Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1890-05-15

two fat-faced beans the berry viii contain
/ bat one which is almost round. These axe
called prabsrries and are separated from
the others by screens and sold for q lower
price Their quality seems as strong and
pure, but they are in fact defective grains
and are held at lower value
Coffee plantations are usually laid out in
I quadrangleS, the trees are pmned into
regular ard uniform shape and present at
all times a remarkably beautiful appear
ance. The ground must be irrigated in
any country where coffee viii grow. This
service is kept up until the berry bears
maturity, when the soil Is left to dry, as
better results are thus obtained. And
since at least three crops year aic gath
| cred no l;ttle care must be exercised IN
this matter of irrigation and sui sequent
I driving; for the growing fruit must not
suffer for moisture, neither must the ma
/ turing crop be allowed to freshen and con-
tinue green; and since this problem in
wolves treatment of the single tree, on
which, green, half grown and matmed
cotfe: Is hanging, one can see that the
most skilful treatment is required Ma
tive farmers in Brazil, away from the
| large plantations, raise their coffee in
much the same slipshod manner which OBJ
| tains among negro or Indian farmers in
America They do not trim their trees
very carefully, they only manage TO raise
one full crop year, and they do not get
the best price for that since they do not
thoroughly clean it, But at Rio and San
toS, as well as at Java and Sumatra, rich
companies own their own plantations,
where all Is done with the best business
methods, and not a penny is lost which
care and skill and money can save.
A good many people try to pick out cof-
fee by the color; but this is misleading
All cotfees in this market, excepting Bios,
are called mild, and these latter are most
popular They are naturally less dark in
color than the Bios The Mocha grain is
small and gray. inclined almost to green
The Java and the East Indians are larger
and are yellow in color, while tine Surinan
coffee has the largest grain, and approaches
a brown in shade The West India and
South and Central American Coffees are as
large as the Java and are generally much
darker in color Yet they are not nearly
so strong. Coffee buyers know that a pre-
jUdice exists in favor of dark brown grains,
and so the crop of this present year in
Java will be held as long as is convenient,
and then in nearly every case 1t will be
| shipped to America In sailing vessels, so
that, with matches battened down and the
heat below decks raising plenty of time
may be given the grain TO go through a
sweat which shall leave it at last Just as
the critics M America want ii TO be, Now
the quality of the coffee has not changed.
the color has simply deepened. When
the shiftless farmers OF Brazil bring in
their crop in bags and baskets and square
pieces Of cloth driving it over the noun
tain in a mule train or floating il down
the river on a raft, they sell as quick as
they can and the oyerseer at the warehouse
may dump ten bushels of Parana Santa
coffee into the same heap with four tons
from Bahia simply because they look alike;
yet they will differ vastly in strength De-
casionally, too, coffee Is colOred This is
a thing which all good importers deprecate,
yet it cannot be entirely avoided, as a
wishy-washv grain would lie in grocery
unsold forever, when a little doctoring TO
change its complexion would make it 60
like hot cakes,
As to bogus coffee, one can find it in the
market any day. 1t is always roasted and
ground. Back in war time good many
people were glad to find amy kind of
substitute for coffee. MANY man now
getting gray can remember the days when
he was lad too small for service in the
army, that parched corn, burned rye
dandelin root. blackened moasSei and
meal, and such things, doctored at rare and
prosperous intervals with coffee
essence or preparation of chicory, They
beat nothing a little, but they were not
coffee, and they didn't serve to patch ont
the supply of coffee very successfully,
either But in the latter days a small per
cent. of the bogus may be mixed with a
bulk of genuine and net be detected till
You look in the coffee pot, 1t shows up
there, lot of floating particles Of dark
brown paste But the active principle of
coffee, the caffeine, exists only in this
plant Of the vegetable kingdom. and
nothing else tastes or smells or acts like it,
The price of coffee is believed right now
to be about as high as 1t will 90. The
new crop begins to market July /, and
every indication at present points TO a
good crop throughout the coffee producing
belt of the West Indies, Brazil and Central
America. The product in Mocha and
Java and in the whole Dutch controlled
region never varies much; but coffee
sympathizes in price. If merchants find
Brazilian coffee is selling for % cents they
know Mocha and Java is worth q or q,
and they get it. too. Yet they would have
sold for profit at "a cents had Brazil
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