Improvements in or relating to Coffee or Coffee Substitutes.
Year: 1895

page_text: Date of Application, 17th Aug., 1895-Accepted, 4th July, 1896
Improvements in or relating to Coffee or Coffee Substitutes.
A communication from ARTHUR DELCROIX, of Nivelles, in the Kingdom of
Belgium, Manufacturer.
I, ALFRED JULIUS BOULT of 323 High Holborn, in the County of Middlesex,
Chartered Patent Agent, do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in
what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and
ascertained in and by the following statement :-
Rational and economical alimentation is one of the most important questions of
the day, in relation to people in general.
Coffee, one of the principal products in daily use will herein be treated.
Europe is not a producer of coffee, and is therefore indebted to foreign countries
for this product.
In drinking coffee, its special attraction lies in its aroma, and it is well known
that coffee loses enormously during roasting, in point of aroma.
This aroma should be preserved, and consequently it is necessary to recover it
by some practical means.
My correspondent for a long time has studied this question of the recovery or
retention of the aromas lost by coffee, in the ordinary process of roasting, and has
come to the conclusion that the most practical and least onerous of methods is to
employ for this purpose a suitably appropriate-recuperative material.
Upon examination of other processes relating to the production of the (so-called)
"Simili-coffees," it is found that most of them praise and prescribe the steeping
of cereals or malts, before roasting, in water more or less luke-warm or even
warm.
My correspondent asserts that this has no ameliorative effect on the quality of
the cereals, unless the water employed is at a temperature relatively hot.
It is recognised that grain is permeable by hot water, and that water more or
less warm has only the effect of impregnating the interior with the flavour of the
husk proper-the flavour rendered permanent by torrefaction. (This flavour is
transmitted by the natural process of endosmose.)
Under these conditions one can only thus obtain a product all but valueless, and
wherein whatever aroma of coffee may be introduced is sophisticated and disguised
by another flavour.
In order that any recuperative material should be apt to take up the lost aroma
of coffee, it is necessary previously to deprive it of any flavour natural to it.
According to the present invention this result is obtained by steaming the grain
before roasting.
This steaming may be effected by placing the grain in a perforated tray fitted
over a trough or vessel containing water heated or kept boiling by a furnace, steam
coils or other means.. If desired the steaming may be effected in a closed chamber
and a fan or exhauster be connected to its upper part above the before mentioned
perforated tray so as to draw the steam from the chamber after it has been brought
into contact with the grain and thereby carry away the objectionable flavour along
with the steam.
The best method-one indeed which has for long been used of subsequently
giving to the grain the flavour of coffee, is to roast it at the same time and mixed
with the coffee, in the same roaster.

page_text: The apparatus to be used, as well for the preliminary preparation of the grain,
as for roasting the grain and the coffee beans together, may be constructed
according to numerous systems, without in any way detracting from the effect, or
diminishing the essential value of this principle.
The "Simili-coffees" at present flooding the markets by force of advertisement,
(e.g. acorn juice and tannin) possess generally nothing of coffee but the name.
The object of this invention is to supply the people, at a moderate price, with a
product. at once nutritive and beneficial and which on decoction, gives a beverage
in, every respect comparable with genuine Colonial coffee which is in fact its
basis.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of the said inven-
tion, as communicated to me by my foreign correspondent, and in what manner the
same is to be performed, I declare that what I claim is ;-
The preliminary treatment by steam of cereals or other grain intended to be
employed subsequently, with or as a substitute for coffee the said steam employed
in such treatment being exhausted after having been brought in contact with the
grain and carrying away with it the objectionable flavour of the grain which is by
this operation deprived of the flavour of the husk in itself often extremely
empyreumatic.
Teted thin 17th dor of Aurenet 1895