Chapter XXXV: World's Coffee Manners and Customs (2)

A few of these houses are situated in the skirts of the town, on
one of the streams, where the eye rests on the luxuriant vegetation
of garden and wood: others are in the heart of the city: a flight
of steps conducts to them from the sultry street, and it is
delightful to pass in a few moments from the noisy, shadeless
thoroughfare, where you see only mean gateways and the gable-ends
of edifices, to a cool, grateful, calm place of rest and
refreshment, where you can muse and meditate in ease and luxury,
and feel at every moment the rich breeze from the river. In two or
three instances, a light wooden bridge leads to the platform, close
to which, and almost out of it, one or two large and noble trees
lift the canopy of their spreading branches and leaves, more
welcome at noonday than the roofs of fretted gold in the "Arabian
Nights." The high pavilion roof and the pillars are all constructed
of wood: the floor is of wood, and sometimes of earth, and is
regularly watered, and raised only a few inches above the level of
the stream, which rushes by at the feet of the customer, which it
almost bathes, as he sips his coffee or sherbet. Innumerable small
seats cover the floor, and you take one of these, and place it in
the position you like best.

Perhaps you wish to sit apart from the crowd, just under the shadow
of the tree, or in some favourite corner where you can smoke, and
contemplate the motley guests, formed into calm and solemn groups,
who wish to hold no communion with the Giaour. There is ample food
here for the observer of character, costume and pretension: the
tradesman, the mechanic, the soldier, the gentleman, the dandy, the
grave old man, looking wise on the past and dimly on the future:
the hadge, in his green turban, vain of his journey to Mecca, and
drawing a long bow in his tales and adventures: the long straight
pipe, the hookah with its soft curling tube and glass vase, are in
request: but the poorer argille is most commonly used.

From sunrise to set, these houses are never empty: we were
accustomed to visit one of them early every morning, before
breakfast, and very many persons were already there: yet this
"balmy hour of prime" was the most silent and solitary of the whole
day; it was the coolest also: the rising sun was glancing redly on
the waters: there was as yet no heat in the air, and the little
cup of Mocha coffee and the pipe were handed by an attendant as
soon as the stranger was seated. His favourite Café was the one
represented in the plate: the river is the Barrada, the ancient
Pharpar. Never was the sound of many waters so pleasant to the ear
as in Damascus: the air is filled with the sound, with which no
clash of tongues, rolling of wheels, march of footman or horsemen,
mingle: the numerous groups who love to resort here are silent half
the time; and when they do converse, their voice is often "low,
like that of a familiar spirit," or in short grave sentences that
pass quickly from the ear.

After Bartlett and Purser]

Yet much, very much of the excitement of the life of the Turk in
this city, is absorbed in these coffee-houses: they are his opera,
his theatre, his conversazione: soon after his eyes are unclosed
from sleep, he thinks of his Café, and forthwith bends his way
there: during the day he looks forward to pass the evening on the
loved floor, to look on the waters, on the stars above, and on the
faces of his friends; and at the moonlight falling on all. Mahomet
committed a grievous error in the omission of coffee-houses, in a
future state: had he ever seen those of Damascus, he would surely
have given them a place on his rivers of Paradise, persuaded that
true believers must feel a melancholy void without them.

There is no ornament or richness about these houses: no sofas,
mirrors, or drapery, save that afforded by a few evergreens and
creepers: the famous silks and damasks of Damascus have no place
here; all is plain and homely; yet no Parisian Café, with its
beautiful mirrors, gilding, and luxuriousness, is so welcome to the
imagination and senses of the traveller. After wandering many days
over dry, and stony, and desert places, where the lip thirsted for
the stream, is it not delicious to sit at the brink of a wild,
impetuous torrent, to gaze on its white foam and breaking waves,
till you can almost feel their gush in every nerve and fibre, and
can bathe your very soul in them. And while you slowly smoke your
pipe of purest tobacco, the sands of the desert, and their burning
sun, rise again before you, when you prayed for even the shadow of
a cloud on your way. The banks are in some parts covered with wood,
whose soft green verdure contrasts beautifully with the clear
torrent, and almost droops into its bosom.

Near the coffee-houses are one or two cataracts several feet high,
and the perpetual sound of their fall, and the coolness they spread
around, are exquisite luxuries--in the heat of day, or in the
dimness of evening. There are two or three Cafés constructed
somewhat differently from those just described: a low gallery
divides the platform from the tide; fountains play on the floor,
which is furnished with very plain sofas and cushions; and music
and dancing always abound, of the most unrefined description.

The only intellectual gratification in these places is afforded by
the Arab story-tellers, among whom are a few eminent and clever
men: soon after his entrance, a group begins to form around the
gifted man, who, after a suitable pause, to collect hearers or whet
their expectations, begins his story. It is a picturesque sight--of
the Arab with his wild and graceful gestures, and his auditory,
hushed into deep and child-like attention, seated at the edge of
the rushing tide, while the narrator moves from side to side, and
each accent of his distinct and musical voice is heard throughout
the Café. The building directly opposite is another house, of a
similar kind in every respect There are a few small Cafés, more
select as to company, where the Turkish gentlemen often go, form
dinner parties, and spend the day.

Night is the propitious season to visit these places: the glare of
the sun, glancing on the waters, is passed away; the company is
then most numerous, for it is their favourite hour; the lamps,
suspended from the slender pillars, are lighted; the Turks, in the
various and brilliant colours of their costume, crowd the platform,
some standing moveless as the pillars beside them, their long pipe
in their hand--noble specimens of humanity, if intellect breathed
within: some reclining against the rails, others seated in groups,
or solitary as if buried in "lonely thoughts sublime"; while the
rush of the falling waters is sweeter music than that of the pipe
and the guitar, that faintly strive to be heard. The cataract in
the plate is a very fine one; on its foam the moonlight was lovely:
we passed many an hour here on such a night, the clear waters of
the Pharpar, as they rolled on, reflecting each pillar, each
Damascene slowly moving by in his waving garments. The glare of the
lamps mingled strangely with the moonlight, that rested with a soft
and vivid glory on the waters, and fell beneath pillar and roof on
the picturesque groups within.

The slender brass coffee grinders sometimes serve as a combination utensil in the equipment of the Turkish officer. Frequently they are made of silver. They might be called collapsible, convertible coffee kits, as they are made to serve as a combination coffee pot, mill, can, and cup. The green or roasted beans are kept in the lower section. It takes but a minute to unscrew the apparatus. To make a cup of coffee, the beans are dumped out and three or four of them are put in the middle section. The steel crank is fitted over the squared rod projecting from the middle section, which revolves, setting in motion the grinding apparatus inside. The ground coffee falls into the bottom section, and water is added. The pot is placed on the fire, and the contents brought to a boil. The coffee pot serves as a cup. The process requires but a few minutes. The cup is rinsed out, the beans replaced, the utensils put together, the whole thing is slipped into the officer's tunic, and he goes on, refreshed.

In Persia, where tea is mostly drunk, the Turkish-Arabian methods of making coffee are followed. In Ceylon and India, the same applies to the native population, but the whites follow the European practise. In India, many people look upon coffee as just a _bonne bouche_--a "chaser." A well known English tea firm has had some success in India with a tinned "French coffee", which is a blend of Indian coffee and chicory.

European methods obtain in making coffee in China and Japan, and in the French and Dutch colonies. When traveling in the Far East one of the greatest hardships the coffee lover is called upon to endure is the European bottled coffee extract, which so often supplies lazy chefs with the makings of a most forbidding cup of coffee.

In Java, a favorite method is to make a strong extract by the French drip process and then to use a spoonful of the extract to a cup of hot milk--a good drink when the extract is freshly made for each service.

_Coffee Making in Europe_

In Europe, the coffee drink was first sold by lemonade venders. In Florence those who sold coffee, chocolate, and other beverages were not called _caffetiéri_ (coffee sellers) but _limonáji_ (lemonade venders). Pascal's first Paris coffee shop served other drinks as well as coffee; and Procope's café began as a lemonade shop. It was only when coffee, which was an afterthought, began to lead the other beverages, that he gave the name café to his whole refreshment place.

Today, nearly every country in Europe can supply the two extremes of coffee making. In Paris and Vienna, one may find it brewed and served in its highest perfection; but here too it is frequently found as badly done as in England, and that is saying a good deal. The principal difficulty seems to be in the chicory flavor, for which long years of use has cultivated a taste, with most people. Now coffee-and-chicory is not at all a bad drink; indeed the author confesses to have developed a certain liking for it after a time in France--but it is not coffee. In Europe, chicory is not regarded as an adulterant--it is an addition, or modifier, if you please. And so many people have acquired a coffee-and-chicory taste, that it is doubtful if they would appreciate a real cup of coffee should they ever meet it. This, of course, is a generalization; and like all generalizations, is dangerous, for it _is_ possible to obtain good coffee, properly made, in any European country, even England, in the homes of the people, but seldom in the hotels or restaurants.

AUSTRIA. Coffee is made in Austria after the French style, usually by the drip method or in the pumping percolator device, commonly called the Vienna coffee machine. The restaurants employ a large-size urn fitted with a combination metal sieve and cloth sack. After the ground coffee has infused for about six minutes, a screw device raises the metal sieve, the pressure forcing the liquid through the cloth sack containing the ground coffee.

Vienna cafés are famous, but the World War has dimmed their glory. It used to be said that their equal could not be found for general excellence and moderate prices. From half-past eight to ten in the morning, large numbers of people were wont to breakfast in them on a cup of coffee or tea, with a roll and butter. _Mélangé_ is with milk; "brown" coffee is darker, and a _schwarzer_ is without milk. In all the cafés the visitor may obtain coffee, tea, liqueurs, ices, bottled beer, ham, eggs, etc. The Café Schrangl in the Graben is typical. Then there are the dairies, with coffee, a unique institution. In the _Prater_ (public park) there are many interesting cafés.

Charles J. Rosebault says in the _New York Times_:

The café of Vienna has been imitated all over the world--but the
result has never failed to be an imitation. The nearest approach to
the genuine in my experience was the upstairs room of the old
Fleischman Café in New York. That was because the average New
Yorker knew it not and it remained sacred to the internationalists:
the musicians, artists, writers, and other Bohemians to whom had
been intrusted the secret of its existence. It is the spirit that
counts, and it was the spirit of its frequenters that made the
Vienna café. It was everyman's club, and everywoman's, too, where
one went to relax and forget all the worries of existence, to look
over papers and magazines from all parts of the world and printed
in every known language, to play chess or skat or taracq, to chat
with friends and to drink the inimitable Viennese coffee, the
fragrance of which can no more be described than the perfume of
last year's violets.

The café was filled after the noon meal, when busy men took their
coffee and smoked; again around five o'clock, when all the world
and his wife paraded along the Graben and the Karntner Strasse, and
then dropped into a favorite café for coffee or chocolate and
cakes--horns and crescents of delicious dough filled with jam or,
possibly, the wonderful Kugelhupf, in comparison with which our
sponge is like unto lead; finally in the evening, when there were
family parties and those returning from theatres and concerts and
opera.

THE CAFÉ SCHRANGL IN THE GRABEN, VIENNA, THE CITY THAT COFFEE MADE FAMOUS]

While the café life of Vienna has been nearly killed by the World War, it is to be hoped that time will restore at least something of its former glory. In spite of the stories of plundering bands of Bolshevists that in the latter part of 1921 wrecked some of the better known places, we read that Oscar Straus, composer of _The Chocolate Soldier_, is living in comparative luxury in Vienna, and spends most of his time in the cafés, where he is to be found usually from two until five in the afternoon and from eleven o'clock at night until some early hour of the morning "surrounded by musicians of lesser note and wealth, whom, to a degree, he supports; also with him being many of the leading composers, librettists, actors, actresses, and singers of Vienna."

For Vienna coffee, the liquor is usually made in a pumping percolator or by the drip process. In normal times it is served two parts coffee to one of hot milk topped with whipped cream. During 1914-18 and the recent post-war period, however, the sparkling crown of delicious whipped cream gave way to condensed milk, and saccharine took the place of sugar.

BELGIUM. In Belgium, the French drip method is most generally employed. Chicory is freely used as a modifier. The greatest coffee drinker among reigning monarchs is said to be the King of the Belgians. His majesty takes a cup of coffee before breakfast, after breakfast, at his noonday meal, in the afternoon, after dinner, and again in the evening.

BRITISH ISLES. In the British Isles coffee is still being boiled; although the infusion, true percolation (drip), and filtration methods have many advocates. A favorite device is the earthenware jug with or without the cotton sack that makes it a coffee biggin. When used without the sack, the best practise is first to warm the jug. For each pint of liquor, one ounce (three dessert-spoonfuls) of freshly ground coffee is put in the pot. Upon it is poured freshly boiling water--three-fourths of the amount required. After stirring with a wooden spoon, the remainder of the water is poured in, and the pot is returned to the "hob" to infuse, and to settle for from three to five minutes. Some stir it a second time before the final settling.

The best trade authorities stress home-grinding, and are opposed to boiling the beverage. They advocate also its use as a breakfast beverage, after lunch, and after the evening meal.

From an American point of view, the principal defects in the English method of making coffee lie in the roasting, handling, and brewing. It has been charged that the beans are not properly cooked in the first place, and that they are too often stale before being ground. The English run to a light or cinnamon roast, whereas the best American practise requires a medium, high, or city roast. A fairly high shade of brown is favored on the South Downs with a light shade for Lancashire, the West Riding of Yorkshire, and the south of Scotland. The trade demands, for the most part, a ripe chestnut brown. Wholesale roasting is done by gas and coke machines; while retail dealers use mostly a small type of inner-heated gas machine. The large gas machines (with capacities running from twenty-five to seven hundred pounds) have external air-blast burners, direct and indirect burners, sliding burners, etc. The best known are the Faulder and Moorewood machines. In the Uno, a popular retail machine, roasting seven to fourteen pounds at a time, the coffee beans are placed in the space between outer and inner concentric cylinders, one made of perforated steel, and the other of wire gauze, revolving together. A gas flame of the Bunsen type burns inside the inner cylinder, its heat traversing the outer, or coffee cylinder, while the fumes are driven off through the open ends. The roasting coffee may be viewed through a mica or wire-gauze panel inserted in the wall of the outer cylinder. The Faulder machine has an external flame, a capacity of from seven to fourteen pounds; and there are quick gas machines, with capacities ranging from three pounds to two hundred and twenty-four pounds, for the retail trade.

In recent years there has been a marked improvement in English coffee roasting, due to the intelligent study brought to bear upon the subject by leaders of the trade's thought, and by the retail distributer, who, in the person of the retail grocer, is, generally speaking, better educated to his business than the retail grocer in any other country. Years ago, it was the practise to use butter or lard to improve the appearance of the bean in roasting; but this is not so common as formerly.

The British consumer, however, will need much instruction before the national character of the beverage shows a uniform improvement. While the coffee may be more carefully roasted, better "cooked" than it was formerly, it is still remaining too long unsold after roasting, or else it is being ground too long a time before making. These abuses are, however, being corrected; and the consumer is everywhere being urged to buy his coffee freshly roasted and to have it freshly ground. Another factor has undoubtedly contributed to give England a bad name among lovers of good coffee, and that is certain tinned "coffees," composed of ground coffee and chicory, mixtures that attained some vogue for a time as "French" coffee. They found favor, perhaps, because they were easily handled. Package coffees have not been developed in England as in America; but there is a more or less limited field for them, and there are several good brands of absolutely pure coffee on the market.

The demi-tasse is a popular drink after luncheon, after dinner, and even during the day, especially in the cities. In London, there are cafés that make a specialty of it; places like Peel's, Groom's, and the Café Nero in the city; also the shops of the London Café Co., and Ye Mecca Co.

While, in the home, it is customary to steep the coffee; in hotels and restaurants some form of percolating apparatus, extractor, or steam machine is employed. There are the Criterion (employing a drip tray for making coffee in the Etzenberger style); Fountain; Platow; Syphon (Napier); and Verithing extractors, put out by Sumerling & Co. of London; and the well-known J. & S. rapid coffee-making machine, having an infuser, and producing coffee by steam pressure, manufactured by W.M. Still & Sons, Ltd., London.

American visitors complain that coffee in England is too thick and syrupy for their liking. Coffee in restaurants is served "white" (with milk), or black, in earthen, stoneware, or silver pots. In chain restaurants, like Lyons' or the A.B.C., there is to be found on the tariff, "hot milk with a dash of coffee."

As to the boiling method, this is already generally discredited in the countries of western Europe. The steeping method so much favored in England may be responsible for some of the unkind things said about English coffee; because it undoubtedly leads to the abuse of over-infusion, so that the net result is as bad as boiling.

The vast majority of the English people are, however, confirmed tea drinkers, and it is extremely doubtful if this national habit, ingrained through centuries of use of "the cup that cheers" at breakfast and at tea time in the afternoon can ever be changed.

As already mentioned in this work, the London coffee houses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries gave way to a type of coffee house whose mainstay was its food rather than its drink. In time, these too began to yield to the changing influences of a civilization that demanded modern hotels, luxurious tea lounges, smart restaurants, chain shops, tea rooms, and cafés with and without coffee. A certain type of "coffee shop," with rough boarded stalls, sanded floors and "private rooms," frequented by lower class workingmen, were to be found in England for a time; but because of their doubtful character, they were closed up by the police.

Among other places in London where coffee may be had in English or continental style, mention should be made of the Café Monico, a good place to drop in for a coffee and liqueur, and one of the pioneers of the modern restaurant; Gatti's, where _café filtré_, or coffee produced by the filtration method, is a specialty; the cosmopolitan Savoy with its popular tea lounge (teas, sixty cents); the Piccadilly Hotel, with its Louis XIV restaurant catering to refined and luxurious tastes; the Waldorf Hotel, with its American clientèle and its palm court (teas, thirty-six cents); the Cecil, with its palm court and tea balcony, also having a special attraction for Americans; Lyons' Popular Café (iced coffee, twelve cents); the Trocadero with its special Indian curries prepared by native cooks once each week; the Temple Bar restaurant, an attractive refectory owned by the semi-philanthropic Trust-Houses, Ltd., which runs some two hundred similar establishments throughout the country, serving alcoholic drinks but stressing non-intoxicating beverages, among them special Mocha at six and eight cents a cup; Slater's, Ltd., catering mostly to business folk in the city, there being about a score of restaurants and tea rooms under this name with retail shops attached; the British Tea Table Association, like Slater's, a grown-up sister of the olden bun shop of Queen Victoria's day; and the Kardomah chain of cafés, where one is reasonably sure to get a satisfying cup of coffee and a cake.

Supplementing the above, Charles Cooper, some time editor of the _Epicure_ and _The Table_, has prepared for this work some notes on the evolution of the old-time London coffee houses into the present-day tea rooms, tea lounges, cafés, and restaurants for all comers. Mr. Cooper says of the transformation:

The old-fashioned London coffee-house that flourished forty to
fifty years ago has within the past thirty years been completely
extinguished by the modern tea rooms. These old-fashioned
establishments were mainly situated in and about the Strand and
Fleet Street, the neighborhood of the Inns of Court, etc. They did
not sacrifice much to outside show and decoration. They were
divided into boxes or pews, and were generally speaking clean and
well ordered; the prices were moderate, and the fare simple but
superlatively good. There is nothing to equal it now. Chops were
cooked in the grill. The tea and coffee were of the best; the hams
were York hams and the bacon the best Wiltshire; they were the last
places where real buttered toast was made. The art is now lost.
They catered exclusively to men; and their clientèle consisted of
journalists, artists, actors, men from the Inns of Court, students,
_et al._ A man living in chambers could breakfast comfortably at
one of these places, and read all the morning papers at his ease.
The most westerly perhaps of the old houses was Stone's in Panton
Street, Haymarket, which has recently been sold. Groom's in Fleet
Street, where a good cup of coffee may still be had, is principally
frequented by barristers about the luncheon hour. They are usually
men who lunch lightly.

The tea rooms, as I have said, have killed the coffee houses. At
the time the latter flourished, there were no facilities in London
for a woman, unattended by a man, to obtain refreshment beyond a
weak cup of tea at a few confectioners'. It mattered the less in
the days when the girl clerk had not come into being. When the
field of women's employment widened, fresh requirements were
created which the coffee shops did not meet.

The tea room pioneers in London were the Aërated Bread Company,
familiarly known as the A.B.C. I think that coffee palaces in
provincial industrial centers had been started; but as part of a
temperance propaganda, to counteract the attractions of the public
house. The Aërated Bread Company was founded about the middle of
the past century for the manufacture and sale of bread made under
the patent aërated process of Dr. Daugleish. The shops were opened
for the sale of bread to the public for home consumption; but to
give people an opportunity of testing it, facilities were provided
for obtaining a cup of tea, and bread and butter, on the premises.
This subsidiary object became in a short time the most important
part of the company's business. It multiplied its shops, enlarged
its bill of fare to include cooked foods; and while, nowadays, the
A.B.C. and its rivals cater to many thousands daily, I doubt if
anybody ever buys a loaf to take home.

The A.B.C. has many competitors, similar shops having been started
by Lyons, Lipton, Slaters. Express Dairy Company, Cabin, Pioneer
Cafés, and others. _Ex uno disce omnes._

The fare in all these places is much alike, as are the general
equipment, prices, and class of customers. They cater for a cheap
class of business. In the busy centers they are frequented mostly
by young men and girl clerks and shop assistants, by women in town,
shopping, and such-like custom. Young employees can get a modest
mid-day meal at a price to suit a shallow pocket. Before the war,
the ruling price for a cup of tea, and a roll and butter, was
fourpence, and the general tariff in proportion. Nowadays, the war
has run up prices at least fifty percent. During the worst times of
food control the fare was very scanty and very unappetizing. As a
rule, it is plain and wholesome, with no pretense of being
_recherché_. Tea is almost always very good; coffee not on the same
level. Their tea rooms are all places designed for small, quick
meals; and are in no sense lounges.

Lyons have refreshment-houses of different grades. The Popular Café
is a cut above the tea rooms, and so are the Corner Houses. Two
years ago, the A.B.C. amalgamated with Buzard's, an old established
confectioner's in Oxford Street--a famous cake-house.

The Monico and Gatti's appeal to a quite different class from that
catered to by the tea shops, although perhaps not to what Mrs.
Boffin would call "the highfliers of fashion" who frequent the
lounges of the fashionable hotels. Gatti's original café was under
the arches of Charing Cross station.

I may add about the Savoy that it was an outcome of the successful
Gilbert and Sullivan operas of the seventies, D'Oyly Carte having
expended some of his profits on building the hotel on a piece of
waste ground by the Savoy Theatre. He brought over M. Ritz from
Monte Carlo to manage the hotel and restaurant, and Escoffier, the
greatest chef of the day, to preside over the cuisine. They made
the Savoy famous for its dinners, and it has always maintained a
high reputation, although Escoffier, who has now retired, ruled
later at the Carlton; and Ritz, at the hotel in Piccadilly which
bears his name.

BULGARIA. In Bulgaria, Arabian-Turkish methods of making coffee prevail. The accompanying illustration shows a group in a caravan of the faithful on the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. The venerable Moslem, who is ambitious of becoming a hadji, is attended by his guards, distinguished by their fantastic dress; their glittering golden-hafted _hanjars_, stuck in their shawl girdles; and their silver-mounted pistols; the grave turban replaced by a many-tasseled cap. Their accommodation is the stable of a khan, or serai, shared with their camel. Their refreshment is coffee, thick, black and bitter, served by the khanji in tiny egg-shaped cups.

In DENMARK and FINLAND coffee is made and served after the French and German fashion.

FRANCE. Were it not for the almost inevitable high roast and frequently the disconcerting chicory addition, coffee in France might be an unalloyed delight--at least this is how it appears to American eyes. One seldom, if ever, finds coffee improperly brewed in France--it is never boiled.

Second only to the United States, France consumes about two million bags of coffee annually. The varieties include coffee from the East Indies; Mocha; Haitian (a great favorite); Central American; Colombian; and Brazils.

Although there are many wholesale and retail coffee roasters in France, home roasting persists, particularly in the country districts. The little sheet-iron cylinder roasters, that are hand-turned over an iron box holding the charcoal fire, find a ready sale even in the modern department stores of the big cities. In any village or city in France it is a common sight on a pleasant day to find the householder turning his roaster on the curb in front of his home. Emmet G. Beeson, in _The Tea and Coffee Trade Journal_ gives us this vignette of rural coffee roasting in the south of France:

In a certain town in the south of France I saw an old man with an
outfit a little larger than the home variety, a machine with a
capacity of about ten pounds. Instead of a cylinder in which to
roast his coffee, he had perched on a sheet-iron frame a hollow
round ball made of sheet iron. In the top of this ball there was a
little slide which was opened by the means of a metal tool. In the
sheet-iron frame he had kindled his charcoal fire. Directly in
front of his roaster was a home-made cooling pan, the sides of
which were of wood, the bottom covered with a fine grade of wire
screening.

On this particular afternoon, the old man had taken up his place on
the curb; and a big black cat had taken advantage of the warmth
offered by the charcoal fire and was curled up, sleeping peacefully
in the pan nearest the fire. The old man paid no attention to the
cat, but went on rotating his ball of coffee and puffing away
pensively on his cigarette. When his coffee had become blackened
and burned, and blackened and burned it was, he stopped rotating
the ball, opened the slide in the top, turned it over, and the hot,
burned coffee rolled out, and much to his delight, on the sleeping
cat, which leaped out of the pan and scampered up the street and
into a hole under an old building.

I afterward learned that this old fellow made a business of going
about the town gathering up coffee from the houses along the way
and roasting it at a few sous per kilo, much the same fashion as a
scissors grinder plies his trade in an American town.

Quite a few grocers roast their own coffee in crude devices much like those described above; but the large coffee roasters are gradually eliminating this sort of procedure. There are at Havre several roasters, but only two of importance; one does a business of about two hundred and fifty bags a day, and the next largest has a capacity of about one hundred and sixty bags a day. In Paris, there are many coffee roasters, some quite large, comparatively speaking, one having a capacity of about seven hundred and fifty bags a day. Shop-keepers in Paris and other large cities roast their coffee fresh daily. The machines used are of the ball or cylinder type, employing gas fuel and turned by electric power. Invariably they stand where they may be seen from the street.

Sample-roasters, or testing tables, in France are conspicuous by their absence. Inquiry regarding this subject discloses that coffee is sold on description; and when the French trader is asked, "How do you know your delivery is up to description so far as cup quality is concerned?" he answers that this is arrived at from the general appearance and the smell of the coffee in the green. Perhaps one reason for the laxity in buying cup quality may be explained by the fact that coffee is roasted very high, in fact it is burned almost to a charred state; and unless the coffee is unusually bad in character, the burned taste eliminates any foreign flavor it may have.

The fact that coffee was, and still is, quite generally sold to the consumer green, accounts for Central American coffees taking first place. Style takes preference over everything else when it comes to selling to a Frenchman.

To the American coffee merchant it seems that the French are carrying their artistic tastes to an unreasonable extreme when they apply them to coffee; for coffee is grown to drink and not to look at.

Since the coming of the large coffee roaster, who delivers roasted coffee right down the line to the consumer, Santos has come in for its share of the business. The roasters are getting good results out of Santos blends, up to fifty percent and sixty percent with West Indian and Central American coffees. Rio is as much in disfavor in France as it is in the United States, perhaps more so.

In Brittany the demand is for peaberry coffee, no matter of what variety. This comes about from the fact that the people of this section of the country still do a great deal of their roasting at home, and have become accustomed to the use of peaberry coffee because they do not have the improved hand roasters, and still do a great deal of their roasting in pans in the ovens of their stoves. The peaberry coffee rolls about so nicely in the pan that they get a much more uniform roast.

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.

Package coffee and proprietary brands have not come into their own to the extent that they have in the United States, although there are at present two firms in Paris which have started in this business and are advertising extensively on billboards, in street cars, and in the subways. However, most coffee is still sold in bulk. The butter, egg, and cheese stores of France do a very large business in coffee. Prior to the war and high prices, there were some very large firms doing a premium business in coffee, tea, spices, etc. They still exist, and have a very fine trade; but since the high prices of coffees and premiums, the business has gone down very materially. They operate by the wagon-route and solicitor method, just as some of our American companies do. One very large firm in Paris has been in this business for more than thirty years, operating branches and wagons in every town, village, and hamlet in France.

The consumption of coffee is increasing very materially in France; some say, on account of the high price of wine, others hold that coffee is simply growing in favor with the people. Among the masses, French breakfast consists of a bowl or cup of _café au lait_, or half a cup or bowl of strong black coffee and chicory, and half a cup of hot milk, and a yard of bread. The workingman turns his bread on end and inserts it into his bowl of coffee, allowing it to soak up as much of the liquid as possible. Then he proceeds to suck this concoction into his system. His approval is demonstrated by the amount of noise he makes in the operation.

Among the better classes, the breakfast is the same, _café au lait_, with rolls and butter, and sometimes fruit. The brew is prepared by the drip, or true percolator, method or by filtration. Boiling milk is poured into the cup from a pot held in one hand together with the brewed coffee from a pot held in the other, providing a simultaneous mixture. The proportions vary from half-and-half to one part coffee and three parts milk. Sometimes, the service is by pouring into the cup a little coffee then the same quantity of milk and alternating in this way until the cup is filled.

Coffee is never drunk with any meal but breakfast, but is invariably served _en demi-tasse_ after the noon and the evening meals. In the home, the usual thing after luncheon or dinner is to go into the _salon_ and have your demi-tasse and liqueur and cigarettes before a cosy grate fire. A Frenchman's idea of after-dinner coffee is a brew that is unusually thick and black, and he invariably takes with it his liqueur, no matter if he has had a cocktail for an appetizer, a bottle of red wine with his meat course, and a bottle of white wine with the salad and dessert course. When the demi-tasse comes along, with it must be served his cordial in the shape of cognac, benedictine, or crème de menthe. He can not conceive of a man not taking a little alcohol with his after-dinner coffee, as an aid, he says, to digestion.

In Normandy, there prevails a custom in connection with coffee drinking that is unique. They produce in this province great quantities of what is known as _cidre_, made from a particular variety of apple grown there--in other words, just plain hard cider. However, they distil this hard cider, and from the distillation they get a drink called _calvados_.

The man from Normandy takes half a cup of coffee, and fills the cup with _calvados_, sweetened with sugar, and drinks it with seeming relish. Ice-cold coffee will almost sizzle when _calvados_ is poured into it. It tastes like a corkscrew, and one drink has the same effect as a crack on the head with a hammer. From the toddling age up, the Norman takes his _calvados_ and coffee.

In the south of France they make a concoction from the residue of grapes. They boil the residue down in water, and get a drink called _marc_; and it is used in much the same way as the Norman in the north uses _calvados_. Then there is also the very popular summertime drink known as _mazagran_, which in that region means seltzer water and cold coffee, or what Americans might call a coffee highball.

Making coffee in France has been, and always will be, by the drip and the filtration methods. The large hotels and cafés follow these methods almost entirely, and so does the housewife. When company comes, and something unusual in coffee is to be served, Mr. Beeson says he has known the cook to drip the coffee, using a spoonful of hot water at a time, pouring it over tightly packed, finely ground coffee, allowing the water to percolate through to extract every particle of oil. They use more ground coffee in bulk than they get liquid in the cup, and sometimes spend an hour producing four or five demi-tasses. It is needless to say that it is more like molasses than coffee when ready for drinking.

It is not unusual in some parts of France to save the coffee grounds for a second or even a third infusion, but this is not considered good practise.

Von Liebig's idea of correct coffee making has been adapted to French practise in some instances after this fashion: put used coffee grounds in the bottom chamber of a drip coffee pot. Put freshly ground coffee in the upper chamber. Pour on boiling water. The theory is that the old coffee furnishes body and strength, and the fresh coffee the aroma.

The cafés that line the boulevards of Paris and the larger cities of France all serve coffee, either plain or with milk, and almost always with liqueur. The coffee house in France may be said to be the wine house; or the wine house may be said to be the coffee house. They are inseparable. In the smallest or the largest of these establishments coffee can be had at any time of day or night. The proprietor of a very large café in Paris says his coffee sales during the day almost equal his wine sales.

The French, young or old, take a great deal of pleasure in sitting out on the sidewalk in front of a café, sipping coffee or liqueur. Here they love to idle away the time just watching the passing show.

In Paris, there are hundreds of these cafés lining the boulevards, where one may sit for hours before the small tables reading the newspapers, writing letters, or merely idling. In the morning, from eight to eleven, employees, men-about-town, tourists, and provincials throng the cafés for _café au lait_. The waiters are coldly polite. They bring the papers, and brush the table--twice for _café créme_ (milk), and three times for _café complet_ (with bread and butter).

In the afternoon, _café_ means a small cup or glass of _café noir_, or _café nature_. It is double the usual amount of coffee dripped by percolator or filtration device, the process consuming eight to ten minutes. Some understand _café noir_ to mean equal parts of coffee and brandy with sugar and vanilla to taste. When _café noir_ is mixed with an equal quantity of cognac alone it becomes _café gloria_. _Café mazagran_ is also much in demand in the summertime. The coffee base is made as for _café noir_, and it is served in a tall glass with water to dilute it to one's taste.

Few of the cafés that made Paris famous in the eighteenth century survive. Among those that are notable for their coffee service are the Café de la Paix; the Café de la Régence, founded in 1718; and the Café Prévost, noted also for chocolate after the theater.

There are about 200 of these coffee and wine shops in Paris. They are frequented mostly by laborers, clerks, and midinettes]

Successor to the famous "Cave" of 1689]

GERMANY. Germany originated the afternoon coffee function known as the kaffee-klatsch. Even today, the German family's reunion takes place around the coffee table on Sunday afternoons. In summer, when weather permits, the family will take a walk into the suburbs, and stop at a garden where coffee is sold in pots. The proprietor furnishes the coffee, the cups, the spoons and, in normal times, the sugar, two pieces to each cup; and the patrons bring their own cake. They put one piece of sugar into each cup and take the other pieces home to the "canary bird," meaning the sugar bowl in the pantry.

Cheaper coffee is served in some gardens, which conspicuously display large signs at the entrance, saying: "Families may cook their own coffee in this place." In such a garden, the patron merely buys the hot water from the proprietor, furnishing the ground coffee and cake himself.

While waiting for the coffee to brew, he may listen to the band and watch the children play under the trees. French or Vienna drip pots are used for brewing.

Every city in Germany has its cafés, spacious places where patrons sit around small tables, drinking coffee, "with or without" turned or unturned, steaming or iced, sweetened or unsweetened, depending on the sugar supply; nibble, at the same time, a piece of cake or pastry, selected from a glass pyramid; talk, flirt, malign, yawn, read, and smoke. Cafés are, in fact, public reading rooms. Some places keep hundreds of daily and weekly newspapers and magazines on file for the use of patrons. If the customer buys only one cup of coffee, he may keep his seat for hours, and read one newspaper after another.

Three of the four corners of Berlin's most important street crossing are occupied by cafés. This is where Unter den Linden and Friedrichstrasse meet. On the southwest corner there is Kranzler's staid old café, a very respectable place, where the lower hall is even reserved for non-smokers. On the southeast corner is Café Bauer, known the world over. However, it has seen better days. It has been outdistanced by competitors. On the northeast corner is the Victoria, a new-style place, very bright, and less staid. There no room is reserved for non-smokers, for most of the ladies, if they do not themselves smoke, will light the cigars for their escorts.

Around the Potsdamer Platz there is a number of cafés. Josty's is perhaps the most frequented in Berlin. It is the best liked on account of the trees and terraces in front. Farther to the west, on Kuerfuerstendamm, there are dozens of large cafés.

Some of the cafés are meeting-places for certain professions and trades. The Admiral's café, in Friedrichstrasse, for instance, is the "artistes'" exchange. All the stage folk and stars of the tanbark meet there every day. Chorus girls, tumblers, ladies of the flying trapeze, contortionists, and bareback riders are to be found there, discussing their grievances, denouncing their managers, swapping their diamonds, and recounting former triumphs. Cinema-makers come also to pick out a cast for a new film play. There one can pick out a full cast every minute.

Then there is the Café des Westens in Kuerfuerstendamm, the old one, where dreamers and poets congregate. It is called also Café Groessenwahn, which means that persons suffering from an exaggerated ego are conspicuous by their presence and their long hair.

At almost every table one may find a poet who has written a play that is bound to enrich its author and any man of means who will put up the money to build a new theater in which to produce it.

Saxony and Thuringia are proverbial hotbeds of coffee lovers. It is said that in Saxony there are more coffee drinkers to the square inch and more cups to the single coffee bean than anywhere else upon earth. The Saxons like their coffee, but seem to be afraid it may be too strong for them. So, when over their cups, they always make certain they can see bottom before raising the steaming bowl to the lip.

Von Liebig's method of making coffee, whereby three-fourths of the quantity to be used is first boiled for ten or fifteen minutes, and the remainder added for a six-minute steeping or infusion, is religiously followed by some housekeepers. Von Liebig advocated coating the bean with sugar. In some families, fats, eggs, and egg-shells are used to settle and to clarify the beverage.

Coffee in Germany is better cooked (roasted) and more scientifically prepared than in many other European countries. In recent years, during the World War and since, however, there has been an amazing increase in the use of coffee substitutes, so that the German cup of coffee is not the pure delight it was once.

GREECE. Coffee is the most popular and most extensively used non-alcoholic beverage in Greece, as it is throughout the Near East. Its annual per capita consumption there is about two pounds, two-thirds of the supply coming _via_ Austria and France, Brazil furnishing direct the bulk of the remaining third.

Coffee is given a high or city roast, and is used almost entirely in powdered form. It is prepared for consumption principally in the Turkish demi-tasse way. Finely ground coffee is used even in making ordinary table, or breakfast, coffee. In private houses the cylindrical brass hand-grinders, manufactured in Constantinople, are mostly used. In many of the coffee houses in the villages and country towns throughout Greece and the Levant, a heavy iron pestle, wielded by a strong man, is employed to pulverize the grains in a heavy stone or marble mortar; while the poorer homes use a small brass pestle and mortar, also manufactured in Turkey.

In his _The Greeks of the Present Day_[371], Edmond François Valentin About says:

The coffee which is drunk in all the Greek houses rather astonishes
the travellers who have neither seen Turkey nor Algeria. One is
surprised at finding food in a cup in which one expected drink. Yet
you get accustomed to this coffee-broth and end by finding it more
savoury, lighter, more perfumed, and especially more wholesome,
than the extract of coffee you drink in France.

Then About gives the recipe of his servant Petros, who is "the first man in Athens for coffee":

The grain is roasted without burning it; it is reduced to an
impalpable powder, either in a mortar or in a very close-grained
mill. Water is set on the fire till it boils up; it is taken off to
throw in a spoonful of coffee, and a spoonful of pounded sugar for
each cup it is intended to make; it is carefully mixed; the coffee
pot is replaced on the fire until the contents seem ready to boil
over; it is taken off, and set on again; lastly it is quickly
poured into the cups. Some coffee drinkers have this preparation
boiled as many as five times. Petros makes a rule of not putting
his coffee more than three times on the fire. He takes care in
filling the cups to divide impartially the coloured froth which
rises above the coffee pot; it is the _kaimaki_ of the coffee. A
cup without _kaimaki_ is disgraced.

When the coffee is poured out you are at liberty to drink it
boiling and muddy, or cold and clear. Real amateurs drink it
without waiting. Those who allow the sediment to settle down, do
not do so from contempt, for they afterwards collect it with the
little finger and eat it carefully.

Thus prepared, coffee may be taken without inconvenience ten times
a day: five cups of French coffee could not be drunk with impunity
every day. It is because the coffee of the Turks and the Greeks is
a diluted tonic, and ours is a concentrated tonic.

I have met at Paris many people who took their coffee without
sugar, to imitate the Orientals. I think I ought to give them
notice, between ourselves, that in the great coffee-houses of
Athens, sugar is always presented with the coffee; in the khans and
second-rate coffee-houses, it is served already sugared; and that
at Smyrna and Constantinople, it has everywhere been brought to me
sugared.

ITALY. In Italy coffee is roasted in a wholesale and retail way as well as in the home. French, German, Dutch, and Italian machines are used. The full city, or Italian, roast is favored. There are cafés as in France and other continental countries, and the drink is prepared in the French fashion. For restaurants and hotels, rapid filtering machines, first developed by the French and Italians, are used. In the homes, percolators and filtration devices are employed.

The De Mattia Brothers have a process designed to conserve the aroma in roasting. The Italians pay particular attention to the temperature in roasting and in the cooling operation. There is considerable glazing, and many coffee additions are used.

Like the French, the Italians make much of _café au lait_ for breakfast. At dinner, the _café noir_ is served.

Cafés of the French school are to be found along the Corso in Rome, the Toledo in Naples, in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuel and the Piazza del Duomo in Milan, and in the arcades surrounding the Piazza de San Marco in Venice, where Florian's still flourishes.