Mocha coffee

“ More than this, it is an established fact that it bears a larger, plumper, and far more aromatic berry at these altitudes than in a lower situation and in a warmer temperature. The coffee produced on plantations near the foot of the Blue Mountain Peak, in Jamaica, is the finest in the world. In Arabia, likewise, the cold at night is sometimes intense; yet who will dispute the goodness of Mocha coffee?
Nothing can exceed the beauty of the rows or walks planted with coffee-trees, from their pyramidical shape and glossy dark leaves, amongst which are hanging the ripe, scarlet-coloured berries. ”

“ Aden, alias Mocha, coffee is, along with the other coffees of the Red Sea, sent first to Bombay in Arab ships, where it is “garbelled” (picked) , previously to its being exported to England. The bean is always broad and small, and the climate of India is supposed to improve its flavour. The seed of the Berbera (Abyssinian) plant is usually called long-berried Mocha.{16}
The Java and East Indian, next in quality, are larger, and of a paler yellow. The Ceylon berries are of irregular sizes, ill-shaped, and of a spotted dirty cream-colour. ”

“ Mocha beans are very small, hard, roundish, and irregular in form and size. In color, they shade from olive green to pale yellow, the bulk being olive green. The roast is poor and uneven; but the coffee's virtues are shown in the cup. It has a distinctive winy flavor, and is heavy with acidity—two qualities which make a straight Mocha brew especially valuable as an after-dinner coffee, and also esteemed for blending with fancy, mild, washed types, particularly East Indian growths.
As in other countries, the coffees grown on the highlands in Yemen are better than the lowland growths. ”

“ Among the other West Indian islands producing small quantities of coffee are Cuba, Trinidad, Dominica, Barbados, and Curaçao. The growths are generally good quality, bearing a close resemblance to one another. In the past, Cuba produced a fine grade; but the industry is now practically extinct.
Asia
Arabia. For many generations Mocha coffee has been recognized throughout the world as the best coffee obtainable; and until the pure food law went into effect in the United States, other high-grade coffees were frequently sold by American firms under the name of Mocha. ”

“ When transportation facilities are provided, so that this food can be imported, it is predicted that the output of Mocha coffee will be doubled.
Aden is a great transhipping port for coffee from Asia and Africa, and more than half its exports are re-exports from points outside of Arabia. The following figures will show the proportion of Arabian coffee coming into Aden for export as compared with that from other producing sections:
British India. ”

“ INDIAN WOMEN CLEANING MOCHA COFFEE IN AN ADEN WAREHOUSE
There are four processes in cleaning Mocha coffee. In order to separate the dried beans from the broken hulls these women (brought over from India) toss the beans in the air, very deftly permitting the empty hulls to fly off, and catch the coffee beans on the bamboo trays. Then the coffee is passed between two primitive grindstones, turned by men. After this grinding process the beans are separated from the crushed outside hulls and the loose silver skins. ”

“ The area under coffee has been greatly reduced, owing partly to more attention being paid to cotton, partly to droughts and other causes. In Somaliland and Abyssinia coffee cultivation is of very ancient date. Two kinds are exported, Harrari and Habashi. The former compares favourably with Mocha coffee. The industry could be very considerably extended. In Natal, Rhodesia, &c., coffee is grown, but not in sufficient quantity to supply the local demand.
Arabia.—The name “Mocha” is applied generally to coffee produced in Arabia. Turkey and Egypt obtain the best grades. ”

“ It will keep hot a long time and one soon becomes fond of it.
To make perfect coffee, just two ingredients are necessary, and only two. These are water and coffee. It is owing to the bad management of the latter that we drink poor coffee.
Mocha is generally considered to be the best type of coffee, with Java a close second. It is the fashion at present to mix the two in proportions to suit, some taking two pans Java to one of Mocha, others reversing these proportions. Either way is good, or the Mocha is quite as good alone. But there is a better berry than either for the genuine coffee toper. ”

“ COFFEE is a native of Abyssinia, being first used by the natives of the district called Kaffa, whence its name. It is still found wild in parts of Africa.
It was introduced into Arabia in the fifteenth century, and is so well suited to that soil and climate that the Mocha coffee has never been excelled. It became so popular that in 1638 the Mohammedan priests issued an edict against it, as the faithful frequented the coffee shops more than the mosques. ”

“ Since the bringing of the Mocha coffee into Santo Domingo as an experiment, with the brawny arm of the black son of toil the production of coffee has reached the incredible amount of 100 millions of pounds, and, in Brazil, where to balance the supply and demand the government provides an excellent system which permits the exportation of only the amount necessary for the world's consumption each year. ”

“ Leaving the Red Sea at the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, we came to Aden, Arabia, and thence went on down along the coast of the Indian Ocean to Mombasa. The very best of our Mocha coffee is shipped from Aden to the United States. It comes here on camels from the province of Yemen, where it is raised by the natives, each family having a few bushes about its hut and producing only enough for home use and a little for trading.
There are no big plantations and no coffee factories. When ripe the berries are gathered and dried in the sun. ”

“ With respect to the quantity of coffee used in making the decoction, much depends on the taste of the consumer. The greatest and most common fault in English coffee is the too small quantity of the ingredient. Count Rumford says that to make good coffee for drinking after dinner, a pound of good Mocha coffee, which, when roasted and ground, weighs only 13 oz., serves to make 56 full cups, or a little less than a quarter of an ounce to a coffee-cup of moderate size. ”

“ Coffee from the original pot is quite another affair from the same thing shifted. I am firmly of opinion that many a patent coffee-maker has gone on to success through the fact that cups were filled directly from the urn. I always feel that I taste my coffee mostly with my nose—nothing refreshes me like the clean, keen fragrance of it—especially after broken rest. It is idle to talk as so many [237] authorities do, of using "Java and Mocha blended." All the real Java and Mocha in the world is snapped up, long before it filters down to the average level. ”

“ Tea and coffee are much drunk; the prices are those of Europe for tea, but the best Mocha coffee is only a shilling a pound. The only dear necessaries are lump-sugar and European candles. Good wine may be got for from threepence to one shilling a quart, and native arrack is from one-and-threepence to one-and-ninepence a bottle.
In the bazaar are cook-shops where the labouring people resort; here are sold bowls of soup, pillaws, kabobs (a separate trade) , and a cut off a sheep roasted whole may be had in Ispahan. The trade of kalleh-puz, or cooker of sheep’s heads and feet, is a common one ”

“ It has been introduced, and is now extensively cultivated in British India, Java, Ceylon, the Mauritius, Brazil, and the West Indies, but the quality is inferior, which makes the climate of the Mocha coffee district of importance, as peculiarly favourable to the plant. It grows there on hills described by Niebuhr as being soaked with rain every day from the beginning of June to the end of September, which is carefully collected for the purpose of irrigation during the dry season. ”

“ Though some parts of India are well adapted to the culture, it is not yet so extensively cultivated as might have been expected from the vicinity of its Arabian sites to the Malabar coast. There, however, some excellent coffee is grown, as well as in the hilly regions of Mysore and on the slopes of the Neilgherries, and some of these are of such good quality, and so carefully prepared, as to bring the same price as Mocha coffee. ”

“ The plant being of a soporific nature, the coffee made from it when drunk at night produces a tendency to sleep, instead of exciting wakefulness, and may be safely used as a cheap and wholesome substitute for the Arabian berry, being equal in substance and flavour to the best Mocha coffee. ”

“ The ideal coffee blend is two thirds Mandeheling Java and one third Arabian Mocha, but very little genuine Mocha ever reaches this country, though trusting consumers often pay high prices for what the man says is sure-enough Mocha. ”

“ Now, three-quarters of our coffee comes from Brazil, although much of it is sold under the name of Mocha or Java, the Chamber of Commerce report itself declaring that the "Santos pea berry and other similar appearing beans are used by mixers to supplement the supply of genuine Mocha." It would be a gratification to be able to say that no other mixing or adulteration is practiced. ”

“ M. Lebreton (“Agriculteur praticien”) has estimated the loss of weight of coffee in roasting at 18 to 20 per cent. in Porto Rico, Rio, and Martinique coffee; and at 16 to 18 per cent. in Malabar, Bourbon, Ceylon, and Guadaloupe coffees; while in Mocha coffee it amounts to only 14 or 16. The loss of weight depends upon the time of roasting and the degree of heat. Damp or damaged coffee loses more than dry sound coffee. ”

“ Buy pure coffee—not necessarily that which costs most—but buy it from some reliable dealer. Mixtures of one-third Mocha and two-thirds Java, or half Mocha and half male berry Java, have given general satisfaction. There are some varieties of South American coffee which are very good. Occasionally one finds a brand, through some friend who is in the business, or who has had opportunity of procuring it directly from coffee-growing countries, which is of such remarkable excellence that it leads one to suspect that much of the best coffee grown is not in the market. ”

“ This is undoubtedly owing to the fact that the spicy isle enjoys somewhat of a monopoly in coffee and some of the spices, cinnamon especially. Java coffee is generally used, I think, in America, but in Ceylon it is deemed an inferior article; Mocha, in Arabia, furnishes the best, but much called Mocha is really grown here. In the coffee plantations men are paid eighteen cents per day; women, fourteen cents. A disease akin to that which attacked the vines in France some years ago has raged among the plants for two years past ”

“ Most of the coffee in Arabia is grown in almost inaccessible mountain valleys by native Arabs, and is transported by camel caravan to Aden or Hodeida, where it is sold to agents of foreign importing houses. Mocha, once the principal exporting city for coffee, was abandoned as a coffee port early in the nineteenth century, chiefly because of the difficulty of keeping the roadstead of the harbor free from sandbars. ”

“ The roasting in cocoa, coffee, and tea is necessary for desirable flavors, the heat developing volatile, aromatic principles, caramelizing the sugar, and causing other chemical changes. The differences in the flavor of coffees are due to the variety, the soil and climate, and methods of production and manufacture. No coffee grown in the western hemisphere has excelled, and scarcely has any equaled, the original Mocha and Java coffees, and these have long been trade names for coffee from other places, because of the popular liking for these brands. ”

“ Cheap, or of a poor vintage, they will ruin the choicest dish.
Upon coffee, too, much depends. It must be strong, it must be rich, it must be hot. But strength and richness may not be had unless it be fresh roasted and ground. Worse a hundredfold you may do than to mix Mocha with Mysore; theirs is one of the few happy unions. If romance have charm for you, then finish with a little glass of green Chartreuse—the yellow is for the feeble and the namby-pamby; powerful, indeed, is the spell it works, powerful and ecstatic. ”

“ Once upon a time it was thought that Java and Mocha were the only worthwhile blend, but now we know that a Bogota coffee from Colombia, and a Bourbon Santos from Brazil, make a most satisfying drink. And if the individual seeker should happen to be a caffein-sensitive, there are coffees so low in caffein content, like some Porto Ricans, as to overcome this objection; while there are other coffees from which the caffein has been removed by a special treatment. There is no reason why any person who is fond of coffee should forego its use. ”

“ Sans altérer la tête, épanouit le cœur.”
It is a remarkable fact that, during the retreat of the French from Russia, such soldiers as refrained from brandy, and took only coffee, escaped being frost-bitten, or any of the diseases arising from exposure to cold. There is no part of the world in which better coffee is sold than in London, more especially the Mocha coffee of Twining (which may be purchased, unground and unroasted, at 1s. 8d. the pound, and roasted, or ground and roasted, at [238] 2s. 4d. the pound) ”

“ Mocha, or Turkey, coffee (namely, in a raw or unroasted state) should be chosen of a greenish olive hue, fresh and new, free from any musty smell, the berries of a middling size, and clean and plump. Good West-Indian coffee should also be of a greenish cast, fresh, free from mouldy smells, and the berry small. East-Indian coffee is of a pale, and partly of a deep yellow colour. Java coffee is distinguished by its being a large, light, yellow berry. ”