COFFEE. The seed of an evergreen shrub, coffers Arabica, of the family Itubi (teem. It rises twenty feet high. The berry is imported from Arabia, the East and West Indies. In Java large quanti-• ties are grown and exported.
It grows upon large bushes, and the grains of coffee are formed two in a ber ry, about the size and shape of our com mon plum. The skin of the berry is about as thick as that of the plum, and the color, when ripe, a pale scarlet. The bush is very productive. Every branch is loaded with the berries, which grow two in a place, on the opposite sides of each other, and about an inch and a half apart. When ripe, the skin bursts open, and the grains of coffee fall out upon the ground ; but a more general way is to spread something under the bush, and shake the coffee down. After the outer skin is taken off there remains a kind of husk over each kernel, which is broken off (after being well dried in the sun) by heavy rollers. The coffee after
this needs winnowing, in order to be freed from the broken particles of the bush. It has been said by some writers that one bush will not, with another, average more than a pound of coffee.
Coffee might be cultivated with advan tage in Florida.
The analysis of the raw berry affords Cellular matter, 31 Moisture, 12 Fatty matters, 10 to 13 Glucose dextrin, 15.5 Legumen and casein, 3 Caffein, 3.5 to 5 Nitrogenized matters, Essential oil and aromatic principles, .005 Potash, lime, magnesia, phosphoric and sulphuric acids, silica and chlorine, In 100 parts.
The change coffee undergoes by roast ing is not fully understood ; some of the essential oils are driven off, and the berry is charred ; the peculiar aroma is deve loped, which is soluble in water, and is acid.