filtering by means of conical linen sacks suspended from wire rings.

The Brazilian loves to frequent the cafes and to sip his coffee at his ease. He is very continental in this respect. The wide-open doors, and the round-topped marble tables, with their small cups and saucers set around a sugar basin, make inviting pictures. The customer pulls toward him one of the cups and immediately a waiter comes and fills it with coffee, the charge for which is about three cents. It is a common thing for a Brazilian to consume one dozen to two dozen cups of black coffee a day. If one pays a social visit, calls upon the president of the Republic, or any lesser official, or on a business acquaintance, it is a signal for an attendant to serve coffee. _Cafe au lait_ is popular in the morning; but except for this service, milk or cream is never used.

In Brazil, as in the Orient, coffee is a symbol of hospitality.

In CHILE, PARAGUAY and URUGUAY, very much the same customs prevail of making and serving the beverage.

_Coffee Drinking in Other Countries_

In AUSTRALIA and NEW ZEALAND, English methods for roasting, grinding, and making coffee are standard. The beverage usually contains thirty to forty percent chicory. In the bush, the water is boiled in a billy can.