Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1883-02-15
COFFEE MAKING A FINE ART.

Chicory may be good and wholesome
root, but it is out of place in a cup of coffee.
There is no affinity of one to the other, and
no reason on earth why they should bejoined
except for the purpose of the seller. Those
who tell you that they rather like chicory
in their coffee are not to be reasoned with,
any more than they who like claret sour,
like the economical ScOtchman in the story,
or their oysters high, like GeOrgell. Coffee
has no fellow, and to mix it with anything
else is to deprave the noble berry. The am
ateur, to be safe, must buy his coffee whole,
taking care that he has the true article, for
the ingenuity of wicked men has gone 50
far as to fabrcate imitation coffee berries.
Those who affect to be real cOnnOisseurs buy
their coffee several years before they use it,
age being held to mellow and ripcn the ber-
nv. The next care is roasting, which, OF
course, should be done at home. Dean
Swift always roasted his coffee with his own
illustriOus hands, Sin an engine for the pllr-
pose,"so Pope told DIR. Arbuthnot. What
that engine was we should like to know,
for, strange as it may seem, and proof OF
the gross ignorance which surrounds this
part of the subject, there is not now eXtant
any simple coffee roasting apparatus such as
the bachelor Of moderate means small APP
pliances can use with his ovid hands. There
are several patent machines of elaborate
construction of which the best is a cylinder
which goes round by clock work; but their
fault is that they roast more than Is neceS-
sary for one mans use, and coffee, to be good
should be fresh roasted the day it is made.
The valatile elements in which SO much of
the. value as we'll as the flavor Of coffee re-
sides, speedily evaporate after they have
once been developed by the action Of fire.
The next step is the grinding or rather
pounding; for coffee, for the due evolution
of its ethereal essences, should be bruised
into more or less fine pOwder-nOt cut, as
it is in all the grinding machines of COM
merce. The Eastern, who are the best OF
coffee makers, lay great stress on this point:
They bruise their coffee with pestle and
mortar, 50 as to preserve the oily particles
in greatest perfection, and reduce it to fine
powder, which is cooked in water like soup
and wholly consumed. This last, however,
is Il detail which the amateur need not 1ol-
low unless his taste has been so far Oriental
lied us to prefer the thick muddy decOction
of the East to the more artificial product of
the West The coffee being ground, and no
more ground than is needed for immediate
use, now comes the important process OF ma
king. The simplest way Of making coffee
is lhe best, always bearing in mind that the
object is to secure the union of the coffee
with the water at the exact point of boiling,
neither before nor atter-a process which is
momentary and delicate, something between
infusion and decOctiOn. There are two ways
by which it can be accomplished. The first
is to pour the water on the coffee, which Is
the more common practice the other is to
throw the coffee into the water, which is far
better and more simple. All that is needed
is a saucepan narrower at thetop than at the
bottom, with long wooden handle. Into
this measure the exact quantity of water re-
quired, the proportion of which to coffee is
a matter 0ftaste. Setting the saucepan over
Il brisk fire, and with your measure OF coffee
ready to hand, watch for the large bubbles
to appear. Then take the saucepan off and
throw in the coffee, and, with a shake or
two, put it back on the fire for a couple Of
seconds. Take it off and let it rest for two
or three minutes before pouring off into the
cup or coffee pot, BY this process, the nice
ty of which depends upon catching the eX-
act moment of boiling, and innot overriding
the second time Of boiling, you will have
coffee in its fullest development of flavor
and arOma.-,T. lanes Gdzette.