The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1888-05-17
COFFEE, ITS HISTORY, PhlL0S0-
PLY, SUPPLY AND con-
SUMPTION.
COMMUNICATED.

Of coffee, which is now necessity
of life to so many human beings,
the wonder is scarcely less than it
should have been SO long kept from
mankind that even now after
three hundred years of knowledge
it should be comparatively unfami-
liar in its purity to so many millions
who thirst after beverage so inno-
cent and healthful. The attributes
of coffee have been celebrated in
all languages. Chemists have told
US how it clears the brain, calms the
nerves, and supplies the waste of
tissue. Poets have sung of the
wisdom it gives to politicians in
strains which make us impatient of
its too slender use for that purpose.
Like tobacco it is q universal taste,
and, like that beneficial weed, it has
been prescribed and preached at as
ungodly, poisonous, and damnable,
tending to sin to sedition and to
heresy.
In Turkey it was made point
of orthodoxy to rail at the new
drink. In France the fashion to
discourage it. Racine and coffee
will pass - wrote Madame de
Sevegne. Under Charles ii coffee
houses were to be put down as
"hotbeds of Seditiousitalk and incen-
tives to General wagging of ton
CUES"
Coffee has risen superior to all
these perils, and he would be a bold
man now who should in the east or
west attempt to suppress its use.
There is no article of those which
furnish food for man on the merits of
which thereis so perfect a concensus
opinion. There is no beverage of
which unites in its favor so COM
pletely, the sufferings both Of men
of science and of virtue; and when
we consider what are the peculiar
and exquisite virtues possessed by
coffee, and in less degree by its
congeners tea and cocoa, we cannot
help wondering what sort of world
it was, which was as yet uncheered
by that divine essence, coffeine,
theme, or theobromine, which chem
lists till us is the basis of the health
full and exhilarating properties of
coffee. AS man is the creature of
what he eats and drinks so man be-
fore the discovery OF coffee and its
sister beverages, must have been a
duller, coaser, and less interesting
animal than now, when he has the
benefit Of these aids to physical and
intellectual development.
Turning from the history and
philosophy of coffee-a subject,
which has scarcely yet been treated
in any becoming manner-to the
concrete berry and its uses, the first
thing that must strike us is the
comparatively small favor in
which it is held in England COM
pared with other countries. The
consumption per head in Great
Britain has in fact decline from | .34
lbs. per head in 1854 when it was at
OiS w ~ llhSblOn lSSS lnuu
a pound head in 1880. AT present
the people of England use about
five pounds of tea n head every
year to one pound of coffee.
In France where the duty is about
five times heavier the annual aver
age consumption is about 40, 900
tons, giving 2.23 ID. head.
In Germany the proportion is 5.3
lb. a head in Switzerland 6.6S lb. :;
in Italy only 1.05 h., while in
Belgium it amounts to Id. head,
which is the highest figure reached
by any European country. The
United States are large consumers
averaging as they do about 100, 900
tons a year.
The total annual consumption of
coffee in the world it is impossible
to estimate with any approach to
accuracy owing to the imperfect re-
turns of the quantity retained for
home consumption in the coffee pro-
ducing countries. The total pro-
duction however may be roughly
estimated to-day at something like
800, 900 tons year.
Great Britain is in posses