COFFEE, the seed of an evergreen shrub which is cultivated in hot climates, and is a native of Abyssinia and of Arabia. This shrub (Coif& arabica) is from 15 to 20 feet in height, and belongs to the Rubiacem. The leaves are green, glossy on the upper surface, and the flowers are white and sweet-scented. The fruit is of an oval shape, about the size of a cherry, and of a dark-red color when ripe. Each of these contains two cells, and each cell a single seed, which is the coffee as we see it before it under goes the process of roasting. Great at tention is paid to the culture of coffee in Arabia. The trees are raised from seed sown in nurseries and afterward planted out in moist and shady situations, on sloping ground or at the foot of moun tains. When the fruit has attained its maturity cloths are placed under the trees, and upon these the laborers shake it down. They afterward spread the berries on mats, and expose them to the sun to dry. The husk is then broken off by large and heavy rollers of wood or iron. When the coffee has been thus cleared of its husk it is again dried in the sun. A tree in great vigor will produce 3 or 4 pounds.
The best coffee is imported from III—Cyc Mocha, on the Red Sea. Next in quality to the Mocha coffee may perhaps be ranked that of southern India and that of Ceylon, which is strong and well flavored and is brought to Great Britain in large quantities. Java and Central America also produce large quantities of excellent coffee. Brazilian coffee stands at the bottom of the list as regards quality. Of the best Mocha coffee that is grown in the province of Yemen little or none is said to reach the Western markets. Arabia itself, Syria, and Egypt consume fully two-thirds, and the remainder is exclusively absorbed by Turkish or Armenian buyers. The only other coffee which holds a first rank in Eastern opinion is that of Abyssinia.
Then comes the produce of India, which those accustomed to the Yemenite vari ety are said to consider hardly drinkable. American coffee holds in the judgment of all Orientals the very last rank. The Dutch were the first to extend the culti vation of coffee beyond the countries to which it is native. By 1718 the Dutch planters of Surinam had entered on the cultivation of coffee with success, and ten years after it was introduced from that colony by the English into Jamaica, and by the French into Martinique.
Coffee as an article of diet is of but comparatively recent introduction. To the Greeks and Romans it was wholly unknown. From Arabia it passed to Egypt and Turkey, whence it was intro duced into England by a Turkish mer chant named Edwards in 1652, whose Greek servant, named Pasqua, first opened a coffee-house in London. The excellence of coffee depends in a great measure on the skill and attention ex ercised in roasting it. In the Asiatic mode of preparing coffee the beans are pounded, not ground; and though the Turks and Arabs boil the coffee, they boil each cup by itself and only for a mo ment, so that the effect is much the same as that of infusion. Coffee acts as a nervous stimulant, a property which it owes mainly to the alkaloid caffeine. It thus promotes cheerfulness and removes languor, and also aids digestion; but in some constitutions it induces sleepless ness and nervous tremblings.
The imports of coffee into the United States in 1919 amounted to 1,046,029,274 pounds, valued at $143,089,619. The consumption per capita in 1918 was 10.29 pounds. The imports in 1919 included 571,921,573 pounds from Brazil, 158, 343,135 pounds from Central America, and 121,416,418 pounds from Colombia.