Chapter XXXV: World's Coffee Manners and Customs (3)

NETHERLANDS. In the Netherlands, too, the French café is a delightful feature of the life of the larger cities. The Dutch roast coffee properly, and make it well. The service is in individual pots, or in demi-tasses on a silver, nickle, or brass tray, and accompanied by a miniature pitcher containing just enough cream (usually whipped), a small dish about the size of an individual butter plate holding three squares of sugar, and a slender glass of water. This service is universal; the glass of water always goes with the coffee. It is the one sure way for Americans to get a drink of water. It is the custom in Holland to repair to some open-air café or indoor coffee house for the after-dinner cup of coffee. One seldom takes his coffee in the place where he has his dinner. These cafés are many, and some are elaborately designed and furnished. One of the most interesting is the St. Joris at the Hague, furnished in the old Dutch style. The approved way of making coffee in Holland is the French drip method.

NORWAY AND SWEDEN. French and German influences mark the roasting, grinding, preparing, and serving of coffee in Norway and Sweden. Generally speaking, not so much chicory is used, and a great deal of whipped cream is employed. In Norway, the boiling method has many followers. A big (open) copper kettle is used. This is filled with water, and the coffee is dumped in and boiled. In the poorer-class country homes, the copper kettle is brought to the table and set upon a wooden plate. The coffee is served directly from the kettle in cups. In better-class homes, the coffee is poured from the kettle into silver coffee pots in the kitchen, and the silver coffee pots are brought to the table. The only thing approaching coffee houses are the "coffee rooms" which are to be found in Christiania. These are small one-room affairs in which the plainer sorts of foods, such as porridge, may be purchased with the coffee. They are cheap, and are largely frequented by the poorer class of students, who use them as places in which to study while they drink their coffee.

In RUSSIA and SWITZERLAND, French and German methods obtain. Russia, however, drinks more tea than coffee, which by the masses is prepared in Turkish fashion, when obtainable. Usually, the coffee is only a cheap "substitute." The so-called _café à la Russe_ of the aristocracy, is strong black coffee flavored with lemon. Another Russian recipe calls for the coffee to be placed in a large punch bowl, and covered with a layer of finely chopped apples and pears; then cognac is poured over the mass, and a match applied.

ROUMANIA and SERVIA drink coffee prepared after either the Turkish or the French style, depending on the class of the drinker and where it is served. Substitutes are numerous.

In SPAIN and PORTUGAL the French type of café flourishes as in Italy. In Madrid, some delightful cafés are to be found around the Puerto del Sol, where coffee and chocolate are the favorite drinks. The coffee is made by the drip process, and is served in French fashion.

_Coffee Manners and Customs in North America_

The introduction of coffee and tea into North America effected a great change in the meal-time beverages of the people. Malt beverages had been succeeded by alcoholic spirits and by cider. These in turn were supplanted by tea and coffee.

CANADA. In Canada, we find both French and English influences at work in the preparation and serving of the beverage; "Yankee" ideas also have entered from across the border. Some years back (about 1910) A. McGill, chief chemist of the Canadian Inland Revenue Department, suggested an improvement upon Baron von Liebig's method, whereby Canadians might obtain an ideal cup of coffee. It was to combine two well-known methods. One was to boil a quantity of ground coffee to get a maximum of body or soluble matter. The other was to percolate a similar quantity to get the needed caffeol. By combining the decoction and the infusion, a finished beverage rich in body and aroma might be had. Most Canadians continue to drink tea, however, although coffee consumption is increasing.

MEXICO. In Mexico, the natives have a custom peculiarly their own. The roasted beans are pounded to a powder in a cloth bag which is then immersed in a pot of boiling water and milk. The _vaquero_, however, pours boiling water on the powdered coffee in his drinking cup, and sweetens it with a brown sugar stick.

Among the upper classes in Mexico the following interesting method obtains for making coffee:

Roast one pound until the beans are brown inside. Mix with the
roasted coffee one teaspoonful of butter, one of sugar, and a
little brandy. Cover with a thick cloth. Cool for one hour; then
grind. Boil one quart of water. When boiling, put in the coffee and
remove from fire immediately. Let it stand a few hours, and strain
through a flannel bag, and keep in a stone jar until required for
use; then heat quantity required.

UNITED STATES. In no country has there been so marked an improvement in coffee making as in the United States. Although in many parts, the national beverage is still indifferently prepared, the progress made in recent years has been so great that the friends of coffee are hopeful that before long it may be said truly that coffee making in America is a national honor and no longer the national disgrace that it was in the past.

Left, copper pot with wooden handle and iron legs designed to stand in the coals--Center, glass-globe pot, for stove use, enclosed in felt-lined brass cosey--Right, hand-made hammered-brass kettle for stove use]

Already, in the more progressive homes, and in the best hotels and restaurants, the coffee is uniformly good, and the service all that it should be. The American breakfast cup is a food-beverage because of the additions of milk or cream and sugar; and unlike Europe, this same generous cup serves again as a necessary part of the noonday and evening meals for most people.

One effect of prohibition has been to lead many hotels to feature their coffee service, bringing back the modern type of coffee room illustrated above]

The important and indispensable part that sugar plays in the make-up of the American cup of coffee was ably set forth by Fred Mason,[372] vice-president of the American Sugar Refining Co., when he said:

The coffee cup and the sugar bowl are inseparable table companions.
Most of us did not realize this until the war came, with its
attendant restrictions on everything we did, and we found that the
sugar bowl had disappeared from all public eating places. No longer
could we make an unlimited number of trips to the sugar bowl to
sweeten our coffee; but we had to be content with what was doled
out to us with scrupulous care--a quantity so small at times that
it gave only a hint of sweetness to our national beverage.

Then it was that we really appreciated how indispensable the proper
amount of sugar was to a good, savory cup of coffee, and we missed
it as much as we would seasoning from certain cooked foods.
Secretly we consoled ourselves with the promise that if the day
ever came when sugar bowls made their appearance once more, filled
temptingly with the sweet granules that were "gone but not
forgotten," we should put an extra lump or an additional spoonful
of sugar into our coffee to help us forget the joyless war days.

Since sugar is so necessary to our enjoyment of this popular
beverage, it is obvious that a considerable part of all the sugar
we consume must find its way into the national coffee cup. The
stupendous amount of 40,000,000,000 cups of coffee is consumed in
this country each year. Taking two teaspoonfuls or two lumps as a
fair average per cup, we find that about 800,000,000 pounds of
sugar, almost one-tenth of our total annual consumption, are
required to sweeten Uncle Sam's coffee cup. This is specially
significant when one considers that, with the single exception of
Australia, the United States consumes more sugar per capita than
any country on earth.

Sugar adds high food value to the stimulative virtues of coffee.
The beverage itself stimulates the mental and physical powers,
while the sugar it contains is fuel for the body and furnishes it
with energy. Sugar is such a concentrated food that the amount used
by the average person in two cups of coffee is enough to furnish
the system with more energy than could be derived from 40 oysters
on the half-shell.

Since prohibition, the average citizen is drinking one hundred more cups of coffee a year than he did in the old days; and a good part of the increase is attributed to newly formed habits of drinking coffee between meals, at soda fountains, in tea and coffee shops, at hotels, and even in the homes. In other words, the increase is due to coffee drinking that directly takes the place of malt and spirituous liquors. There have come into being the hotel coffee room; the custom of afternoon coffee drinking; and free coffee-service in many factories, stores, and offices.

In colonial days, must or ale first gave way to tea, and then to coffee as a breakfast beverage. The Boston "tea party" clinched the case for coffee; but in the meantime, coffee was more or less of an after-dinner function, or a between-meals drink, as in Europe. In Washington's time, dinner was usually served at three o'clock in the afternoon, and at informal dinner parties the company "sat till sunset--then coffee."

In the early part of the nineteenth century, coffee became firmly intrenched as the one great American breakfast beverage; and its security in this position would seem to be unassailable for all time.

Today, all classes in the United States begin and end the day with coffee. In the home, it is prepared by boiling, infusion or steeping, percolation, and filtration; in the hotels and restaurants, by infusion, percolation, and filtration. The best practise favors true percolation (French drip), or filtration.

Steeping coffee in American homes (an English heirloom) is usually performed in a china or earthenware jug. The ground coffee has boiling water poured upon it until the jug is half full. The infusion is stirred briskly. Next, the jug is filled by pouring in the remainder of the boiling water, the infusion is again stirred, then permitted to settle, and finally is poured through a strainer or filter cloth before serving.

When a pumping percolator or a double glass filtration device is used, the water may be cold or boiling at the beginning as the maker prefers. Some wet the coffee with cold water before starting the brewing process.

For genuine percolator, or drip coffee, French and Austrian china drip pots are mostly employed. The latest filtration devices are described in chapter XXXIV.

The Creole, or French market, coffee for which New Orleans has long been famous is made from a concentrated coffee extract prepared in a drip pot. First, the ground coffee has poured over it sufficient boiling water thoroughly to dampen it, after which further additions of boiling water, a tablespoonful at a time, are poured upon it at five minute intervals. The resulting extract is kept in a tightly corked bottle for making _café au lait_ or _café noir_ as required. A variant of the Creole method is to brown three tablespoonfuls of sugar in a pan, to add a cup of water, and to allow it to simmer until the sugar is dissolved; to pour this liquid over ground coffee in a drip pot, to add boiling water as required, and to serve black or with cream or hot milk, as desired.

In New Orleans, coffee is often served at the bedside upon waking, as a kind of early breakfast function.

The Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876 served to introduce the Vienna café to America. Fleischmann's Vienna Café and Bakery was a feature of our first international exposition. Afterward, it was transferred to Broadway, New York, where for many years it continued to serve excellent coffee in Vienna style next door to Grace Church.

The opportunity is still waiting for the courageous soul who will bring back to our larger cities this Vienna café or some Americanized form of the continental or sidewalk café, making a specialty of tea, coffee, and chocolate.

The old Astor House was famous for its coffee for many years, as was also Dorlon's from 1840 to 1922.

Members of the family of the late Colonel Roosevelt began to promote a Brazil coffee-house enterprise in New York in 1919. It was first called Café Paulista, but it is now known as the Double R coffee house, or Club of South America, with a Brazil branch in the 40's and an Argentine branch on Lexington Avenue. Coffee is made and served in Brazilian style; that is, full city roast, pulverized grind, filtration made; service, black or with hot milk. Sandwiches, cakes, and crullers are also to be had.

One of New York's newest clubs is known as the Coffee House. It is in West Forty-fifth Street, and has been in existence since December, 1915, when it was opened with an informal dinner, at which the late Joseph H. Choate, one of the original members, outlined the purpose and policies of the club.

The founders of the Coffee House were convinced--as the result of the high dues and constantly increasing formality and discipline in the social clubs in New York--that there was need here for a moderate-priced eating and meeting place, which should be run in the simplest possible way and with the least possible expense.

At the beginning of its career, the club framed, adopted, and has since lived up to, a most informal constitution: "No officers, no liveries, no tips, no set speeches, no charge accounts, no RULES."

The membership is made up, for the most part, of painters, writers, sculptors, architects, actors, and members of other professions. Members are expected to pay cash for all orders. There are no proposals of candidates for membership. The club invites to join it those whom it believes to be in sympathy with the ideals of its founders.

The method of preparing coffee for individual service in the Waldorf-Astoria, New York, which has been adopted by many first-class hotels and restaurants that do not serve urn-made coffee exclusively, is the French drip plus careful attention to all the contributing factors for making coffee in perfection, and is thus described by the hotel's steward:

Its story is told on page 614]

A French china drip coffee pot is used. It is kept in a warm
heater; and when the coffee is ordered, this pot is scalded with
hot water. A level tablespoonful of coffee, ground to about the
consistency of granulated sugar, is put into the upper and
percolator part of the coffee pot. Fresh boiling water is then
poured through the coffee and allowed to percolate into the lower
part of the pot. The secret of success, according to our
experience, lies in having the coffee freshly ground, and the water
as near the boiling point as possible, all during the process. For
this reason, the coffee pot should be placed on a gas stove or
range. The quantity of coffee can be varied to suit individual
taste. We use about ten percent more ground coffee for after dinner
cups than we do for breakfast. Our coffee is a mixture of Old
Government Java and Bogota.

C. Scotty, chef at the Hotel Ambassador, New York, thus describes the method of making coffee in that hostelry:

In the first place, it is essential that the coffee be of the
finest quality obtainable; secondly, better results are obtained by
using the French filterer, or coffee bag.

Twelve ounces of coffee to one gallon of water for breakfast.

Sixteen ounces of coffee to one gallon of water for dinner.

Boiling water should be poured over the coffee, sifoned, and put
back several times. We do not allow the coffee grounds to remain in
the urn for more than fifteen to twenty minutes at any time.

The coffee service at the best hotels is usually in silver pots and pitchers, and includes the freshly made coffee, hot milk or cream (sometimes both), and domino sugar.

Within the last year (1921) many of the leading hotels, and some of the big railway systems, have adopted the custom of serving free a demi-tasse of coffee as soon as the guest-traveler seats himself at the breakfast table or in the dining car. "Small blacks," the waiters call them, or "coffee cocktails," according to their fancy.

At the Pequot coffee house, 91 Water Street, New York, a noonday restaurant in the heart of the coffee trade, an attempt has been made to introduce something of the old-time coffee house atmosphere.

The Childs chain of restaurants recently began printing on its menus, in brackets before each item, the number of calories as computed by an expert in nutrition. Coffee with a mixture of milk and cream is credited with eighty-five calories, a well known coffee substitute with seventy calories, and tea with eighteen calories. The Childs chain of 92 restaurants serves 40,000,000 cups of coffee a year, made from 375 tons of ground coffee, and figuring an average of 53 cups to the pound.

The Thompson chain of one hundred restaurants serves 160,000 cups of coffee per day, or more than 58,000,000 cups per year.

_Coffee Customs in South America_

ARGENTINE. Coffee is very popular as a beverage in Argentina. _Café con léche_--coffee with milk, in which the proportion of coffee may vary from one-fourth to two-thirds--is the usual Argentine breakfast beverage. A small cup of coffee is generally taken after meals, and it is also consumed to a considerable extent in cafés.

BRAZIL. In Brazil every one drinks coffee and at all hours. Cafés making a specialty of the beverage, and modeled after continental originals, are to be found a-plenty in Rio de Janeiro, Santos, and other large cities. The custom prevails of roasting the beans high, almost to carbonization, grinding them fine, and then boiling after the Turkish fashion, percolating in French drip pots, steeping in cold water for several hours, straining and heating the liquid for use as needed, or filtering by means of conical linen sacks suspended from wire rings.

The Brazilian loves to frequent the cafés and to sip his coffee at his ease. He is very continental in this respect. The wide-open doors, and the round-topped marble tables, with their small cups and saucers set around a sugar basin, make inviting pictures. The customer pulls toward him one of the cups and immediately a waiter comes and fills it with coffee, the charge for which is about three cents. It is a common thing for a Brazilian to consume one dozen to two dozen cups of black coffee a day. If one pays a social visit, calls upon the president of the Republic, or any lesser official, or on a business acquaintance, it is a signal for an attendant to serve coffee. _Café au lait_ is popular in the morning; but except for this service, milk or cream is never used. In Brazil, as in the Orient, coffee is a symbol of hospitality.

In CHILE, PARAGUAY and URUGUAY, very much the same customs prevail of making and serving the beverage.

_Coffee Drinking in Other Countries_

In AUSTRALIA and NEW ZEALAND, English methods for roasting, grinding, and making coffee are standard. The beverage usually contains thirty to forty percent chicory. In the bush, the water is boiled in a billy can. Then the powdered coffee is added; and when the liquid comes again to a boil, the coffee is done. In the cities, practically the same method is followed. The general rule in the antipodes seems to be to "let it come to a boil", and then to remove it from the fire.

In CUBA the custom is to grind the coffee fine, to put it in a flannel sack suspended over a receiving vessel, and to pour cold water on it. This is repeated many times, until the coffee mass is well saturated. The first drippings are repoured over the bag. The final result is a highly concentrated extract, which serves for making _café au lait_, or _café noir_, as desired.

In MARTINIQUE, coffee is made after the French fashion. In PANAMA, French and American methods obtain; as also in the PHILIPPINES.