GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON BEVERAGES.
1789. Beverages are innumerable in their variety; but the ordinary
beverages drunk in the British isles, may be divided into three
classes:--1. Beverages of the simplest kind not fermented. 2. Beverages,
consisting of water, containing a considerable quantity of carbonic
acid. 3. Beverages composed partly of fermented liquors. Of the first
class may be mentioned,--water, toast-and-water, barley-water, eau
sucré, lait sucré, cheese and milk whey, milk-and-water, lemonade,
orangeade, sherbet, apple and pear juice, capillaire, vinegar-and-water,
raspberry vinegar and water.
1790. Of the common class of beverages, consisting of water impregnated
with carbonic acid gas, we may name soda-water, single and double,
ordinary effervescing draughts, and ginger-beer.
1791. The beverages composed partly of fermented liquors, are hot spiced
wines, bishop, egg-flip, egg-hot, ale posset, sack posset, punch, and
spirits-and-water.
1792. We will, however, forthwith treat on the most popular of our
beverages, beginning with the one which makes "the cup that cheers but
not inebriates."
1793. The beverage called tea has now become almost a necessary of life.
Previous to the middle of the 17th century it was not used in England,
and it was wholly unknown to the Greeks and Romans. Pepys says, in his
Diary,--"September 25th, 1661.--I sent for a cup of tea (a China drink),
of which I had never drunk before." Two years later it was so rare a
commodity in England, that the English East-India Company bought 2 lbs.
2 oz. of it, as a present for his majesty. In 1666 it was sold in London
for sixty shillings a pound. From that date the consumption has gone on
increasing from 5,000 lbs. to 50,000,000 lbs.
1794. Linnaeus was induced to think that there were two species of
tea-plant, one of which produced the black, and the other the green
teas; but later observations do not confirm this. When the leaves of
black and green tea are expanded by hot water, and examined by the
botanist, though a difference of character is perceived, yet this is not
sufficient to authorize considering them as distinct species. The
tea-tree flourishes best in temperate regions; in China it is
indigenous. The part of China where the best tea is cultivated, is
called by us the "tea country." The cultivation of the plant requires
great care. It is raised chiefly on the sides of hills; and, in order to
increase the quantity and improve the quality of the leaves, the shrub
is pruned, so as not to exceed the height of from two to three feet,
much in the same manner as the vine is treated in France. They pluck the
leaves, one selecting them according to the kinds of tea required; and,
notwithstanding the tediousness of the operation, each labourer is able
to gather from four to ten or fifteen pounds a day. When the trees
attain to six or seven years of age, the produce becomes so inferior
that they are removed to make room for a fresh succession, or they are
cut down to allow of numerous young shoots. Teas of the finest flavour
consist of the youngest leaves; and as these are gathered at four
different periods of the year, the younger the leaves the higher
flavoured the tea, and the scarcer, and consequently the dearer, the
article.
1795. The various names by which teas are sold in the British market are
corruptions of Chinese words. There are about a dozen different kinds;
but the principal are Bohea, Congou, and Souchong, and signify,
respectively, inferior, middling, and superior. Teas are often perfumed
and flavoured with the leaves of different kinds of plants grown on
purpose. Different tea-farms in China produce teas of various qualities,
raised by skilful cultivation on various soils.
1796. Tea, when chemically analyzed, is found to contain woody fibre,
mucilage, a considerable quantity of the astringent principle, or
tannin, a narcotic principle, which is, perhaps, connected with a
peculiar aroma. The tannin is shown by its striking a black colour with
sulphate of iron, and is the cause of the dark stain which is always
formed when tea is spilt upon buff-coloured cottons dyed with iron. A
constituent called _Theine_ has also been discovered in tea, supposed to
be identical with _Caffeine_, one of the constituents of coffee. Liebig
says, "Theine yields, in certain processes of decomposition, a series of
most remarkable products, which have much analogy with those derived
from uric acid in similar circumstances. The infusion of tea differs
from that of coffee, by containing iron and manganese. We have in tea,
of many kinds, a beverage which contains the active constituents of the
most powerful mineral springs, and, however small the amount of iron may
be which we daily take in this form, it cannot be destitute of influence
on the vital processes."
1797. Chinese tea has frequently been adulterated in this country, by
the admixture of the dried leaves of certain plants. The leaves of the
sloe, white thorn, ash, elder, and some others, have been employed for
this purpose; such as the leaves of the speedwell, wild germander, black
currants, syringa, purple-spiked willow-herb, sweet-brier, and
cherry-tree. Some of these are harmless, others are to a certain degree
poisonous; as, for example, are the leaves of all the varieties of the
plum and cherry tribe, to which the sloe belongs. Adulteration by means
of these leaves is by no means a new species of fraud; and several acts
of parliament, from the time of George II., have been passed, specifying
severe penalties against those guilty of the offence, which,
notwithstanding numerous convictions, continues to the present time.
1798. In the purchase of tea, that should be chosen which possesses an
agreeable odour and is as whole as possible, in order that the leaf may
be easily examined. The greatest care should be taken that it has not
been exposed to the air, which destroys its flavour.
1799. It would be impossible, in the space at our command, to enumerate
the various modes adopted in different countries for "making coffee;"
that is, the phrase commonly understood to mean the complete preparation
of this delicious beverage for drinking. For performing this operation,
such recipes or methods as we have found most practical will be inserted
in their proper place; but the following facts connected with coffee
will be found highly interesting.
1800. The introduction of coffee into this country is comparatively of
recent date. We are assured by Bruce that the coffee-tree is a native of
Abyssinia, and it is said to have been cultivated in that country from
time immemorial.
1801. It appears that coffee was first introduced into England by Daniel
Edwards, a Turkey merchant, whose servant, Pasqua, a Greek, understood
the manner of roasting it. This servant, under the patronage of Edwards,
established the first coffee-house in London, in George Yard, Lombard
Street. Coffee was then sold at four or five guineas a pound, and a duty
was soon afterwards laid upon it of fourpence a gallon, when made into a
beverage. In the course of two centuries, however, this berry, unknown
originally as an article of food, except to some savage tribes on the
confines of Abyssinia, has made its way through the whole of the
civilized world. Mahommedans of all ranks drink coffee twice a day; it
is in universal request in France; and the demand for it throughout the
British isles is daily increasing, the more especially since so much
attention has been given to mechanical contrivances for roasting and
grinding the berry and preparing the beverage.
1802. Of the various kinds of coffee the Arabian is considered the best.
It is grown chiefly in the districts of Aden and Mocha; whence the name
of our Mocha coffee. Mocha coffee has a smaller and rounder bean than
any other, and likewise a more agreeable smell and taste. The next in
reputation and quality is the Java and Ceylon coffee, and then the
coffees of Bourbon and Martinique, and that of Berbice, a district of
the colony of British Guiana. The Jamaica and St. Domingo coffees are
less esteemed.
1803. A considerable change takes place in the arrangement of the
constituents of coffee by the application of heat in roasting it.
Independently of one of the objects of roasting, namely, that of
destroying its toughness and rendering it easily ground, its tannin and
other principles are rendered partly soluble in water; and it is to the
tannin that the brown colour of the decoction of coffee is owing. An
aromatic flavour is likewise developed during torrefaction, which is not
perceived in the raw berry, and which is not produced in the greatest
perfection until the heat has arrived at a certain degree of
temperature; but, if the heat be increased beyond this, the flavour is
again dissipated, and little remains but a bitter and astringent matter
with carbon.
1804. The roasting of coffee in the best manner requires great nicety,
and much of the qualities of the beverage depends upon the operation.
The roasting of coffee for the dealers in London and Paris has now
become a separate branch of business, and some of the roasters perform
the operation on a great scale, with considerable skill. Roasted coffee
loses from 20 to 30 per cent, by sufficient roasting, and the powder
suffers much by exposure to the air; but, while raw, it not only does
not lose its flavour for a year or two, but improves by keeping. If a
cup of the best coffee be placed upon a table boiling hot, it will fill
the room with its fragrance; but the coffee, when warmed again after
being cold, will be found to have lost most of its flavour.
1805. To have coffee in perfection, it should be roasted and ground just
before it is used, and more should not be ground at a time than is
wanted for immediate use, or, if it be necessary to grind more, it
should be kept closed from the air. Coffee readily imbibes exhalations
from other substances, and thus often acquires a bad flavour: brown
sugar placed near it will communicate a disagreeable flavour. It is
stated that the coffee in the West Indies has often been injured by
being laid in rooms near the sugar-works, or where rum is distilled; and
the same effect has been produced by bringing over coffee in the same
ships with rum and sugar. Dr. Moseley mentions that a few bags of
pepper, on board a ship from India, spoiled a whole cargo of coffee.
1806. With respect to the quantity of coffee used in making the
decoction, much depends upon the taste of the consumer. The greatest and
most common fault in English coffee is the too small quantity of the
ingredient. Count Rumford says that to make good coffee for drinking
after dinner, a pound of good Mocha coffee, which, when roasted and
ground, weighs only thirteen ounces, serves to make fifty-six full cups,
or a little less than a quarter of an ounce to a coffee-cup of moderate
size.
RECIPES.