enotes the drink which is made from the coffee berries. This beverage has been familiar in Europe for the last two hundred years. The first human beings who appear to have used the coffee berries were the half savage tribes of the higher Ethiopia. According to Bruce, the berries were first parched like any other grain, bruised into powder, and mixed up with any sort of grease into paste rolled into little balls. The same authority declares that two or three of these balls were sufficient to support a man for a whole day in a marauding excursion, or in active war against some neighbouring tribe. They merely preferred the coffee-berry to other grain, because it fed them as well, and cheered them more.
From Ethiopia, both the coffee plant and the use of its fruit were introduced into Persia and Arabia, and it is to the Arabs that we are indebted both for the first written account of it, and for the manner of using it in a liquid state. But though we derive the only authentic account of coffee from the Arabs, they admit that they were taught by the Persians; and it was in the city of Aden in Arabia about the middle of the fifteenth century, that the drinking of coffee first became general. The mutti of that city introduced the custom from Persia; his authority gave reputation to the practice—lawyers began to drink it—those who loved reading followed their example—artisans who were obliged to work in the night did the same thing, as well as travellers who journeyed in the night to avoid the heat of the day. In short, says M. Galland, "the whole inhabitants of Aden soon became drinkers of coffee, and not only at night to keep them awake, but even in the daytime for its other virtues."
From Aden, the taste for coffee found its way to Mecca, from Mecca to Cairo, from Cairo to Damascus, from Damascus to Aleppo, and from Aleppo to Constantinople; but it was not until 1615, that the use of coffee found its way from Constantinople to Venice.
In 1644 it was introduced to Marseilles, in 1652 to London, and in 1669 to Paris.
The first English author who mentioned coffee was Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy (vol. i. p. 130), published in 1621, thirty years before the introduction of the drink into London. "The Turks," says he, "have a drink called coffee (for they use no wine), so named of a berry as black as soot and as bitter, which they sip up as warm as they can suffer, because they find by experience that that kind of drink so used helpeth digestion and procureth alacrity."
It would be an error to infer that the mode of making coffee in Europe and Asia is the same. In Europe, an infusion or a decoction of the roasted berry is all that is consumed; but this is a refinement in cookery not appreciated in Asia; there the custom is now, and always has been different.
A highly trustworthy traveller, Lamartine, in describing the ordinary khan in Palestine and Syria, says, "a charcoal fire is constantly burning on the hearth, and one or two copper coffee-pots are always full of thick farinaceous coffee, the habitual refreshment and only want of the Turks and Arabs."—Travels in Syria and the East, vol. i., p. 292.
A cup of well made coffee exhilarates, arouses, and keeps awake. It allays hunger to a certain extent, gives to the weary increased strength and vigour, and imparts a feeling of comfort and repose.
Its physiological effects upon the system, so far as they have been scientifically investigated, appear to be, that while it makes the brain more active, it soothes the body generally, makes the change and waste of matter much slower than usual, and the demand for food in consequence proportionately less.
All these effects are produced by the conjoined action of three ingredients, either identical with or similar to those contained in tea. There is a volatile oil produced during the roasting; a variety of tannic acid, which is also altered in some degree during the roasting; and the substance called theine or caffeine, which is common to both tea and coffee, and is found in the leaves of Guarana officinalis, and Ilex paraguensis, both used by the aborigines of South America, as tea is in the Old Continent, a remarkable result of chemical investigation. The chemical constitution of caffeine is $\text{C}_{8}\text{H}_{10}\text{N}_2\text{O}_2$.
Coffee-Trade. The extent to which the cultivation of coffee has been carried in the British possessions, the vast amount of capital embarked in plantations suited to its growth, the multitude of hands engaged in its culture, and the shipping necessarily employed in connection with that trade, invests the article, in a commercial point of view, with great importance; while as a beverage, the tendency of which is to wean the community from indulgence in intoxicating liquors, renders it second to no commodity in the British tariff.
The history of the coffee-trade prior to 1850 is only valuable now as an example of a commodity for which there is a universal craving amongst mankind, struggling successfully, and at last triumphantly, over fiscal restrictions, high duties, differential duties, and an endless mass of antiquated obstructions. In common with other important necessaries of life, it has now attained to the natural state of unrestricted competition, though it still pays a customs duty of threepence per pound.
The following is an estimate of the annual exports of coffee from the principal places where it is produced, during the last four years, and as nearly as can be ascertained of its annual consumption for the same period in those countries into which it is imported from abroad at the present time, viz.:— ### Estimated Supplies of Coffee for Europe and United States
| | 1850 | 1851 | 1852 | 1853 | |----------------|--------|--------|--------|--------| | Brazil, shipment from | 80,000 | 142,000 | 133,000 | 126,000 | | Java | 40,000 | 60,000 | 69,000 | 62,000 | | St Domingo | 20,000 | 18,000 | 25,000 | 20,000 | | Cuba | 4,000 | 5,000 | 4,000 | 5,000 | | Porto Rico | 6,000 | 5,500 | 9,500 | 9,500 | | La Guayra & Venezuela | 12,000 | 10,500 | 12,000 | 12,000 | | Costa Rica | 4,000 | 3,000 | 3,000 | 3,000 | | British West India | 1,000 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | | Ditto East Indies | 18,000 | 16,000 | 21,000 | 16,000 | | Ceylon | | | | | | French Colonies, East and West Indies | 500 | 500 | 500 | 500 | | Dutch—West Indies | 500 | 500 | 500 | 500 | | Manilla, Arabia | 1,400 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 2,000 |
Deduct supplies directed to and retained in U.S. States
| | 1850 | 1851 | 1852 | 1853 | |----------------|--------|--------|--------|--------| | | 188,000| 264,500| 251,000| 258,000| | | 63,000 | 94,000 | 88,000 | 85,000 |
Supplies available for Europe
| | 1850 | 1851 | 1852 | 1853 | |----------------|--------|--------|--------|--------| | | 125,000| 170,500| 193,000| 172,000| | | 155,000| 176,500| 191,400| 193,000|
Estimated real consumption in Europe
| | 1850 | 1851 | 1852 | 1853 | |----------------|--------|--------|--------|--------| | | 155,000| 176,500| 191,400| 193,000| | | 65,000 | 84,000 | 92,000 | 92,000 |
Total consumption
| | 1850 | 1851 | 1852 | 1853 | |----------------|--------|--------|--------|--------| | | 220,000| 260,500| 283,400| 285,000| | | 188,000| 264,500| 281,000| 258,000|
Deficit
| | 1850 | 1851 | 1852 | 1853 | |----------------|--------|--------|--------|--------| | | 32,000 | 2,400 | 27,000 | |
Surplus
| | 1850 | 1851 | 1852 | 1853 | |----------------|--------|--------|--------|--------| | | 30,000 | 6,000 | 1,600 | 21,000 |
### Estimated Consumption of Coffee
| | 1850 | 1851 | 1852 | 1853 | |----------------|--------|--------|--------|--------| | Great Britain (official) | 14,000 | 14,500 | 15,700 | 17,500 | | France | 15,000 | 18,500 | 21,500 | 21,500 | | Belgium | 16,500 | 17,500 | 20,700 | 20,000 | | Holland, estimated | 12,000 | 13,500 | 15,000 | 15,000 | | Germany, Zollverein, and the other States included in the new Customs Union | 49,000 | 56,000 | 58,000 | 58,000 | | Bohemia, Gallicia, and Hungary | 4,500 | 6,000 | 6,000 | 6,000 | | Austria | 9,000 | 10,500 | 11,000 | 11,000 | | Switzerland | 5,700 | 6,500 | 7,000 | 7,000 | | Italy, Greece, Levant, and North Africa | 12,500 | 14,000 | 15,000 | 15,000 | | Spain and Portugal | 5,000 | 6,000 | 6,000 | 6,000 | | Sweden, Norway, and Denmark | 8,000 | 9,000 | 10,000 | 10,000 | | Russia, Finland, and Poland | 3,500 | 4,500 | 5,500 | 6,000 |
Estimated consumption in Europe
| | 1850 | 1851 | 1852 | 1853 | |----------------|--------|--------|--------|--------| | | 155,000| 176,500| 191,400| 193,000| | | 65,000 | 84,000 | 92,000 | 92,000 |
Estimated consumption in U. States
| | 1850 | 1851 | 1852 | 1853 | |----------------|--------|--------|--------|--------| | | 220,000| 260,500| 283,400| 285,000| | | 188,000| 264,500| 281,000| 258,000|
Total consumption
| | 1850 | 1851 | 1852 | 1853 | |----------------|--------|--------|--------|--------| | | 220,000| 260,500| 283,400| 285,000| | | 188,000| 264,500| 281,000| 258,000|
Deficit
| | 1850 | 1851 | 1852 | 1853 | |----------------|--------|--------|--------|--------| | | 32,000 | 2,400 | 27,000 | |
Surplus
| | 1850 | 1851 | 1852 | 1853 | |----------------|--------|--------|--------|--------| | | 30,000 | 6,000 | 1,600 | 21,000 |
Quantity of Coffee imported into the United Kingdom for the same period, viz.:
| | 1850 | 1851 | 1852 | 1853 | |----------------|--------|--------|--------|--------| | | 22,680 | 20,870 | 21,470 | 21,400 |
The above quantities may be considered the nearest approximation to the truth which the present state of commercial statistics can supply; but any one familiar with the writings of modern travellers in the south of Europe and in Asia must be convinced that a very large quantity of coffee is consumed in Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Persia, Egypt, Abyssinia, &c., regarding which commerce takes no note, and of which no statistics have ever yet been collected. (w. t.)