Coffee mill

“ There was a time when all the coffee establishments in New York sent their coffee to Prentiss & Page to be ground. Some of the places roasted by hand, others by horse power; and if by steam, it was limited, and they did not have enough to spare for grinding.
With the march of improvement, burstone mills went into the discard. The difficulty lay in finding men experienced in stone dressing to run them; and the demand grew for a better style of grinding than could be done in a mill out of face and balance. ”

“ Moist sugar should be kept in a large tin canister, the lid of which opens with a hinge. The coffee-mill, if in this apartment, must be fixed to some part of the room where it will be quite firm, and yet be so placed that the person grinding may have room to use the arm freely; but many persons have the coffee-mill in the kitchen, and also a mill for pepper. When any thing [Pg 40] is to be ground in a mill, of a different nature from what it is generally used for, the mill should be first cleaned by grinding in it a hard crust of bread. ”

“ The factory includes a water-power plant delivering, through an American water wheel and by cable, 250 horse-power to the main shafting, an auxiliary steam plant of 150 horse-power as a reserve, a rubber mill, a coffee mill, three sisal-stripping machines, smoke-houses, drying fields and houses for sisal, drying floors and houses for coffee, sorting rooms, blacksmith shop, machine shop, brass-fitting foundry, packing houses, warehouses, and other equipment. ”

“ Coffee Devices that Figured in the Pioneering of the Great West Photographed for this work in the Museum of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Left to right, English decorated tin pot; coffee and spice mill from Lexington, Mass.; Globe roaster built by Rays & Wilcox Co., Berlin, Conn., under Wood's patent; sheet brass coffee mill from Lexington, Mass.; John Luther's coffee mill, Warren, R.I.; cast-iron hopper mill
The Sun tavern lived a longer life than any other Boston inn. ”

“ The chief factory assistant receives 300 florins, and the machinist and bookkeeper 250 florins each.
The mandoer in charge of the air and kiln drying of coffee gets 25 florins per month, and the mandoer at the coffee mill 20 florins. A woman mandoer in charge of the coffee sorters receives 0.50 florin per day and 0.01 florin each for sewing the bags. This woman supervises all the sorters, fixes their status, and inspects their work. ”

“ But, on the other hand, unless the roasting be done very carefully, the coffee will not be good. A few burnt beans in a quart will ruin the drink. When careful attention to roasting cannot be given at home, it will be better to buy a supply already roasted, but never ground. A French small mill, which can be regulated to grind coarse or fine, can be bought for about a dollar and a half. With care it will last for ten or twenty years. Some firms put up coffee in tin cans. It costs more, but retains so much of the aroma as to be well worth the extra price. ”

“ It is not to be undermined by representations that ground coffee bought by the package has lost much of its original value with time, and is, furthermore, shamefully adulterated. What your richer neighbors use ought to satisfy you, especially when discontent with it entails worry and labor upon herself. I repeat it: If you must have irreproachable coffee, look to it in person.
Next to this process in excellence is the plan of purchasing, a pound at a time, freshly-ground coffee from a trustworthy grocer, whose mill goes every day ”

“ If much depend upon the roasting, no less is the responsibility that rests with the grinding. The working of the mill, soft and low as heard from afar, makes most musical accompaniment to dinner's later courses. It is guarantee of excellence, certificate of merit. Thus trusted to the mill, when time presses, none of the coffee's essence can escape, none of its aroma. And there is art in the grinding: ground exceeding small it may answer for boiling, but not for filtering or dripping ”

“ Nearly all the coffee is ground at home, which is not a bad practise for the consumer; but perhaps works hardship on the dealer, who can mix some grade grinders into his blends without doing them any material harm. Where coffee mills are used in the stores, they are of the Strong-Arm family and of an ancient heritage. To get a growl out of the grocer in France, buy a kilo of coffee and ask him to grind it. ”

“ Commercial coffee-grinding machines are alike in principle in all countries, the beans being crushed or broken between toothed or corrugated metal or stone members, one revolving and the other being stationary. While all grinding machines are alike in principle, they may vary in capacity and design. The average granulator will turn out about five hundred pounds of "steel-cut" coffee in an hour; the pulverizer, from seventy-five to two hundred pounds; and the average grinding mill from five hundred to six hundred pounds. ”

“ Between 1600 and 1632, mortars and pestles of wood, iron, brass, and bronze came into common use in Europe for braying the roasted beans. For several centuries, coffee connoisseurs held that pounding the beans in a mortar was superior to grinding in the most efficient mill. Peregrine White's parents brought to America on the Mayflower, in 1620, a wooden mortar and pestle that were used for braying coffee to make coffee "powder." ”

“ I have also seen an entire company rise upon the entrance of an old man, and yield him the corner of honor.
Such courtesies take time. Then you must wait for your coffee to be made. To this end coffee, roasted fresh as required by turning in an [Pg 665] iron cylinder over a fire of sticks and ground to the fineness of powder in a brass mill, is put into a small uncovered brass pot with a long handle. There it is boiled to a froth three times on a charcoal brazier, with or without sugar as you prefer. ”

“ The leading establishments roast their coffee beans daily, and from them the latter may be obtained and ground in the mill at home. This, of course, though not giving the real thing, is an immense improvement on the hallowed tradition, so dear to some, of purchasing their weekly supply of,,round coffee at a time and keeping it in a tin or vessel for use as required. But, as I said before, if perfection is aimed at, the roasting must be done at home. ”

“ The coffee having been roasted, it has to be reduced to a coarse powder before the infusion is made. The grinding and powdering of coffee should be done just before it is wanted, for if the whole coffee seeds quickly lose their aroma, how much more quickly will the aroma be dissipated from coffee which has been reduced to a fine powder? Nothing need be said in the matter of coffee mills. They are common enough, varied enough, and cheap enough to suit all tastes. ”

“ In 1900, the first gear-driven electric coffee grinder was put on the market by the Enterprise Manufacturing Co. of Pennsylvania.
In 1902, the Coles Manufacturing Co., (Braun Co., successor) and Henry Troemner, of Philadelphia, began the manufacture and sale of gear-driven electric coffee grinders.
In 1905, the A.J. Deer Co., Buffalo, N.Y., (now at Hornell, N.Y.) began to sell its Royal electric coffee mills direct to dealers on the instalment plan, revolutionizing the former practise of selling coffee mills through hardware jobbers. ”

“ Those who are accustomed to this method may be good coffee roasters, albeit they may not have any nose at all. But we must state in this connection, that a man who has no smell and is color blind is not a fit candidate for the coffee roasting profession; and, moreover, we affirm that any person who can not roast coffee, so far as judgment is concerned, after a few trials, will never make a good operator.
Burns Granulating Mill, 1872–74
In 1867, Jabez Burns was granted a United States patent on an improved coffee cooler, mixer, and grinding mill, or granulator. ”

“ A ten-million bale crop depresses the market. Already experiments have been tried successfully to pay labor in the sugar fields by the tons of cane delivered at the mills for grinding. This is an incident full of auspicious significance. A general feeling is expressed in the current saying that coffee raising is "the coming industry." The confidence that there is prosperity in coffee amounts to enthusiasm. ”

“ It is undoubtedly true that most of the large coffee properties formerly in cultivation have been abandoned, or turned to other uses. Coffee requires new land; and the clearance of fifty acres of wood is a Herculean enterprise for coffee planters, among whom want of capital [Pg 85] prevails as much as among sugar planters. But whatever large coffee planters may say about their profits and losses, it is a notorious fact that thousands and thousands of settlers grow the delicious berry to advantage; as any merchant engaged in the trade will be able to testify. ”

“ I was informed by many men that the first crop should pay the expenses of the first three years during which there is no yield. This is a magnificent return, and by judicious combines, capitalization, and concentration, Nyassa coffee should become an important industry. The coffee being of such quality, is only used for blending at present, so that there is little chance of over-production. ”

“ Distribution of roasted coffees outside Chicago and Kansas City is accomplished [Pg 525] through the medium of more than one hundred stock depots in as many different cities of the United States.
To operate the world's greatest coffee business is no small undertaking; and when this is coupled with an important sugar-refining business and a waterfront warehouse-and-terminal business, plenty of room is needed. So we find the plant along the Brooklyn waterfront occupying an area of a dozen city blocks. ”

“ The warehouse for receiving the crop and preserving the coffee after it is put into bags and ready for the market, is generally of such limited dimensions as to be barely sufficient for the purposes for which it is designed; so that, when the harvest has been abundant, or when anything has occurred to interfere with the despatch of what is ready for removal, the constant accumulation is attended with serious inconvenience. In fact, the occupation of the coffee planter has been for some time on the decline in the island, owing to the superior rate of profit derived from the making of sugar ”

“ Traditionally, coffee has been cultivated on small, one to 100-acre farms where hand picking is the standard harvesting procedure. However, KCP uses a fleet of mechanical harvesters. This approach is becoming a global trend in coffee production. ”

“ Despite the low prices, if in those districts where the coffee is not pulped and washed the settlers who grow the bulk of our ordinary coffee were to combine, as they have done in some instances, to obtain pulping machines and hulling mills and to cure their coffee properly, there can be no doubt that the export value of our coffee would be increased by about 25 per cent. ”

“ The reasons for this are various, partly relating to the mere economy of buying and manufacturing on a large scale, and partly relating to the trained skill that is needed both for selecting suitable green coffees to make a satisfactory blend, and for the roasting work itself. The proportion of consumers (including restaurants and hotels) who roast their own coffee is so small as to be negligible, at least in the United States. The average person who buys coffee today, for brewing use, never sees green coffee at all, unless as an "educational exhibit" in some dealer's display window. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Since the government relinquished its control over the so-called government estates, European operators have maintained the standard of preparation, and have adopted new equipment as it was developed. The majority of estates producing considerable quantities of coffee use the same types of machinery as their competitors in Brazil and other western countries. ”

“ The mixer does not blend the various coffees any more surely than a good roaster cylinder will do it, but treats batches of much larger size. This means saving a great amount of labor that would be necessary for putting the desired quantity of component coffees into each individual roaster.
A proper installation of green coffee machinery requires various bins of ample capacity, and bucket elevators by which the coffee can be sent without manual labor from one operation to another. In modern plants, all the bins and elevators are constructed of metal. ”

“ Large profits were made by the first planters, more capital was introduced, until, between the years 1840 and 1842, the influx of capitalists, to undertake this species of cultivation, completely changed the face of the colony, and enlarged its trade, and the produce of coffee in sixteen years has increased sixfold.
The general culture resembles the practice in Java. Of the Ceylon coffee, that grown about Ramboddi fetches the highest price, from the superiority of the make, shape, and boldness of the berry. The weight per bushel, clean, averages 56 lbs. ”