The fruit contains two hard little seeds, each flattened on the side that lies next to the other. Each seed has a dry, yellow .hull that fits it closely, and a filmy inner lining of this horny "parchment," known in the coffee industry as the "silver skin." When one of the beans fails to "fill," the single seed remaining takes up all the room, grows to unusual size, and is not flattened. These seeds are carefully culled out of the company of the flat berries, and sold at a higher price under the trade name, "pea-berries." Another round seed is the berry that grows alone at the tip of each twig. It is smaller than the paired beans, and is sorted out and sold under the trade name, Mocha.
This name is borrowed from a variety with small grains and very fine flavor, the best Arabian coffee, which never gets into the American market at all. Indeed, all the coffee raised in Arabia is called Mocha, and buyers from Egypt and Tur key go into the plantations and buy the crop on the trees. Only the inferior coffee that these buy ers refuse gets to the port of Mocha, and thence into the market. So the trade name, Mocha and Java, is misleading in the extreme. We might as well understand that the first name would better be dropped.
Java coffee comes from the Dutch East Indies, where the plantations are under government control, and methods are very thorough. The Arabian species was at first grown. But unfor tunately a leaf disease destroyed the industry by killing the trees. The coarser Liberian coffee was introduced and found to be resistant to the blight. Nothing could be done but grow this less desirable, but more vigorous and productive species. Since the leaf disease swept the Islands in 1873 and again in 1878, the cultivation of Arabian coffee has been attempted only by private enterprise, and for household use by families who are willing to take the trouble and the risk for the chance of having the rare, fine Mocha toasted, pulverized, and steeped as a morning beverage, just as their forefathers had it in the good old days.
Special high quality is accorded by experts to coffee raised in Bolivia. But the home market consumes it all, so we cannot test it. "Blue Mountain" coffee, grown at high elevations in Jamaica, commands the highest prices paid any where. This is a very small crop, absorbed by a very special trade. Mexico is growing coffee that is cheap, as it competes for a place in popular esteem. Hawaii is an ideal coffee country, and growers are clamoring for protection that will enable the industry to get on its feet. They
produce a large, mild, but high-flavored berry, at a cost of about 9 cents per pound.
The cherries are treated by the wet or dry process to free the beans. They may be "pulped" by running through a mill that scrapes off the flesh, then allowed to soak and ferment a day or so to rot away the slimy substance that would not come off in the pulping process.
After thorough washing (formerly by trampling the submerged berries with bare feet, now by agitating them mechanically), the water is drawn off, and a number of rinsings clear away the scum, and leave the berries to dry in their bright parch ment hulls. As rain and dew would retard the drying, the plan is to cover the berries when the sun is gone. Sliding roofs or sliding platforms, that may be shoved under cover, protect the dry ing berries. Artificial heat is sometimes used.
Next, the berries may be sacked for shipment, or they may be put through the hulling machine, that removes the horny covering. This is the "peeling" process. The winnowing blows away the broken hulls and the silver skins that are rubbed off, leaving the coffee bean as it comes to us in the unroasted state.
The dry process takes the berries from the pick ers' baskets, spreads them to dry on stone floors, where they are raked over to make sure all are dry before they are stored away. When needed, they are freed by pounding from the coat of dried flesh and parchment which are like a single layer. A hulling machine does the work quickly, and is generally taking the place of the simple mortars.
The final preparation of coffee berries for mar ket is the sifting out of broken grains, and grading into different sizes. This is done by the use of sieves of different sized mesh.
Before using, the berries are roasted till they turn dark brown, then ground or pulverized. The hot water extracts the caffeine and a volatile oil in which resides the flavor of coffee. The stimu lating and refeshing effect of the caffeine is harmful to some people, and probably to all who drink much of this beverage. We must not for get that coffee is a much-abused article of com merce. It is subject to gross adulteration, and even the pure coffee becomes unfit for drinking if boiled a long time. Boiling brings out an increas ing quantity of the caffeine, which is injurious to the nervous system.