In 1904, Sigmund Sternau, J.P. Steppe, and L. Strassberger, assignors to S. Sternau & Co., New York, were granted a United States patent on a percolator. Six others were granted to Charles Nelson, and assigned to S. Sternau & Co., in 1912 and 1913, for a percolator, the manufacture and sale of which were discontinued in 1915.
In 1905, a celebrated case was decided in Kansas City involving litigation between William E. Baker, of Baker & Co., Minneapolis, and the F.A. Duncombe Manufacturing Co., of St. Joseph, Mo., over Mr. Baker's patent rights in a machine to produce steel-cut coffee. The suit was brought in 1903, and Mr. Baker contended that his patent gave him the exclusive right to the "uniformity of granules by means of the sharply dressed mechanism" and by the use of a fan for blowing away the silver skins, produced by his machine; while the defendant said he obtained the same result (steel-cut coffee) by grading the granules through screens or sieves. The defense was that Mr. Baker's process was not a discovery; because, grinding coffee was as old as the world's knowledge, and winnowing the chaff was equally ancient. The lower court dismissed the bill, because the "patents sued upon are devoid of patentable invention"; and the United States Court of Appeals confirmed the decision.
In 1905, Frederick A. Cauchois, of New York, brought out his Private Estate coffee maker, a clever combination of the French drip and filter processes, employing a thin layer of Japanese paper as a filtering agent. The same year, Finley Acker, of Philadelphia, was granted a United States patent on a percolator employing two cylinders, perforated on the sides, with a sheet of percolator paper placed between them to act as a filtering medium.
In 1906, George Savage and J.W. Chapman, assignors to Manning, Bowman & Co. of Meriden, Conn., were granted a United States patent on a coffee percolator.
In 1906, Alonzo A. Warner, assignor to Landers, Frary & Clark, New Britain, Conn., was granted a United States patent on a coffee percolator.
In 1906, H.D. Kelly, Kansas City, was granted a United States patent on the Kellum Automatic coffee urn, employing a coffee extractor in which ground coffee is continually agitated before percolation by a vacuum process. Sixteen patents followed.
In 1907, Desiderio Pavoni, of Milan, Italy, was granted a patent in Italy for an improvement on the Bezzara system for preparing and serving coffee as a rapid infusion of a single cup, first introduced in 1903–1904. It is known as the Ideale urn, and makes 150 cups per hour. Among other Italian rapid coffee-making machines which, with this one, have attained considerable prominence in Europe and South America, mention should be made of La Victoria Arduino made by Pier Teresio Arduino, of Turin, Italy, introduced in 1909, that makes 1000 cups per hour. It was patented in the United States in 1920. There are, also, L'Italiana Sovereign Filter Machine (1440 cups per hour) made by Bossi, Vernetti & Bartolini, Turin, (subsequently merged with La Victoria Arduino-Societa Anonima); and José Baro's Express, Buenos Aires, making 600 cups an hour.
Types of Italian Rapid Coffee-Making MachinesThe Ideale Machine (Center) Makes 150 Cups of Coffee an Hour. The Machine at the Left Makes 1,000 Cups an Hour
A Machine of the Type of the One at the Right will Produce from 1,440 to 1,800 Cups of Coffee an Hour
In 1908, A.E. White, Chicago, was granted a United States patent on a coffee urn. He assigned it to the James Heekin Co., of Cincinnati.
In 1908, I.D. Richheimer, Chicago, introduced his Tricolator to the trade and the consumer. This is an aluminum device to fit any coffee pot, combining French drip and filtration ideas, with Japanese paper as the filtration medium.
In 1908, an improved type of Burns roaster was patented in the United States. The improvement consisted of an open perforated cylinder with flexible back-head and balanced front bearing. The following year, the Burns tilting sample-roaster for gas or electric heating units was patented.
In 1909, Frederick A. Cauchois, of New York, was granted a United States patent on a coffee urn fitted with a centrifugal pump for repouring.
In 1909, C.F. Blanke, of St. Louis, was granted two United States patents on a china coffee pot with a cloth filter, the sides tightly, and the bottom loosely, woven.
In 1911, Edward Aborn, of New York, was granted a United States patent on his Make-Right coffee-filter device. This was later incorporated with improvements in a Tru-Bru coffee pot, on which he was granted another patent in 1920.
In 1912, John E. King, of Detroit, was granted a United States patent on an improved coffee percolator for restaurants, employing a sheet of filter paper on a ring in a metal basket; the ring to be removed once the filter paper was in position on the perforated bottom plate of the percolator basket.
In 1913, F.F. Wear, Los Angeles, perfected a coffee-making device in which a metal perforated clamp was employed to apply a filter paper to the under-side of an English earthenware adaptation of the French drip pot.
In 1912, William Lawton demonstrated in London a gas coffee roaster of his own invention, by means of which he roasted coffee "in suspension" to a light brown color in three minutes.
Showing How the Italian Rapid Coffee Machine WorksLeft, putting coffee in the filter—Center, applying filter to faucet—Right, turning on water and steam to make the drink
Herbert L. Johnston, assignor to the Hobart Electric Manufacturing Co., Troy, Ohio, was granted a United States patent on a machine for refining coffee in 1913.
In 1914, the Phylax coffee maker, embodying an improvement on the French drip principle, was introduced to the trade. The process was demonstrated by Benjamin H. Calkin, of Detroit, in 1921, as "an art of brewing coffee."
In 1914, Robert Burns, assignor to Jabez Burns & Sons, New York, was granted a United States patent on a coffee-granulating mill.
In 1914–15, Herbert Galt, of Chicago, was granted three United States patents on the Gait coffee pot, made of aluminum, and having two parts, a removable cylinder employing the French drip principle, and the containing pot.
In 1915, the Burns Jubilee (inner-heated) gas coffee roaster was patented in the United States and put on the market.
In 1915, the National Coffee Roasters Association Home coffee mill, employing an improved set screw operating on a cog-and ratchet principle, was introduced to the trade.
In 1916, a United States patent was granted to I.D. Richheimer, Chicago, for an infuser improvement on his Tricolator.
In 1916, Saul Blickman, assignor to S. Blickman, New York, was granted a United States patent on an apparatus for making and dispensing coffee.
In 1916, Orville W. Chamberlain, New Orleans, was granted a United States patent on an automatic drip coffee pot.
In 1916, Jules Le Page, Darlington, Ind., obtained two United States patents on cutting rolls to cut—and not to grind or crush—corn, wheat, or coffee. These were subsequently incorporated in the Ideal steel-cut coffee mill and marketed to the trade by the B.F. Gump Co., Chicago.
In 1917, Richard A. Greene and William G. Burns, assignors to Jabez Burns & Sons, New York, were granted patents in the United States on the Burns flexible-arm cooler (for roasted batches) providing full fan-suction to a cooler box at all points in its track travel.
In 1919, Joseph F. Smart, assignor to Landers, Frary & Clark, New Britain, Conn., was granted a United States patent on a percolator.
In 1919, Charles Morgan, assignor to the Arcade Manufacturing Co., Freeport, Ill., was granted a United States patent on an improved grinding mill.
In 1919, Edward F. Schnuck, assignor to Jabez Burns & Sons, New York, was granted a United States patent on an improvement for a gas coffee roaster. In 1920, he was granted a United States patent on an improved process of twice cutting coffee and removing the chaff after each cutting.
In 1920, Natale de Mattei, of Turin, Italy, was granted a United States patent on a rapid coffee-filtering machine.
In 1920, Frederick H. Muller, of Chicago, was granted a United States patent on "an art of making coffee," and on an improved apparatus for hotels and restaurants, which comprised a series of superposed metal containers, or cartridges, of ground coffee placed in a perforated bucket designed to rest in a coffee urn, the cartridges being lifted out as the boiling water poured on them sinks with the drawing off of the "decoction" at the faucet.
In 1920, Alfredo M. Salazar, of New York, was granted a United States patent on a coffee urn in which the coffee is made at the time of serving by using steam pressure to force the boiling water through ground coffee held in a cloth sack attached to the faucet.
In 1920, William H. Bruning, Evansville, Ind., was granted a United States patent on an improved French drip pot made of aluminum and provided with a vacuum jacket in the dripper section, and a hot-water jacket in the serving portion, to keep the beverage hot.
In 1921, the Manthey-Zorn Laboratories Co., of Cleveland, brought out a rapid coffee-infuser and dispenser employing in the infuser a centrifugal to make an extract in thirty-eight seconds, and designed to deliver a gallon of concentrated liquid, or coffee base, every three minutes. The dispenser automatically combines the coffee base with boiling water in a differential faucet in the proportion desired, usually one of base to four of water. The dispenser serves 600 cups per hour. An additional faucet may be added which will double the capacity.
The Tricolette, a Paper-Filter Device for a Single Cup
Above; In position on cup—Below; opened, showing parts
Among foreign coffee makers applying the French drip principle, the Vienna coffee-making machine, known in the United States as the Bohemian coffee pot, has met with much favor in this country. Elsewhere it is known as the Carlsbad. It is made of china, and the European manufacturer has a patent on the porcelain strainer, or grid, which is provided with slits that are very fine on the inner side but that widen on the outer side to permit careful straining and to facilitate cleaning.
Some of the latest developments in coffee apparatus were shown at the industrial exposition at the National Coffee Roasters Association, held in New York, November 1–3, 1921. Among items of distinction not heretofore included in this work, mention should be made of: an American-French coffee biggin, being a French drip pot made of American porcelain and fitted with a muslin strainer; a glass urn-liner, intended to supplant the porcelain liner; and an electric repouring pump, designed to be attached to any type of coffee urn.
Careful research of the records of the United States patent office discloses that the number of patents relating to coffee apparatus and coffee preparations, issued from 1789 to 1921, is as follows:
| United States Coffee Patents | |
| Devices | Patents |
| Coffee Mills | 185 |
| Coffee-roasting devices, and improvements thereon | 312 |
| Coffee-making devices | 835 |
| Coffee-cleaning, hulling, drying, polishing, and plantation machinery in general | 175 |
| Miscellaneous patents (for coating, glazing, treated coffees, substitutes, etc.) | 300 |
| ——— | |
| Total | 1,807 |
It must be borne in mind that there was a number of patents granted on machines that were intended for, and used for, coffee, but that did not mention coffee in the specifications. Many coffee driers were listed as "grain driers," for instance. Also, many excellent devices have been made that were never patented.
Chapter XXXV
WORLD'S COFFEE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
How coffee is roasted, prepared, and served in all the leading civilized countries—The Arabian coffee ceremony—The present-day coffee houses of Turkey—Twentieth-century improvements in Europe and the United States
Coffee manners and customs have shown little change in the Orient in the six hundred-odd years since the coffee drink was discovered by Sheik Omar in Arabia. As a beverage for western peoples, however, and more particularly in America, there have been many improvements in making and serving it.
A brief survey of the coffee conventions and coffee service in the principal countries where coffee has become a fixed item in the dietary is presented here, with a view to show how different peoples have adapted the universal drink to their national needs and preferences.
To proceed in alphabetical order, and beginning with Africa, coffee drinking is indulged in largely in Abyssinia, Algeria, Egypt, Portuguese East Africa, and the Union of South Africa.
Coffee Manners and Customs in Africa
In Abyssinia and Somaliland, among the native population, the most primitive methods of coffee making still obtain. Here the wandering Galla still mix their pulverized coffee beans with fats as a food ration, and others of the native tribes favor the kisher, or beverage made from the toasted coffee hulls. An hour's boiling produces a straw-colored decoction, of a slightly sweetish taste. Where the Arabian customs have taken root, the drink is prepared from the roasted beans after the Arabian and Turkish method. The white inhabitants usually prepare and serve the beverage as in the homeland; so that it is possible to obtain it after the English, French, German, Greek, or Italian styles. Adaptations of the French sidewalk café, and of the Turkish coffee house, may be seen in the larger towns.
In the equatorial provinces of Egypt, and in Uganda, the natives eat the raw berries; or first cook them in boiling water, dry them in the sun, and then eat them. It is a custom to exchange coffee beans in friendly greeting.
Individual earthen vessels for making coffee, painted red and yellow, are made by some of the native tribes in Abyssinia, and usually accompany disciples of Islam when they journey to Mecca, where the vessels find a ready sale among the pilgrims, most of whom are coffee-devotees.
Turkish and Arabian coffee customs prevail in Algeria and Egypt, modified to some extent by European contact. The Moorish cafés of Cairo, Tunis, and Algiers have furnished inspiration and copy for writers, artists, and travelers for several centuries. They change little with the years. The mazagran—sweetened cold coffee to which water or ice has been added—originated in Algeria. It probably took its name from the fortress of the same name reserved to France by the treaty of the Tafna in 1837. It is said that the French colonial troops were first served with a drink made from coffee syrup and cold water on marches near Mazagran, formerly spelled Masagran. Upon their return to the French capital, they introduced the idea, with the added fillip of service in tall glasses, in their favorite cafés, where it became known as café mazagran. Variants are coffee syrup with seltzer, and with hot water. "This fashion of serving coffee in glasses", says Jardin, "has no raison d'être, and nothing can justify abandoning the cup for coffee."
In the principal streets and public squares of any town in Algeria it is a common sight to find a group of Arabs squatting about a portable stove, and a table on which cups are in readiness to receive the boiling coffee. The thirsty Arab approaches the dealer, and for a modest sum he gets his drink and goes his way; unless he prefers to go inside the café, where he may get several drinks and linger over them, sitting on a mat with his legs crossed and smoking his chibouque. Indeed, this is a typical scene throughout the Near East, where sheds or coffee tents—sketches of the more pretentious coffee houses—coffee shops, and itinerant coffee-venders are to be met at almost every turn.
In an unpublished work, Baron Antoine Rousseau and Th. Roland de Bussy have the following description of a typical Moorish café at Algiers:
We entered without ceremony into a narrow deep cave, decorated with the name of the café. On the right and on the left, along its length, were two benches covered with mats; notched cups, tongs, a box of brown sugar, all placed near a small stove, completed the furniture of the place. In the evening, the dim light from a lamp hanging from the ceiling shows the indistinct figures of a double row of natives listening to the nasal cadences of a band who play a pizzicato accompaniment on small three-stringed violins.
Here, as in Europe, the cafés are the providential rendezvous for idlers and gossips, exchanges for real-estate brokers and players at cards.
Europeans recently arrived frequent them particularly. Some go only to satisfy their curiosity; others out of an inborn scorn for the customs of civilization. They go to sleep as Frenchmen, they awake Mohammedans! Their love for "Turkish art" only leads them to haunt the native shops and to affect oriental poses.
If we quit for a moment the interior of the city to follow between two hedgerows of mastics or aloes, one of those capricious paths which lead one, now up to the summit of a hill, now to the depths of some ravine, very soon the tones of a rustic flute, the modulations of the Djou-wak, will betray some cool and peaceful retreat, some rustic café, easily recognized by its facade, pierced with large openings. To my eyes, nothing equals the charm of these little buildings scattered here and there along the edges of a stream, sheltered under the thick foliage, and constantly enlivened by the coming and going of the husbandmen of the neighborhood.
Certain old Moors from the neighboring districts, fleeing the noises of the city, are the faithful habitués of these agreeable retreats. Here they instal themselves at dawn, and know how to enjoy every moment of their day with tales of their travels and youthful adventures, and many a legend for which their imagination takes all the responsibility.
Gérôme's painting of the "Coffee House at Cairo," which hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, gives one a good idea of the atmosphere of the Egyptian café. The preparation and service is modified Turkish-Arabian. The coffee is ground to a powder, boiled in an ibrik with the addition of sugar, and served frothing in small cups. Story-tellers, singers, and dancers furnish amusement as of yore. The Oriental customs have not changed much in this respect. Trolley cars, victorias, and taxis may have replaced the donkeys in the new sections of the larger Egyptian cities; but in old Alexandria and Cairo, the approach to the native coffee house is as dirty and as odorous as ever. Coffee is always served in all business transactions. Nowadays, the Egyptian women chew gum and the men smoke cigarettes, French department stores offer bargain sales, and the hotels advertise tea dances; but the Egyptian coffee drink is still the tiny cup of coffee grounds and sugar that it was three hundred years ago, when sugar was first used to sweeten coffee in Cairo.
In Portuguese East Africa, the natives prepare and drink coffee after the approved African native fashion, but the white population follows European customs. In the Union of South Africa, Dutch and English customs prevail in making and serving the beverage.
Manners and Customs in Asia
"Arabia the Happy" deserves to be called "the Blest", if only for its gift of coffee to the world. Here it was that the virtues of the drink were first made known; here the plant first received intensive cultivation. After centuries of habitual use of the beverage, we find the Arabs, now as then, one of the strongest and noblest races of the world, mentally superior to most of them, generally healthy, and growing old so gracefully that the faculties of the mind seldom give way sooner than those of the body. They are an ever living earnest of the healthfulness of coffee.
The Arabs are proverbially hospitable; and the symbol of their hospitality for a thousand years has been the great drink of democracy—coffee. Their very houses are built around the cup of human brotherhood. William Wallace,[366] writing on Arabian philosophy, manners, and customs, says:
The principal feature of an Arab house is the kahwah or coffee room. It is a large apartment spread with mats, and sometimes furnished with carpets and a few cushions. At one end is a small furnace or fireplace for preparing coffee. In this room the men congregate; here guests are received, and even lodged; women rarely enter it, except at times when strangers are unlikely to be present. Some of these apartments are very spacious and supported by pillars; one wall is usually built transversely to the compass direction of the Ka'ba (sacred shrine of Mecca). It serves to facilitate the performance of prayer by those who may happen to be in the kahwah at the appointed times.
Several rounds of coffee, without milk or sugar, but sometimes flavored with cardamom seeds, are served to the guest at first welcome; and coffee may be had at all hours between meals, or whenever the occasion demands it. Always the beans are freshly roasted, pounded, and boiled. The Arabs average twenty-five to thirty cups (findjans) a day. Everywhere in Arabia there are to be found cafés where the beverage may be bought.
Those of the lower classes are thronged throughout the day. In front, there is generally a porch or bench where one may sit. The rooms, benches, and little chairs lack the cleanliness and elegance of the one-time luxurious "caffinets" of cities like Damascus and Constantinople, but the drink is the same. There is not in all Yemen a single market town or hamlet where one does not find upon some simple hut the legend, "Shed for drinking coffee".
The Arab drinks water before taking coffee, but never after it. "Once in Syria", says a traveler, "I was recognized as a foreigner because I asked for water just after I had taken my coffee. 'If you belonged here', said the waiter, 'you would not spoil the taste of coffee in your mouth by washing it away with water.'"
It is an adventure to partake of coffee prepared in the open, at a roadside inn, or khan, in Arabia by an araba, or diligence driver. He takes from his saddle-bag the ever-present coffee kit, containing his supply of green beans, of which he roasts just sufficient on a little perforated iron plate over an open fire, deftly taking off the beans, one at a time, as they turn the right color. Then he pounds them in a mortar, boils his water in the long, straight-handled open boiler, or ibrik (a sort of brass mug or jezveh), tosses in the coffee powder, moving the vessel back and forth from the fire as it boils up to the rim; and, after repeating this maneuver three times, pours the contents foaming merrily into the little egg-like serving cups.
Cafée sultan, or kisher, the original decoction, made from dried and toasted coffee hulls, is still being drunk in parts of Arabia and Turkey.
Coffee in Arabia is part of the ritual of business, as in other Oriental countries. Shop-keepers serve it to the customer before the argument starts. Recently, a New York barber got some valuable publicity because he regaled his customers with tea and music. It was "old stuff". The Arabian and Turkish barber shops have been serving coffee, tobacco, and sweetmeats to their customers for centuries.
For a faithful description of the ancient coffee ceremony of the Arabs, which, with slight modification, is still observed in Arabian homes, we turn to Palgrave. First he describes the dwelling and then the ceremony:
The K'hāwah was a large oblong hall, about twenty feet in height, fifty in length, and sixteen, or thereabouts, in breadth; the walls were coloured in a rudely decorative manner with brown and white wash, and sunk here and there into small triangular recesses, destined to the reception of books, though of these Ghafil at least had no over-abundance, lamps, and other such like objects. The roof of timber, and flat; the floor was strewed with fine clean sand, and garnished all round alongside of the walls with long strips of carpet, upon which cushions, covered with faded silk, were disposed at suitable intervals. In poorer houses felt rugs usually take the place of carpets.
In one corner, namely, that furthest removed from the door, stood a small fireplace, or, to speak more exactly, furnace, formed of a large square block of granite, or some other hard stone, about twenty inches each way; this is hollowed inwardly into a deep funnel, open above, and communicating below with a small horizontal tube or pipe-hole, through which the air passes, bellows-driven, to the lighted charcoal piled up on a grating about half-way inside the cone. In this manner the fuel is soon brought to a white heat, and the water in the coffee-pot placed upon the funnel's mouth is readily brought to boil. The system of coffee furnaces is universal in Djowf and Djebel Shomer, but in Nejed itself, and indeed in whatever other yet more distant regions of Arabia I visited to the south and east, the furnace is replaced by an open fireplace hollowed in the ground floor, with a raised stone border, and dog-irons for the fuel, and so forth, like what may be yet seen in Spain. This diversity of arrangement, so far as Arabia is concerned, is due to the greater abundance of firewood in the south, whereby the inhabitants are enabled to light up on a larger scale; whereas throughout the Djowf and Djebel Shomer wood is very scarce, and the only fuel at hand is bad charcoal, often brought from a considerable distance, and carefully husbanded.
This corner of the K'hāwah is also the place of distinction whence honour and coffee radiate by progressive degrees round the apartment, and hereabouts accordingly sits the master of the house himself, or the guests whom he more especially delighteth to honour.
On the broad edge of the furnace or fireplace, as the case may be, stands an ostentatious range of copper coffee-pots, varying in size and form. Here in the Djowf their make resembles that in vogue at Damascus; but in Nejed and the eastern districts they are of a different and much more ornamental fashioning, very tall and slender, with several ornamental circles and mouldings in elegant relief, besides boasting long beak-shaped spouts and high steeples for covers. The number of these utensils is often extravagantly great. I have seen a dozen at a time in a row by one fireside, though coffee-making requires, in fact, only three at most. Here in the Djowf five or six are considered to be the thing; for the south this number must be doubled; all this to indicate the riches and munificence of their owner, by implying the frequency of his guests and the large amount of coffee that he is in consequence obliged to have made for them.
Behind this stove sits, at least in wealthy houses, a black slave, whose name is generally a diminutive in token of familiarity or affection; in the present case it was Soweylim, the diminutive of Sālim. His occupation is to make and pour out the coffee; where there is no slave in the family, the master of the premises himself, or perhaps one of his sons, performs that hospitable duty; rather a tedious one, as we shall soon see.
We enter. On passing the threshold it is proper to say, "Bismillah, i.e., in the name of God;" not to do so would be looked on as a bad augury alike for him who enters and for those within. The visitor next advances in silence, till on coming about half-way across the room, he gives to all present, but looking specially at the master of the house, the customary "Es-salamu'aleykum," or "Peace be with you," literally, "on you." All this while every one else in the room has kept his place, motionless, and without saying a word. But on receiving the salaam of etiquette, the master of the house rises, and if a strict Wahhābee, or at any rate desirous of seeming such, replies with the full-length traditionary formula. "W' 'aleykumu-s-salāmu, w'rahmat' Ullahi w'barakátuh," which is, as every one knows, "And with (or, on) you be peace, and the mercy of God, and his blessings." But should he happen to be of anti-Wahhābee tendencies the odds are that he will say "Marhaba," or "Ahlan w' sahlan," i.e., "welcome" or "worthy, and pleasurable," or the like; for of such phrases there is an infinite, but elegant variety.
All present follow the example thus given, by rising and saluting. The guest then goes up to the master of the house, who has also made a step or two forwards, and places his open hand in the palm of his host's, but without grasping or shaking, which would hardly pass for decorous, and at the same time each repeats once more his greeting, followed by the set phrases of polite enquiry, "How are you?" "How goes the world with you?" and so forth, all in a tone of great interest, and to be gone over three or four times, till one or other has the discretion to say "El hamdu l'illāh," "Praise be to God", or, in equivalent value, "all right," and this is a signal for a seasonable diversion to the ceremonious interrogatory.
The guest then, after a little contest of courtesy, takes his seat in the honoured post by the fireplace, after an apologetical salutation to the black slave on the one side, and to his nearest neighbour on the other. The best cushions and newest looking carpets have been of course prepared for his honoured weight. Shoes or sandals, for in truth the latter alone are used in Arabia, are slipped off on the sand just before reaching the carpet, and there they remain on the floor close by. But the riding stick or wand, the inseparable companion of every true Arab, whether Bedouin or townsman, rich or poor, gentle or simple, is to be retained in the hand, and will serve for playing with during the pauses of conversation, like the fan of our great-grandmothers in their days of conquest.
Without delay Soweylim begins his preparations for coffee. These open by about five minutes of blowing with the bellows and arranging the charcoal till a sufficient heat has been produced. Next he places the largest of the coffee-pots, a huge machine, and about two-thirds full of clear water, close by the edge of the glowing coal-pit, that its contents may become gradually warm while other operations are in progress. He then takes a dirty knotted rag out of a niche in the wall close by, and having untied it, empties out of it three or four handfuls of unroasted coffee, the which he places on a little trencher of platted grass, and picks carefully out any blackened grains, or other non-homologous substances, commonly to be found intermixed with the berries when purchased in gross; then, after much cleansing and shaking, he pours the grain so cleansed into a large open iron ladle, and places it over the mouth of the funnel, at the same time blowing the bellows and stirring the grains gently round and round till they crackle, redden, and smoke a little, but carefully withdrawing them from the heat long before they turn black or charred, after the erroneous fashion of Turkey and Europe; after which he puts them to cool a moment on the grass platter.
He then sets the warm water in the large coffee-pot over the fire aperture, that it may be ready boiling at the right moment, and draws in close between his own trouserless legs a large stone mortar, with a narrow pit in the middle, just enough to admit the large stone pestle of a foot long and an inch and a half thick, which he now takes in hand. Next, pouring the half-roasted berries into the mortar, he proceeds to pound them, striking right into the narrow hollow with wonderful dexterity, nor ever missing his blow till the beans are smashed, but not reduced into powder. He then scoops them out, now reduced to a sort of coarse reddish grit, very unlike the fine charcoal dust which passes in some countries for coffee, and out of which every particle of real aroma has long since been burnt or ground.
After all these operations, each performed with as intense a seriousness and deliberate nicety as if the welfare of the entire Djowf depended on it, he takes a smaller coffee-pot in hand, fills it more than half with hot water from the larger vessel, and then shaking the pounded coffee into it, sets it on the fire to boil, occasionally stirring it with a small stick as the water rises to check the ebullition and prevent overflowing. Nor is the boiling stage to be long or vehement: on the contrary, it is and should be as light as possible. In the interim he takes out of another rag-knot a few aromatic seeds called heyl, an Indian product, but of whose scientific name I regret to be wholly ignorant, or a little saffron, and after slightly pounding these ingredients, throws them into the simmering coffee to improve its flavour, for such an additional spicing is held indispensable in Arabia though often omitted elsewhere in the East. Sugar would be a totally unheard of profanation. Last of all, he strains off the liquor through some fibres of the inner palm-bark placed for that purpose in the jug-spout, and gets ready the tray of delicate parti-coloured grass, and the small coffee cups ready for pouring out. All these preliminaries have taken up a good half-hour.
Meantime we have become engaged in active conversation with our host and his friends. But our Sherarat guide, Suleyman, like a true Bedouin, feels too awkward when among townsfolk to venture on the upper places, though repeatedly invited, and accordingly has squatted down on the sand near the entrance. Many of Ghāfil's relations are present; their silver-decorated swords proclaim the importance of the family. Others, too, have come to receive us, for our arrival, announced beforehand by those we had met at the entrance pass, is a sort of event in the town; the dress of some betokens poverty, others are better clad, but all have a very polite and decorous manner. Many a question is asked about our native land and town, that is to say, Syria and Damascus, conformably to the disguise already adopted, and which it was highly important to keep well up; then follow enquiries regarding our journey, our business, what we have brought with us, about our medicines, our goods and wares, etc., etc. From the very first it is easy for us to perceive that patients and purchasers are likely to abound. Very few travelling merchants, if any, visit the Djowf at this time of year, for one must be mad, or next door to it, to rush into the vast desert around during the heats of June and July; I for one have certainly no intention of doing it again. Hence we had small danger of competitors, and found the market almost at our absolute disposal.
But before a quarter of an hour has passed, and while blacky is still roasting or pounding his coffee, a tall thin lad, Ghāfil's eldest son, appears, charged with a large circular dish, grass-platted like the rest, and throws it with a graceful jerk on the sandy floor close before us. He then produces a large wooden bowl full of dates, bearing in the midst of the heap a cup full of melted butter; all this he places on the circular mat, and says, "Semmoo," literally, "pronounce the Name", of God, understood; this means "set to work at it." Hereon the master of the house quits his place by the fireside and seats himself on the sand opposite to us; we draw nearer to the dish, and four or five others, after some respectful coyness, join the circle. Every one then picks out a date or two from the juicy half-amalgamated mass, dips them into the butter, and thus goes on eating till he has had enough, when he rises and washes his hands.
By this time the coffee is ready, and Soweylim begins his round, the coffee-pot in one hand; the tray and cups on the other. The first pouring out he must in etiquette drink himself, by way of a practical assurance that there is no "death in the pot;" the guests are next served, beginning with those next the honourable fireside; the master of the house receives his cup last of all. To refuse would be a positive and unpardonable insult; but one has not much to swallow at a time, for the coffee-cups, or finjans, are about the size of a large egg-shell at most, and are never more than half-filled. This is considered essential to good breeding, and a brimmer would here imply exactly the reverse of what it does in Europe; why it should be so I hardly know, unless perhaps the rareness of cup-stands or "zarfs" (see Lane's "Modern Egyptians") in Arabia, though these implements are universal in Egypt and Syria, might render an over-full cup inconveniently hot for the fingers that must grasp it without medium. Be that as it may, "fill the cup for your enemy" is an adage common to all, Bedouins or townsmen, throughout the Peninsula. The beverage itself is singularly aromatic and refreshing, a real tonic, and very different from the black mud sucked by the Levantine, or the watery roast-bean preparations of France. When the slave or freeman, according to circumstances, presents you with a cup, he never fails to accompany it with a "Semm'," "say the name of God," nor must you take it without answering "Bismillah."
When all have been thus served, a second round is poured out, but in inverse order, for the host this time drinks first, and the guests last. On special occasions, a first reception, for instance, the ruddy liquor is a third time handed round; nay, a fourth cup is sometimes added. But all these put together do not come up to one-fourth of what a European imbibes in a single draught at breakfast.
For a more recent pen picture of coffee manners and customs in Arabia, we turn to Charles M. Daughty's "Travels in Arabia Deserta"[367]: