All About Coffee

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE EVOLUTION OF COFFEE APPARATUS

Showing the development of coffee-roasting, coffee-grinding, coffee-making, and coffee-serving devices from the earliest time to the present day--The original coffee grinder, the first coffee roaster, and the first coffee pot--The original French drip pot, the De Belloy percolator--Count Rumford's improvement--How the commercial coffee roaster was developed--The evolution of filtration devices--The old Carter "pull-out" roaster--Trade customs in New York and St. Louis in the sixties and seventies--The story of the evolution of the Burns roaster--How the gas roaster was developed in France, Great Britain, and the United States

A book could be written on the subject of this chapter. We shall have to be content to touch briefly upon the important developments in the devices employed. The changes that have taken place in the preparation of the drink itself will be discussed in chapter XXXVI.

In the beginning, that is, in Ethiopia, about 800 A.D., coffee was looked upon as a food. The whole ripe berries, beans and hulls, were crushed, and molded into food balls held in shape with fat. Later, the dried berries were so treated. So the primitive stone mortar and pestle were the original coffee grinder.

The dried hulls and the green beans were first roasted, some time between 1200 and 1300, in crude burnt clay dishes or in stone vessels, over open fires. These were the original roasting utensils.

Next, the coffee beans were ground between little mill-stones, one turning above the other. Then came the mill used by the Greeks and Romans for grain. This mill consisted of two conical mill stones, one hollow and fitted over the other, specimens of which have been found in Pompeii. The idea is the same as that employed in the most modern metal grinder.

Between 1400 and 1500, individual earthenware and metal coffee-roasting plates appeared. These were circular, from four to six inches in diameter, about 1/16 inch thick, slightly concave and pierced with small holes, something like the modern kitchen skimmer. They were used in Turkey and Persia for roasting a few beans at a time over braziers (open pans, or basins, for holding live coals). The braziers were usually mounted on feet and richly ornamented.

About the same time we notice the first appearance of the familiar Turkish pocket cylinder coffee mill and the original Turkish ibrik, or coffee boiler, made of metal. Little drinking cups of Chinese porcelain completed the service.

The original coffee boiler was not unlike the English ale mug with no cover, smaller at the top than at the bottom, fitted with a grooved lip for pouring, and a long straight handle. They were made of brass, and in sizes to hold from one to six tiny cupfuls. A later improvement was of the ewer design, with bulbous body, collar top, and cover.

The Turkish coffee grinder seems to have suggested the individual cylinder roaster which later (1650) became common, and from which developed the huge modern cylinder commercial roasting machines.

[Illustration: THE OLDEST COFFEE GRINDER

Ancient Egyptian mortar and pestle, probably used for pounding coffee]

The individual coffee service of early civilization first employed crude clay bowls or dishes for drinking; but as early as 1350, Persian, Egyptian, and Turkish ewers, made of pottery, were used for serving. In the seventeenth century, ewers of similar pattern, but made of metal, were the favorite coffee-serving devices in oriental countries and in western Europe.

Between 1428 and 1448, a spice grinder standing on four legs was invented; and this was later used for grinding coffee. The drawer to receive the ground coffee was added in the eighteenth century.

Between 1500 and 1600, shallow iron dippers with long handles and foot-rests, designed to stand in open fires, were used in Bagdad, and by the Arabs in Mesopotamia, for roasting coffee. These roasters had handles about thirty-four inches long, and the bowls were eight inches in diameter. They were accompanied by a metal stirrer (spatula) for turning the beans.

[Illustration: GRAIN MILL OF GREEKS AND ROMANS

Also used for grinding coffee]

Another type of roaster was developed about 1600. It was in the shape of an iron spider on legs, and was designed, like that just described, to sit in open fires. At this period pewter serving pots were first used.

Between 1600 and 1632, mortars and pestles of wood, iron, brass, and bronze came into common use in Europe for braying the roasted beans. For several centuries, coffee connoisseurs held that pounding the beans in a mortar was superior to grinding in the most efficient mill. Peregrine White's parents brought to America on the Mayflower, in 1620, a wooden mortar and pestle that were used for braying coffee to make coffee "powder."

[Illustration: THE FIRST COFFEE ROASTER, ABOUT 1400]

When La Roque speaks of his father bringing back to Marseilles from Constantinople in 1644 the instruments for making coffee, he undoubtedly refers to the individual devices which at that time in the Orient included the roaster plate, the cylinder grinder, the small long-handled boiler, and fenjeyns (findjans), the little porcelain drinking cups.

[Illustration: THE FIRST CYLINDER ROASTER, ABOUT 1650]

When Bernier visited Grand Cairo about the middle of the seventeenth century, in all the city's thousand-odd coffee houses he found but two persons who understood the art of roasting the bean.

About 1650, there was developed the individual cylinder coffee roaster made of metal, usually tin plate or tinned copper, suggested by the original Turkish pocket grinder. This was designed for use over open fires in braziers. There appeared about this time also a combined making-and-serving metal pot which was undoubtedly the original of the common type of pot that we know today.

There appeared in England about 1660, Elford's white iron machine (sheet iron coated with tin) which was "turned on a spit by a jack.[362]" This was simply a larger size of the individual cylinder roaster, and was designed for family or commercial use. Modifications were developed by the French and Dutch. In the seventeenth century the Italians produced some beautiful designs in wrought-iron coffee roasters.

[Illustration: HISTORICAL RELICS IN THE PETER COLLECTION, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM

1--Bagdad coffee-roasting pan and stirrer. 2--Iron mortar and pestle used for pounding coffee. 3--Coffee mill used by General and Mrs. Washington. 4--Coffee-roasting pan used at Mt. Vernon. 5--Bagdad coffee pot with crow-bill spout]

Before the advent of the Elford machine, and indeed, for two centuries thereafter, it was the common practise in the home to roast coffee in uncovered earthenware tart dishes, old pudding pans, and fry pans. Before the time of the modern kitchen stove, it was usually done over charcoal fires without flame.

The improved Turkish combination coffee grinder with folding handle and cup receptacle for the beans, used for grinding, boiling, and drinking, was first made in Damascus in 1665. About this period, the Turkish coffee set, including the long-handled boiler and the porcelain drinking cups in brass holders, also came into vogue.

In 1665, Nicholas Book, "living at the Sign of the Frying Pan in St. Tulies street," London, advertised that he was "the only known man for making of mills for grinding of coffee powder, which mills are sold by him from forty to forty-five shillings the mill."

By combining the long-handle idea contained in the Bagdad roaster with that of the original cylinder roaster, the Dutch perfected a small, closed, sheet-iron cylinder-roaster with a long handle that permitted its being held and turned in open fire places. From 1670, and well into the middle of the nineteenth century, this type of family roaster enjoyed great favor in Holland, France, England, and the United States, more especially in the country districts. The museums of Europe and the United States contain many specimens. The iron cylinder measured about five inches in diameter, and was from six to eight inches long, being attached to a three or four foot iron rod provided with a wooden handle. The green coffee was put into the cylinder through a sliding door. Balancing the roaster over the blaze by resting the end of the iron rod projecting from the far end of the roasting cylinder in a hook of the usual fireplace crane, the housekeeper was wont slowly to revolve the cylinder until the beans had turned the proper color.

[Illustration: TURKISH COFFEE MILL

A fine specimen in the Peter collection, United States National Museum]

Portable coffee-making outfits to fit the pocket were much in vogue in France in 1691. These included a roaster, a grinder, a lamp, the oil, cups, saucers, spoons, coffee, and sugar. The roaster was first made of tin plate or tinned copper; but for the aristocracy silver and gold were used. In 1754, a white-silver coffee roaster eight inches long and four inches in diameter was mentioned among the deliveries made to the army of the king at Versailles.

[Illustration: EARLY FRENCH WALL AND TABLE GRINDERS

Left, seventeenth-century coffee grinder in the Musée de la Porte de Hal--Center, wall mill, eighteenth century--Right, iron mill, eighteenth century]

Humphrey Broadbent, "the London coffee man" wrote in 1722:

I hold it best to roast coffee berries in an iron vessel full of little holes, made to turn on a spit over a charcoal fire, keeping them continually turning, and sometimes shaking them that they do not burn, and when they are taken out of the vessel, spread 'em on some tin or iron plate 'till the vehemency of the heat is vanished; I would recommend to every family to roast their own coffee, for then they will be almost secure from having any damaged berries, or any art to increase the weight, which is very injurious to the drinkers of coffee. Most persons of distinction in Holland roast their own berries.

[Illustration: BRONZE AND BRASS MORTARS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY USED FOR MAKING COFFEE POWDER

Left, bronze (Germany)--Center, brass (England)--Right, bronze (Holland, 1632)]

Between 1700 and 1800, there was developed a type of small portable household stove to burn coke or charcoal, made of iron and fitted with horizontal revolving cylinders for coffee roasting. These were provided with iron handles for turning. A modification of this type of roaster under a three-sided hood, and standing on three legs, was designed to sit on the hearth of open fireplaces, close to the fire or in the smoldering ashes. Because of its greater capacity, it was probably used in the inns and coffee houses for roasting large batches. Still another type, which made its appearance late in the eighteenth century, was the sheet-iron roaster suspended at the top of a tall, iron, box-like compartment, or stove, in which the fire was built. This, too, was designed to roast coffee in comparatively large quantities. In some examples it was provided with legs.

Great silver coffee pots ("with all the utensils belonging to them of the same metal") were first used by Pascal at St.-Germain's fair in Paris in 1672. It remained for the English and American silversmiths to produce the most beautiful forms of silver coffee pots; and there are some notable collections of these in England and the United States.

The oriental serving pot was nearly always of metal, tall, and, in old models, of graceful curve, with a slightly twisted ornamental beak in the form of an S, attached below the middle of the vessel. A handle ornamented in the same way formed a decorative balance.

In 1692, the lantern straight-line coffee serving pot with true cone lid, thumb-piece, and handle fixed at right angle to the spout, was introduced into England, succeeding the curved oriental serving pot. In 1700, coffee pots made of cheaper metals, like tin and Britannia ware, began to appear on the home tables of the people. In 1701, silver coffee pots appeared in England having perfect domes and bodies less tapering. Between 1700 and 1800, silver, gold, and delicate porcelain serving pots were the vogue among European royalty.

[Illustration: EARLY AMERICAN COFFEE ROASTERS

Both the cast-iron spiders and the long-handled roasters were used in open fireplaces previous to 1770]

In 1704, Bull's machine for roasting coffee was patented in England. This probably marks the first use of coal for commercial roasting.

In 1710, the popular coffee roaster in French homes was a dish of varnished earthenware. This same year a novelty was introduced in France in the shape of a fustian (linen) bag for infusing ground coffee.

By 1714, the thumb-piece on English serving pots had disappeared, and the handle was no longer set at a right angle to the spout. English coffee-pot bodies showed a further modification in 1725, the taper becoming less and less.

Coffee grinders were so common in France in 1720 that they were to be had for a dollar and twenty cents each. Their development by the French had been rapid from the original spice grinder. At first, they were known as coffee mills; but in the eighteenth century, roasters came to be known by that name. They were made of iron, retaining the same principle of the horizontal mill-stones--one of which is fixed while the other moves--that the ancients employed for grinding wheat. They were squat, box-shaped affairs, having in the center a shank of iron that revolved upon a fixed, corrugated iron plate. There was also the style that fastened to the wall. At first, the drawer to receive ground coffee was missing, but this was supplied in later types. Before its invention, the ground coffee was received in a sack of greased leather, or in one treated on the outside with beeswax--probably the original of the duplex paper bag for conserving the flavor.

[Illustration: ROASTER WITH THREE-SIDED HOOD

It succeeded the cast-iron spider, and was suspended from a crane, or stood in the embers]

[Illustration: ROASTING, MAKING, AND SERVING DEVICES

Early seventeenth century, as pictured by Dufour]

The French brought their innate artistic talents to bear upon coffee grinders, just as they did upon roasters and serving pots. In many instances they made the outer parts of silver and of gold.

By 1750, the straight-line serving pot in England had begun to yield to the reactionary movement in art favoring bulbous bodies and serpentine spouts.

About 1760, French inventors began to devote themselves to improvements in coffee-making devices. Donmartin, a Paris tinsmith, in 1763, invented an urn pot that employed a flannel sack for infusing. Another infusion device, produced the same year by L'Ainé, also a tinsmith of Paris, was known as a diligence.

A complete revolution in the style of English serving pots took place in 1770, with a return to the flowing lines of the Turkish ewer; and between 1800 and 1900, there was a gradual return to the style of serving pot having the handle at a right angle to the spout.

[Illustration: ENGLISH AND FRENCH COFFEE GRINDERS

Nineteenth century]

In 1779, Richard Dearman was granted an English patent on a new method of making mills for grinding coffee. In 1798, the first American patent on an improved coffee grinding mill was granted to Thomas Bruff, Sr. It was a wall mill, fitted with iron plates, in which the coffee was ground between two circular nuts, three inches broad and having coarse teeth around their centers and fine shallow teeth at the edges.

De Belloy's (or Du Belloy's) coffee pot appeared in Paris about 1800. It was first made of tin; but later, of porcelain and silver--the original French drip pot. This device was never patented; but it appears to have furnished the inspiration for many inventors in France, England, and the United States. The first French patent on a coffee maker was granted to Denobe, Henrion, and Rouch in 1802. It was for a "pharmacological-chemical coffee-making device by infusion." Charles Wyatt obtained a patent the same year in London on an apparatus for distilling coffee. The De Belloy pot is illustrated on page 622.

In 1806, Hadrot was granted a French patent on a device "for filtering coffee without boiling and bathed in air." This use of the word filtering was misleading, as it was many times after in French, English, and American patent nomenclature, where it often meant percolation or something quite different from filtration. True percolation means to drip through fine interstices of china or metal. Filtration means to drip through a porous substance, usually cloth or paper. De Belloy's pot was a percolator. So was Hadrot's. The improvement on which Hadrot got his patent was to "replace the white iron filter (sic) used in ordinary filtering pots by a filter composed of hard tin and bismuth" and to use "a rammer of the same metal, pierced with holes." The rammer was designed to press down and to smooth out the powdered coffee in an even and uniform fashion. "It also," says Hadrot in his specification, "stops the derangement which boiling water poured from a height can produce. It is held by its stem a half inch from the surface of the powder so that it receives only the action of the water which it divides and facilitates thus the extraction which it must produce in each of the particles."

[Illustration: EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ROASTER

Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.]

A coffee percolator was invented in Paris about 1806 by Benjamin Thompson, F.R.S., an American-British scientist, philanthropist, and administrator. He was known as Count Rumford, a title bestowed on him by the Pope. Rumford's invention was first given to the public in London in 1812. He has gained great credit for his device, because of an elaborate essay that he wrote on it in Paris under the title of The excellent qualities of coffee and the art of making it in the highest perfection, and that he caused to be published in London in 1812. It was a simple percolator pot provided with a hot-water jacket, and was a real improvement on the French drip or percolator coffee pot invented by De Belloy, but not at all unlike Hadrot's patented device. Count Rumford, however, was a picturesque character, and a good advertiser. He is generally credited with the invention of the coffee percolator; but examination of his device shows that, strictly speaking, the De Belloy pot was just as much a percolator, and apparently antedated it by about six years.

[Illustration: THE ORIGINAL FRENCH DRIP POT

Cafetière à la De Belloy]

De Belloy employed the principle of having the boiling water drip through the ground coffee when held in suspension by a perforated metal or porcelain grid. This is true percolation. Hadrot did the same thing with the improvements noted above. Count Rumford in his essay admits that this method of making coffee was not new, but claims his improvement was. This was to provide a rammer for compressing the ground coffee in the upper or percolating device into a definite thickness, this being accomplished by providing the perforated circular tin disk water-spreader that rested on the ground coffee with four projections, or feet, that kept the spreader within half an inch of the grid holding the powder in suspension and free from "agitation."

His argument was that two-thirds of an inch of ground coffee should be leveled and compressed into a half-inch thickness before the boiling water was introduced. Practically the same result was achieved in the De Belloy and Hadrot pots, also provided with water-spreaders and pluggers, but the same mathematical exactitude in the matter of the depth of the ground coffee before the percolation started was not assured. De Belloy's spreader did not have the projections on the under side upon which Count Rumford laid such stress. Then there was the hot-water jacket, which was an improvement on Hadrot's hot air bath. Inventors that followed Rumford have made light of the importance that he attached to scientific accuracy in coffee-making; but it is interesting to note how many of the features of the De Belloy, Hadrot, and Rumford pots have been retained in the modern complex coffee machines, and in most of the filtration devices.

[Illustration: BELGIAN, RUSSIAN, AND FRENCH PEWTER SERVING POTS

These are in the Metropolitan Museum and are of nineteenth century design]

French inventors continued to apply themselves to coffee-roasting and coffee-making problems, and many new ideas were evolved. Some of these were improved upon by the Dutch, the Germans, and the Italians; but the best work in the line of improvements that have survived the test of time was done in England and the United States.

In 1815, Sené was granted a French patent on "a device to make coffee without boiling." In 1819, Laurens produced the original of the percolation device in which the boiling water is raised by a tube and sprayed over the ground coffee. The same year Morize, a Paris tinsmith and lamp-maker, followed with a reversible, double drip pot which was the pioneer of all the reversible filtration pots of Europe and America. Gaudet, another tinsmith, in 1820, patented an improvement on the percolator idea, that employed a cloth filter. By 1825, the pumping percolator, working by steam pressure and by partial vacuum, was much used in France, Holland, Germany, and Austria.

Meanwhile, it was common practise to roast coffee in England in "an iron pan or in hollow cylinders made of sheet iron"; while in Italy, the practise was to roast it in glass flasks, which were fitted with loose corks. The flasks were "held over clear fires of burning coals and continually agitated." Anthony Schick was granted an English patent in 1812, on a method, or process, for roasting coffee; but as he never filed his specifications, we shall probably never know what the process was. The custom of the day in England was to pound the roasted beans in a mortar, or to grind them in a French mill.

[Illustration: COUNT RUMFORD'S PERCOLATOR]

In 1822, Louis Bernard Rabaut was granted an English patent in which the French drip process was reversed by using steam pressure to force the boiling water upward through the coffee mass. Casseneuve, a Paris tinsmith, seems to have patented practically the same idea in France in 1824. Casseneuve employed a paper filter in his machine.

In America, a United States patent was granted in 1813 to Alexander Duncan Moore of New Haven on a mill "for grinding and pounding coffee." This was followed by a patent granted to Increase Wilson, of New London, in 1818, on a steel mill for grinding coffee.

[Illustration: PEWTER POTS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Left to right, they are German, Flemish, English, and Dutch specimens in the Metropolitan Museum]

[Illustration: PATENT DRAWINGS OF EARLY FRENCH COFFEE MAKERS

Left, drip pot of 1806--Next two, Durant's inner-tube pot, 1827--Next (fourth), Gandais' first practicable percolator, 1827--Right, Grandin & Crepeaux' percolator, 1832]