P. L. Simmonds

“ The land which has by general opinion been condemned as unfit for continued production is that covered with small jungle after the original forest has been cut down, and the land made to produce a rich crop for the natives. Perhaps it may be the exposure of the soil to the sun, and exhaustion by the large weeds which it produces, which are so injurious to it. The modern system of manuring is rapidly equalising the value of all soils, though deep lands on a limestone bottom, or strewed with granite boulders, are always considered highly favourable for coffee cultivation. ”

“ Southern India is becoming as celebrated for its coffee, as Northern India for its tea. We find that the exports of coffee from Madras have increased considerably during the last five years, and there is every reason for supposing that Southern India will shortly become the chief coffee-producing country of the world. We have no idea of the number of acres of land under coffee cultivation in the Madras Presidency, but it must be very large, for after its local wants have been supplied, coffee to the value of half a million sterling is exported. ”

“ Unfortunately, the difference of price between inferior and superior coffee is not sufficiently great to cover so many years’ interest on the capital invested. It is for the same reason that planters, though they are perfectly aware that trees growing on a light soil, and in dry and elevated spots, produce smaller berries of very superior flavour to those grown in rich, flat, and moist soils, yet prefer cultivating the latter, simply because the production is double that of the better sort. ”

“ But the Indian coffee is actually sold cheaper, quantity for quantity. The consumption of Yemen coffee is now entirely confined to the wealthier chiefs; the finest kind, and that most sought after, being the small, of a light-green colour. Latterly, the Yemen coffee has been all sent to Bagdad, a compliment which the ancient city of the Sultans cannot fail to appreciate at its true value. It is too dear and too dirty for the poor Arabs of Bussorah, while the flavour of the Malabar kind is found closely to approximate to that of Yemen. ”

“ Persons unaccustomed to this way of making coffee find it unpalatable. Those who have overcome the first introduction prefer it to that made after the French fashion, whereby the aroma is lost or deteriorated. A well made cup of good Turkish coffee is indeed the most delectable beverage, that can be well imagined, being grateful to the senses and refreshingly stimulant to the nerves. ”

“ The general effect of elevation may be described very shortly; the lower ranges, with fair soil, produce the heaviest crops and the soonest after planting, whilst the plantations on higher elevations produce smaller crops, but a finer quality of produce, and take a longer time to come into full bearing. There are many circumstances which go to produce climate, besides differences of elevation. On a plantation formed in a large district of forest yet uncleared, the climate will be colder and more moist than when the formation of other estates has cleared away the forest around it. ”

“ The average produce per acre in Mysore is probably not half that of Ceylon. Some attempts have been made to cultivate coffee in the open country, but without success; it seems to require forest land and considerable elevation and moisture. “Cannon’s Mysore” is grown on a range of hills from 3500 to 4000 feet above the sea, having the benefit of the south-west monsoon, which very seldom fails at all, never entirely, and of the tail-end of the north-east monsoon. This elevation gives a pleasant climate, well suited to Europeans. ”

“ Great as the consumption of coffee is in Europe and the Americas, it has become so necessary in every household, that the demand continues to increase, and very full prices are maintained. The largely extended plantations in Brazil, in Ceylon, in India, in Java, and in other suitable localities, profitably opened up every day, altogether fail to keep down prices, and will long continue to offer the strong inducement of large profits! ”

“ The nature of coffee is such that it parts very easily with its aromatic, stimulating, and other properties; a small quantity of water will draw out all the goodness quite as effectually as a large quantity, and it will do this if the coffee-berries be only bruised or very coarsely ground. ”

“ It is the old story of enterprise originated and directed by Europeans driving competition out of the market. Seeing that the Arabs are in the habit of baking the cow-dung and cakes for food on the same wall, they cannot be suspected of any violent antipathy to dirt per se. But, passionate lovers as they are of a good cup of coffee, they can easily understand that an equal quantity of well-cleaned Malabar coffee is cheaper than that brought in the buggalows of the Nijd Arabs, and which is described as full of extraneous matter, such as pieces of the coffee-husk, &c. ”

“ When, however, coffee is thus spread out in a single layer, it is obvious that the reason why it requires no attention is, because the beans being freely exposed to the atmosphere, there is naturally a constant change of the air by which they are surrounded; the same air is not sufficiently long in contact with the beans to excite the first action of decomposition, and the absorption of oxygen is not accomplished. ”

“ If, on the other hand, the plants are to be brought too far to carry them with balls of earth, extreme care should be taken to place them with the tap root perpendicularly in the soil. Invariably the effect of a tap root not being placed perpendicularly in the hole is, that when the tree is grown to two or three feet in height, the upper shoot and branches take a paler colour to that of the healthy plant, which is of very dark green, the leaves also become small and elongated, and occasionally somewhat mottled with a yellow tinge. ”

“ In the pulping-house above the pulpers is a large floor called the cherry loft, into which the coffee in cherry from the field is measured, and from whence, through holes, it is made to fall into the pulpers, from the pulpers it is carried to the cisterns, and when washed is taken out by the labourers to be dried, which brings us to speak of the store and drying apparatus. Before doing so we may mention that the pulper, which is considered a very imperfect machine, is generally driven by four men at two handles, aided by a fly-wheel ”

“ In these applications of natural and artificial heat to the curing of coffee, the heat is conveyed by the air through the whole depth of coffee in such a manner that each bean feels its influence, whilst the watery products elicited by the heat are at the same time, and by the same means, carried off. ”

“ Elevation must ever be an important consideration; though we have no doubt that by the use of manures coffee might be made to do well and bear to a limited extent at the level of the sea in Ceylon. We believe this to be, however, so completely artificial, that it will never again be tried whilst land is available from 1500 feet and upwards of elevation, where the plant grows vigorously without more than ordinary care being bestowed. ”

“ When the coffee thus made is to be warmed for use, it must not be heated to the boiling point, and take care that the vessel in which it is warmed be quite full. It may be here remarked that coffee thus made warm is always more pleasant than when drank at the time of its preparation, provided it be not made to boil, and that the coffee-pot be well closed. It is equally necessary with the above that the berry should be well and thoroughly roasted, and not ground in a mill or machine, but pounded and sifted, so as to secure the particles being of equal fineness. ”

“ We ought not, therefore, to employ water heated to a greater temperature than to allow the finger being placed in it. But difficult as it may be to believe, there can be no doubt but that the best mode of preparing this beverage is with cold water. Coffee so made is not only more aromatic, more limpid, and more substantial, but it is far stronger than any made with hot water. The cold infusion takes from the coffee and communicates to the water all its aromatic qualities, while it does not imbibe much, if any, of the gallic acid ”

“ If coffee has been adulterated with roasted grain, when you pour boiling water upon it you will see rising against the sides of the cup portions of the ground grain, which you sometimes can separate in considerable quantities, by capillary attraction. If you pour such coffee from the coffee-pot, some of those grains will fall with the liquid in the cup, and they will climb up, as it were, the sides of the cup a quarter of an inch, or something of that kind, all round, and you can collect them very easily. ”

“ To overcome these imperfections, many hands are required attending the process of pulping; several with sieves receive all the coffee as it comes through the trough into the cistern, and remove all the pulp in it. The object of this is to please the sight by making the sample even, and to take away a material which both, renders the coffee difficult to dry, and, being decomposed vegetable matter of a saccharine nature, is liable by fermentation to injure the quality of the coffee itself. ”

“ The best crops have been obtained when the seed has been sown broadcast; but the preference is usually given to drilling, the crop being more easily hoed and cleansed. The rows are generally from 9 to 12 inches apart, and about 3 or 4 lbs. of seed per acre is the quantity used.
Most of the cultivators of chicory single out the plants so as to leave spaces between them in the rows, each about 6 or 8 inches long; but there are many who do not do this, fancying that four or five small plants produce more weight of root than one large plant ”

“ Some persons, if they drink tea in the morning and coffee at night, suffer much in animal spirits and in power of enjoyment of the pleasure of society; but if they reverse the system, and take coffee in the morning and tea at night, they reap benefit from the change; for the coffee, which to them in the morning is nutrition, becomes a stimulus at night; and the tea, which acts as a dilutent at night, gives nothing for support during the day.”
The Turks drink their coffee very hot and strong, and without sugar ”

“ The ground being laid out in beds, is sometimes sown broadcast with coffee-seed, which only requires to be most lightly covered with a little sifted mould, or the seeds are pressed in, in rows, with the finger. Sometimes small seedlings, with two leaves and the seed leaves, are brought from another nursery, or from beneath the coffee-bushes of a plantation or native garden, and lined out into beds about six inches apart; these make by far the best and hardiest plants for planting out into the fields. ”

“ This grey-green shade of the Western coffees is entirely deficient in those of Asia. The value of the berry in our wholesale markets is not, therefore, a fictitious quality, as some imagine, but is real, and depends first upon the texture and form of the berry or seed, secondly on the colour, and thirdly the flavour. The texture of the berry and form, termed “style” by the coffee brokers, is so well defined and palpable to the initiated, that at one view they{17} pronounce its value, from one hundred and thirty shillings per cwt. ”

“ The machine called a pulper is for the purpose of removing the cherry skin or husk; this it does by passing it between a barrel armed with perforated copper, forming a grater, and a sharp-edged board called the chop, which by means of wedges or screws is placed at the proper distance from the barrel to ensure the greater part of the coffee being pressed against it, but not so close that any of the berries should be pricked through their parchment covering. As coffee is seldom uniform in size, much passes forward from which the husk, or pulp, as it is called, has not been completely removed ”

“ The whole expense of the storework, viz. pulping, washing, curing, and storing the Rathoongodde coffee, amounted to 21⁄4d. per cwt., and when it is considered that during crop time the value of every man’s labour is greatly increased, it is an object, as far as possible, to substitute mechanical contrivance for manual labour, so that all hands may be employed in gathering the crop as it ripens.
Every planter knows that when coffee is spread out in a single layer on the floor of his store, it becomes dry after a time, and is well cured without any further attention on his part ”

“ There is ample room for inventors in the manufacture of a simple coffee-pot with a water-gauge at the side, which shall effect what is not now done—a passage of the hot water once only through the coffee, so as to have a bright infusion instead of a muddy decoction.
“Tea,” observes Dr. Sigmond, “as the morning beverage, when breakfast forms a good substantial meal, upon which the powers for the day of meeting the various chances and changes of life depend, provided it be not strong, is much to be recommended ”

“ As coffee is planted in a virgin soil, which cannot be cleared of roots, rocks, and logs, for the operation of the plough, and were it cleared of these the disturbance of the soil would probably cause it to be carried away by the heavy rains; holes have to be made, and the larger these are, the nearer the approach is to that movement of the soil, which in general sets at liberty its fertilising properties. Holes are made from 18 inches to 2 feet every way, into which before planting the surface soil is scraped with a hoe. ”