The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1884-09-18
SOMETHING ABOUT COFFEE.

Perhaps the most important individ-
ual of the Cinchona tribe is the coffee
plant. Coffee is the produce of an
evergree shrub. a native of Abyssinia
and Arabia. The fruit is berry about
the size of cherry, covered with q
pulp sweet In taste and not very thick.
Inside this pulp are two seeds, sepa-
rated from each other by parchment
like membrane. These seeds are the
well-known coffee. The coffee-seed
has been frequently analysed; chemists
have found in it several oily gums and
albuminous matters, but the valuable
principle is crystalline, and denominat-
ed caffeine. Every person knows that
coffee is rendered fit for culinary pur-
poses by the process of roasting, but
the precise agency of this roasting
process is not understood.
1t is supposed that it was only in the
fifteenth century that coffee was trans
ported from Abyssinia to Arabia Felix.
But if Arabia be not the native land of
coffee, it is at least its most prosperous
adopted home. Nowhere else does the
plant flourish better, nowhere is the
resulting coffee so delicious in flavor,
especially that raised in the country of
Yemen, in the environs of Mocha.
The Orientals, it is well known, first
introduced the use of coffee into Eu-
rope; but when they, the Orientals,
first became acquainted with the bev-
erage is still uncertain. An Arabian
author of the fifteenth century, named
Shehabeddin, states that the Mutt of
Alden, in the ninth century, was the
first who used coffee as beverage;
but it is certain that at this period the
use of the infusion was known. In Per-
STA. According to vulgar tradition, the
discovery of:coffee is due to the Mollah
Chadelly, whose memory is held in rev.
erence by all true Mussulmans. This
pious man, afflicted with sorrow at the
thought that he could not keep awake
for the performance of his nocturnal
devotions, besought Mohammed to in
dictate some means by which sleep
might be chased away. Mohammed,
touched with pity, as well he might,
seeing that his own honor was con-
cerned, SO brought matters about that
herdsman came to acquaint Mollah
Chadelly of the curious fact that his
(the herdsman's) goats could not go to
sleep after they had partaken of coffee
berries, but kept frisking about all
night long. The Mollah, taking the
hint, at once prepared good strong
dose of coffee. He drank it, and was
delighted beyond measure at the result.
Not wink of sleep did he get F.; delicious
sensations crowded on the brain; and
his midnight devotions were so fervent
that he at once communicated the pre-
cious secret to some dervises, who, i'm
itating his example, beleaguered the
prophet, now in the seventh heaven of
bliss, with unceasing prayers.
According to another tale, the discov-
cry was made by the prior of convent
at Maronites, who, on receiving the re-
port of cameldriver to the effect that
his beasts could get no sleep after hav-
ing browsed on the coffee plant, at once
bethought himself what good thing
coffee would be for his monks, who,
like the Mollah Chadelly, appear to
have been torpid, sleepy fellows, and
had acquired the disreputable habit
not quite obsolete now-of going to
sleep in church. The practice, we are
told was quite successful.
But coffee, like many other good
things, had its enemies, and, strange to
say, the very Mohammedan priests who
were the first to patronize it became its
most rancorous foes. The fact was this:
SO generally was coffee approved of by
the Arabian populace that people, in
stead of going to the mosque, spent
their days in coffee-shops; and as there
does not appear to have been any act of
Parliament to enforce the closing of
coffee-houses during church-or rather
mosque-hours, the priests had an au-
dience of empty benches. Forthwith
the mollahs mathematical the seduct-
i've berry and those who used it. COT
fee, they said, was as bad as wine or
spirituous liquors, if not worse. It's
employment was interdicted through
out every part of the Turkish Empire.
Religious anathemas, however, being
insufficient to check the growing evil,
at length an appeal was made to phys
ical force. I'm the year of the Hegira
945" CA. ID. 1889, says an Arabian his
torian, while large numbers were as
sembled in the month of Rhamadan,
employed in drinking coffee, the cap
tain of the guard surprised them, hunt
ed them ANONYMOUSLY from the shops.
locked them up all night in the Pasha's
house, and the next morning admins
tered to each individual, by way of q
salutary admonitlon, seventeen stripes"
Persecution, as usual, accomplished
a result the very opposite of that in
tended Coffee speedily became uni
To, Eve ho1 Af
the seventeenth century there num-
bered in Cairo no less than 1900
coffee shops. At the present time coffee
is among Eastern Mussulmans one of
the first necessaries of life. When a
Turk adds new wife to his associated
beauties he formally contracts with her
friends that she is always to have plenty
of coffee. If certain modern accounts,
however, are to be trusted, Turkish
ladies have got into the habit of drink
ing brandy. According to Mohammed,
they have no souls to lose; hence they
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