COFFEE (Turk., Ar. galucc, the coffee bev erage). A beverage made of the roasted seeds of the eoffee-tree. Coffee Arabica, a native of Abyssinia and Arabia. now naturalized in many tropical countries. The genus Coffea comprises a number of species. but the Coffea Arabica is the species widest known which possesses valu able properties: the seeds of Cotten Mauritian:1, prepared in the same way. are hitter and slightly emetic. In the wild state Coffea Arabica is a slender tree 15 to 25 feet high. with fewbranehes ; in cultivation it is seldom allowed to become more than 6 to 10 feet high, and is made to assume a sort of pyramidal form, with horizontal branches almost from the ground. The leaves are evergreen and leathery; the flower$are small, fragrant, and snow-white; and the whole appear ance of the tree is very pleasing. The fruit, when ripe, of a dark-scarlet color, and the seeds arc horn-like and hard. The seeds are commonly termed coffee-beans. a name derived not from any resemblanee of the seeds to beans, but from the Arabic word which means 'coffee.' The seeds are also sometimes, but very incorrectly, designated coffeelierries. illus tration, see BEVERAGE PLANTS.
The earlier history of the colfectree is not very clear. It was IPA, known to the Greeks or Romans, but in Arabia it was certainly in use in the fifteenth century. niward the end of the seventeenth century. plants were carried from Slocha to Batavia by Wieser, a burgomaster of Anisterdam, and from the botanical gardens at Amsterdam the Paris Garden obtained a tree. A layer of this was carried out to :Martinique in 1720, where it succeeded so well that in a few years all the West Indies could be supplied with young trees. The following sorts are particu larly distinguished from one another in com merce: Mocha coffee, which conies from Arabia. and is known by its small gray beans inclining to greenish; Jam, or East Indian coffer, which has large yellow beans; Jamaica coffee, with beans somewhat smaller and greenish; Nurinam coffee, which has the largest beans; Bourbon coffee, with beans pale yellow and almost whit ish. The coffee-tree succeeds where the tempera ture of the year ranges from 60° to (0° F. It does best in a sandy or gravelly soil. well drained, and on high lands or hill ranges from 1000 to 3000 feet above the sea. In Peru and Ecuador it is acclimatized at an elevation of 6000 feet, where. however, frost never occurs. The fruit ripens in hot-houses. Coffee planta tions are laid out pretty mueh in the same way everywhere. One-year-old trees 12 to 16 inelce
high are set from the nursery. They need shade at first and in a hot dry climate should be shaded at all times. 'They are pruned to the same height, and the ground between them is carefully kept clear of weeds. Where the cli mate is dry, abundant irrigation is necessary, but the supply of water is cut off as the fruit begins to ripen, in order to improve its quality. The tree yields its first crop in the third year, and the crop from a full-grown tree may amount to two pounds of coffee-beans. The life of a tree is about forty years. As the coffee-tree continues flowering for eight months, its fruits are of very unequal ripeness: in the \Vest In dies and Brazil three gatherings are made an nually. The beans are placed on mats or large floors specially adapted for the purpose, where they are dried by the sun's rays. being mean while frequently turned. They are passed be tween rollers to remove the dried pulp of the bean, and the membrane which Meioses the seeds themselves, and the coffee is afterwards freed from impurities by winnowing, and conveyed in bags to the seaports. As equal care is not, how ever, bestowed upon the preparation of- it in all places where it is cultivated, there are great dif ferences in qiiality and price. The 1.1..e of coffee as a beve•a7e was introduced from Arabia, in the sixteenth century, into Egypt and Constanti nople. Leonhard Rauwolf, a German physician, was probably the first to make coffee known in Europe, by the account of his travels printed in 1573. Soon after the first introduction of coffee, coffee-houses arose almost everywhere. The first in Europe was established at Constanti nople in 1551. In London the firxt coffee-house \vas opened in Newubm's Court, Cornhill, in 1652, by a Greek named Pasqua. This Greek was the servant of an English merchant named Edwards, who brought some coffee with him from Smyrna, and whose house, when the fact became known, was so thronged with friends and visitors to taste the new beverage, that to relieve himself from annoyance, Edwards established his servant in a coffee-house. The first coffee-house in France was opened at Marseilles in 1671, and in 1672 there was one opened in Paris, which soon had several competitors. in the East coffee is not usually prepared as a beverage in the same way as in Europe, except by Europeans. A decoction of the unroasted seeds is there generally drunk; and 'for the 'Sultan's coffee,' the pericarp, with the dried pulp roasted, is employed.