A NEW OR IMPROVED PROCESS FOR THE PREPARATION OF CON- CENTRATED EXTRACT OF Coffee
Year: 1877

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Henry Johnson at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 13th October 1877. A communication
from abroad by Antoine Zanoletti, of Turin, in the Kingdom of Italy.
JOHN HENRY JOHNSON, of 47, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in the County of Middlesex,
Gentleman. "A NEW OR IMPROVED PROCESS FOR THE PREPARATION OF CON-
CENTRATED EXTRACT OF Coffee." A communication from abroad by Antoine
Zanoletti, of Turin, in the Kingdom of Italy.
This Invention relates to a process for the production in the form of cakes or
tablets of a concentrated extract of coffee. For this purpose coffee of the best quality
obtained from, say, Porto Rico or Costa Rica, is taken and torrefied in the ordinary
manner in revolving cylinders, but with great care, in order that the essential oils
may not be lost by evaporation.
After torrefaction the coffee is ground in a mill of any suitable construction, and
reduced to a fine powder. This powder is then introduced into a displacing
apparatus, and submitted first to the action of a sufficient quantity of ether, and
afterwards to the action of alcohol, in order to extract from it all the matter that is
soluble in these two liquids, and the product is collected in suitable closed
apparatus. These products are then submitted to a concentrating action, either by
the employment of a vacuum produced by an ordinary pneumatic machine, or by
means of distillation in a suitable retort heated by a sand bath, the essential oils
being collected therefrom, and preserved in a closed receptacle, in order to be
afterwards used as herein-after indicated.
Without removing the coffee from the displacing apparatus after the treatment
with ether and alcohol it is submitted to the action of hot water until the whole of
the remaining soluble matter capable of being extracted is exhausted, and the
product collected; this product is afterwards concentrated in a suitable vessel or
boiler with a sand bath until the whole of the water is evaporated, and a tenacious
and semi-fluid paste remains. When a small portion of this paste, on being thrown
on to a marble table, preserves its form and solidifies, the fire is drawn, and the paste
stirred until it has lost one half of its caloric; at this point of the cooling process
the concentrated essence obtained by the ether and the alcohol is introduced in
[Price 2d

page_text: small quantities at a time, and the whole is then poured out upon a marble table
upon which a layer of sugar and gum in fine powder has been previously prepared,
and it is cut up into cakes in the ordinary manner. According to this process no
foreign matter is introduced into the extract of coffee, and a solution of a cake or
tablet of this extract in a cup of boiling water contains all the matter that could be
obtained by the preparation of coffee, according to the ordinary method, but with
the advantage that a superior and cheaper article is produced, by proceeding on a
large scale, and effecting at the same time the developement of the whole of the
odoriferous or aromatic matter as well as the complete exhaustion of all the matter
capable of being extracted.
Sugar may be added in sufficient quantity to the coffee prepared as herein-before
described, and cakes of sweetened coffee are produced in this manner; or boiling
milk may be employed in lieu of boiling water for treating the coffee, and an extract
of coffee with milk will thus be obtained.