All About Coffee Part 142

Coffee can be used as a flavoring in almost any dessert or confection where a flavoring agent is employed.

On iced coffee and the use of coffee in summer beverages in general, Mrs. Allen writes as follows:

ICED COFFEE. This is not only a delicious summer drink, but it also furnishes a mild stimulation that is particularly grateful on a wilting hot day. It may be combined with fruit juices and other ingredients in a variety of cooling beverages which are less sugary and cloying than the average warm weather drink and for that reason it is generally popular with men.

Coffee that is to be served cold should be made somewhat stronger than usual. Brew it according to your favorite method and chill before adding sugar and cream. If cracked ice is added make sure the coffee is strong enough to compensate for the resulting dilution. Mixing the ingredients in a shaker produces a smoother beverage topped with an appetizing foam.

It is a convenience, however, to have on hand a concentrated syrup from which any kind of coffee-flavored drink may be concocted on short notice and without the necessity of lighting the stove.

Coffee left over from meals may be used for the same purpose, but it should be kept in a covered gla.s.s or china dish and not allowed to stand too long. A coffee syrup made after the following recipe will keep indefinitely and may be used as a basis for many delicious iced drinks:

COFFEE SYRUP. Two quarts of very strong coffee; 3-1/2 pounds sugar.

The coffee should be very strong, as the syrup will be largely diluted. The proportion of a pound of coffee to one and three-fourths quarts of water will be found satisfactory. This may be made by any favorite method, cleared and strained, then combined with the sugar, brought to boiling point, and boiled for two or three minutes. It should be canned while boiling, in sterilized bottles. Fill them to overflowing and seal as for grape juice or for any other canned beverage.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

A COFFEE CHRONOLOGY

_Giving dates and events of historical interest in legend, travel, literature, cultivation, plantation treatment, trading, and in the preparation and use of coffee from the earliest time to the present_

900[L]--Rhazes, famous Arabian physician, is first writer to mention coffee under the name _bunca_ or _bunchum_.[M]

1000[L]--Avicenna, Mahommedan physician and philosopher, is the first writer to explain the medicinal properties of the coffee bean, which he also calls _bunchum_.[M]

1258[L]--Sheik Omar, disciple of Sheik Schadheli, patron saint and legendary founder of Mocha, by chance discovers coffee as a beverage at Ousab in Arabia.[M]

1300[L]--The coffee drink is a decoction made from roasted berries, crushed in a mortar and pestle, the powder being placed in boiling water, and the drink taken down, grounds and all.

1350[L]--Persian, Egyptian, and Turkish ewers made of pottery are first used for serving coffee.

1400-1500--Earthenware or metal coffee-roasting plates with small holes, rounded and shaped like a skimmer, come into use in Turkey and Persia over braziers. Also about this time appears the familiar Turkish cylinder coffee mill, and the original Turkish coffee boiler of metal.

1428-48--Spice grinder to stand on four legs first invented; subsequently used to grind coffee.

1454[L]--Sheik Gemaleddin, mufti of Aden, having discovered the virtues of the berry on a journey to Abyssinia, sanctions the use of coffee in Arabia Felix.

1470-1500--The use of coffee spreads to Mecca and Medina.

1500-1600--Shallow iron dippers with long handles and small foot-rests come into use in Bagdad and in Mesopotamia for roasting coffee.

1505[L]--The Arabs introduce the coffee plant into Ceylon.

1510--The coffee drink is introduced into Cairo.

1511--Kair Bey, governor of Mecca, after consultation with a council of lawyers, physicians, and leading citizens, issues a condemnation of coffee, and prohibits the use of the drink.

Prohibition subsequently ordered revoked by the sultan of Cairo.

1517--Sultan Selim I, after conquering Egypt, brings coffee to Constantinople.

1524--The kadi of Mecca closes the public coffee houses because of disorders, but permits coffee drinking at home and in private. His successor allows them to re-open under license.

1530[L]--Coffee drinking introduced into Damascus.

1532[L]--Coffee drinking introduced into Aleppo.

1534--A religious fanatic denounces coffee in Cairo and leads a mob against the coffee houses, many of which are wrecked. The city is divided into two parties, for and against coffee; but the chief judge, after consultation with the doctors, causes coffee to be served to the meeting, drinks some himself, and thus settles the controversy.

1542--Soliman II, at the solicitation of a favorite court lady, forbids the use of coffee, but to no purpose.

1554--The first coffee houses are opened in Constantinople by Shemsi of Damascus and Hekem of Aleppo.

1570[L]-80[L]--Religious zealots in Constantinople, jealous of the increasing popularity of the coffee houses, claim roasted coffee to be a kind of charcoal, and the mufti decides that it is forbidden by the law. Amurath III subsequently orders the closing of all coffee houses, on religious grounds, cla.s.sing coffee with wine, forbidden by the _Koran_. The order is not strictly observed, and coffee drinking continues behind closed shop-doors and in private houses.

1573--Rauwolf, German physician and botanist, first European to mention coffee, makes a journey to the Levant.

1580--Prospero Alpini (Alpinus), Italian physician and botanist, journeys to Egypt and brings back news of coffee.

1582-83--The first printed reference to coffee appears as _chaube_ in Rauwolf's _Travels_, published in German at Frankfort and Lauingen.

1585--Gianfraneesco Morosini, city magistrate in Constantinople, reports to the Venetian senate the use by the Turks "of a black water, being the infusion of a bean called _cavee_."

1587--The first authentic account of the origin of coffee is written by the Sheik Abd-al-Kadir, in an Arabian ma.n.u.script preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.

1592--The first printed description of the coffee plant (called _bon_) and drink (called _caova_) appears in Prospero Alpini's work _The Plants of Egypt_, written in Latin, and published in Venice.

1596[L]--Belli sends to the botanist de l'ecluse "seeds used by the Egyptians to make a liquid they call _cave_."

1598--The first printed reference to coffee in English appears as _chaoua_ in a note of Paluda.n.u.s in _Linschoten's Travels_, translated from the Dutch, and published in London.

1599--Sir Antony Sherley, first Englishman to refer to coffee drinking in the Orient, sails from Venice for Aleppo.

1600[L]--Pewter serving-pots appear.

1600--Iron spiders on legs, designed to sit in open fires, are used for roasting coffee.

1600[L]--Coffee cultivation introduced into southern India at Chickmaglur, Mysore, by a Moslem pilgrim, Baba Budan.[M]

1600-32--Mortars and pestles of wood, and of metal (iron, bronze, and bra.s.s) come into common use in Europe for making coffee powder.

1601--The first printed reference to coffee in English, employing the more modern form of the word, appears in W. Parry's book, _Sherley's Travels_, as "a certain liquor which they call coffe."

1603--Captain John Smith, English adventurer, and founder of the colony of Virginia, in his book of travels published this year, refers to the Turks' drink, "coffa."

1610--Sir George Sandys, the poet, visits Turkey, Egypt, and Palestine, and records that the Turks "sip a drink called _coffa_ (of the berry that it is made of) in little china dishes, as hot as they can suffer it."

1614--Dutch traders visit Aden to examine into the possibilities of coffee cultivation and coffee trading.