Concordia Coffee House

Though the arabica coffees produced on this Indonesian island are scarce, they are superior to those produced on neighboring Java. Part of the reason is that Sumatra’s arabica crop is still hand-tended and hand-picked. In general, they are rich, mellow, and relatively low in acid. Their heavy body makes them a good choice if you like your coffee with milk, since the flavor survives the mixture.

The coffee called Mandheling is the best and heaviest of all. It is so rich that. even when light-roasted, it tastes almost like an espresso roast. Almost syrupy on the palate. Mandheling also has a pronounced and pleasant aroma. Another coffee, Ankola, is not quite so rich, but still excellent. Sumatran arabica coffees are an excellent value.

Mandheling
Ankola

Guatemalan coffees are distinguished by their almost smoky flavor and their high acidity. The very best are grown in the high-mountain regions of Antigua, Arnatitlan, and Coban. The Coban is sometimes almost bitter. Note, too, that Guatemalan beans may not look exactly pretty. The Antiguas, especially, tend to split during roasting, but their rough appearance does not spoil their fine flavor.

The giant arabicacoffee bean Maragogtpe is produced in all parts of Guatemala. Because it grows better at lower elevations than other arabica varieties, the Maragogipe coffee tree is usually cultivated in lowland areas and its beans should not be expected to equal the flavor of high-grown coffees.

Antigua
Amatitlan
Coban
Maragogipe

Although Turkey is not a coffee-producing country. Turkish coffee is almost as famous as Mocha and Java. One reason is that the Turks probably have contributed more to the mystique of coffee-drinking than any other of the world’s cultures. The traditional Turkish coffee ceremony is still practiced in many parts of the world, where Middle Eastern people gather for social or business purposes. Even when you order Turkish coffee in an authentic Middle Eastern restaurant, you are served more than a demitasse cup of a sweet, thick, strong coffee. You are provided a small share of an ancient tradition symbolizing the finest of Middle Eastern hospitality. ‘

Good Turkish coffee should have foam or froth on the surface when it is served, in accordance with a cardinal rule of the Turkish coffee ceremony which states that “if the froth is absent from the face of the coffee, the host loses face.” The froth is produced by bringing the coffee to a boil three times without allowing it to boil over. The cone-shaped pot, or ibrik; is ideal for the ceremony since it permits the froth from each “boil-up” to accumulate until there is enough foam for each of the cups that will share the contents of the ibrtk;

The complete ceremony requires that the host start with a supply of green beans, one way to assure the guests that the coffee they will be served will be prepared from freshly roasted beans. The beans are dark-roasted, then ground to a fine powder using a heavy brass mortar with a brass pestle. Spices such as cardamom, cloves, or cinnamon may be mixed with the coffee as it is being ground.

Approximately 1 tablespoon of ground coffee is used for each demitasse serving of about 3 fluid ounces. During the first boil, 1 teaspoon of sugar is added to the mixture for each serving. If a spice was not mixed with the coffee during the grinding step, it usually is added during the boiling. Each time the coffee is brought to a boil, it is removed from the heat.

When the coffee has gone through its third “boil-up,” it is removed from the heat and poured in the demitasse cups for serving. By tradition, the host is served first and takes a sip of the beverage to demonstrate that it contains no harmful substance. Otherwise, the guests are served according to their rank or stature. Because of the honor of being invited to participate in the ceremony, it is considered impolite to refuse to accept a cup of the coffee.

Turkish coffee is taken as hot as the mouth can tolerate. It is to be sipped slowly and gently, almost as if it were being inhaled, so that each molecule of fragrance and flavor can be appreciated. Swallowing the coffee grounds is not mandatory, but it is usual.

Few homes can afford the space and expense required for a commercial espresso machine. but there are a number of small machines on the market that very closely reproduce the quality produced by the larger devices. The principle of operation is essentially the same: steaming hot water is forced through finely ground, dark-roasted coffee so that the maximum extraction of the coffee liquor is achieved in the minimum amount of time.

Satisfactory home espresso coffee makers are sold in a number of department and specialty stores at prices ranging over a wide scale. Not unexpectedly, the more expensive versions make a smoother cup of espresso and usually come with accessories for preparing cappuccino as well. They depend either on a hand-pulled lever whose spring action forces hot water through the ground coffee, or on hydraulic pressure that requires only the energy needed to push a button to start the process. A typical hydraulic-powered espresso machine contains a hot-water reservoir that holds enough water for 20 servings and an electric element to control the temperature of the water.

Less elaborate but almost as effective are the stove-top espresso pots, the original model of which was called Moka Express. In these machines. the water vapor that is created just before boiling is forced through the coffee grounds and into an upper reservoir, where it condenses back into liquid and from which it can be served. The Moka Express and its imitators make a fine cup of espresso. but you should look for the models made of stainless steel rather than aluminum. The latter leaves an unpleasant taste in the coffee.

Remember when planning your espresso needs that espresso is usually measured in demitasse sizes. For a regular cup of coffee or tea. double everything. When purchasing the equipment. don’t be misled by the number of cups claimed by the promotional material to be the machine’s capacity, because the yield in full cups is often less. It’s better to select an espresso maker that may be too large than to invest in one that may not be adequate.

The term espresso is derived from the Italian word for speed. Many Americans call it expresso. But the meaning has been lost in the years since espresso was introduced, and today the word suggests a small cup of hot, dark coffee that is consumed at a leisurely pace rather than in a hurry. It is not the coffee-break drink or the coffee for a last sip before rushing off to the job. Espresso is the coffee to have at the end of a good meal, when there is time to relax and linger.

Technically, espresso coffee is a beverage made in an espresso machine, a device designed to brew coffee instantaneously under steam pressure. There are a number of different kinds of espresso machines on the market. There are also coffee makers that sometimes pass for espresso devices but that are actually small Italian-style drip pots called macchinetta.

The original espresso machines were invented in 1903, more or less simultaneously in Milan and Turin, Desiderio Pavonl, in Milan, built his machine to produce 150 cups of coffee an hour with steam pressure. He called his machine Ideale. In Turin, meanwhile, Pier Teresio Arduino designed an espresso machine that would turn out 1,000 individual cups of coffee an hour. Arduino named his machine for his wife, La Victoria Ardulno. Arduino also introduced the tradition of decorating the espresso machine with a picture of an eagle, or condor. The machine was a towering boiler with spigots, handles, and gauges. Each spigot was designed to hold a filter containing enough strong, finely ground, dark-roasted coffee for one cup of espresso. Turning the spigot allowed a shot of steaming hot water to be forced through the coffee grounds, producing an instant cup of real coffee. However, the original espresso machines did have their shortcomings. Too much hot steam could scald the coffee grounds, yielding a cup of bitter, overly extracted coffee.

New and better designs of espresso machines appeared after World War II. A horizontal boiler was introduced that prevented scalding. The resulting brew was so smooth and flavorful that it was promoted briefly as cream coffee. Customers continued to call the product espresso as before.

A macchinetta consists of two metal cylinders, one with a pouring spout, and a small coffee basket that fits between the two cylinders. Water is poured into the cylinder without the spout, two level tablespoons of drip- or fine-ground Italian-roast coffee are placed in the basket for each demitasse-sized cup of beverage desired, the parts are fitted together carefully, and the complete device is placed over the flame. When steam begins to shoot from a tiny hole in the lower part of the macchinetta. the whole brewer is removed from the heat and turned upside down. The boiling water filters through the coffee grounds into the cylinder with the spout and the beverage is ready to serve. Coffee from a macchinetta is a delightful brew. even though it is not really espresso. For the purist, macchinetta coffee is called Italian coffee. It may even be spelled on the menus in the Italian way with two fs and one e, as in caffe.

A type of coffee maker preferred by some is the European plunger. which consists of a glass cylinder with a metal rod extending through the center. Protruding from the top end of the rod is a plastic knob, and at the bottom end is a perforated plunger that fits snugly around the inside of the glass cylinder. Coffee grounds are placed in the cylinder and boiling hot water is poured over the grounds. They are allowed to steep, like tea, for about five minutes. Then the plunger is pushed down over the wet grounds to separate the beverage from the grounds. The hot coffee is then poured from the glass cylinder. The beverage is strong and bitter, a brew that appeals to some coffee drinkers.

A half-century ago. nearly three-fourths of the homes in North America prepared coffee in a pump percolator. especially an electric model with the heat element built into the bottom of the pot. Although many coffee lovers still swear by the electric percolator. all electric percolators do not make a good cup of coffee and do not make a cup of coffee quickly. Because a pump percolator usually has a glass top through which one can see the hot water spurting, an illusion is created that the water is boiling hot. But it is the pumping action that causes the fountain spray of water at the top. not the temperature of the water. As a result, an electric percolator often fails to do a proper job of extracting coffee from the grounds. Furthermore. a stove-top pump percolator can produce coffee in less than 10 minutes. but some electric percolators require more than 20 minutes to yield a questionable tepid beverage.

The vacuum coffee maker is a complicated device in which steam is generated in a glass bowl connected to a holding container of coffee grounds and hot water. When the heat under the glass bowl is removed, the reduced pressure causes a partial vacuum that draws the hot water through the coffee grounds and into the glass bowl.

The vacuum coffee maker was invented in 1840 by the Scottish scientist Robert Napier. who failed to obtain a patent for the device. However. many variations of the original vacuum coffee maker appeared on the market in subsequent years. each patented by an individual who claimed to have found a way to improve on the Napier invention. One required a hand pump to help force the hot water through the coffee grounds, which were contained in a perforated chamber that had to be screwed to the bottom of the coffee maker. Few coffee drinkers today would have the time or inclination to follow the steps required to obtain coffee by such a laborious method.

With the development of heat-resistant glass, vacuum coffee makers enjoyed a long period of popularity, particularly in the United States during the twenties and thirties, because the design enables a person to watch a dramatic beverage-making process. The vacuum is still quite popular in Japan, especially in the finer Koohi Shoppus (coffee shops).

The modem drip coffee maker receives the hot water from a reservoir or container above the grounds. The water drips through the ground coffee and into a carafe below. Some coffee lovers claim that drip coffee is superior because the hot water passes through the ground coffee only once. (Percolator enthusiasts prefer a beverage made by having the hot water recirculated through the ground coffee). In a blind test conducted a few years ago by the Consumers Union, only a coffee expert was able to determine whether a cup of coffee had been made by the drip or the percolator method.

The automatic drip coffee maker is similar to the traditional drip coffee maker except that it has a reservoir of hot water that is released into the coffee grounds when fresh tap or bottled water is added to the reservoir. The automatic drip coffee maker also uses a paper filter liner for the basket holding the coffee grounds. After the hot coffee has finished dripping through the filter, the basket can be turned upsidedown over an open trash bag. The filter with wet grounds drops out and, after being rinsed in warm water, the basket is ready for another batch of coffee.

The earliest bona fide coffee maker was the ibrik; the small brass pot with a long narrow handle that is still used in Middle Eastern restaurants that serve Turkish or Armenian coffee. It is a very simple device, containing two or three cups of water and held over the fire until the water boils. It is then removed, the finely ground coffee is put directly into the water, and it is brought once again to a boil. In fact, it maybe boiled and allowed to cool briefly several times before it is served.

The ibrik makes a very thick coffee. Sugar may be added to the beverage. And, as is done by many coffee consumers of the Levant, the wet, pulverized, and sweetened coffee grounds can be ingested along with the liquid portion of the beverage. When coffee was introduced to Europeans in the seventeenth century, much of it was prepared in and served from ibriks, and the small, demitasse-size cups or glasses of the Middle East were the vessels from which the first European coffee imbibers took the beverage in “little swallows.”

By the start of the eighteenth century. Europeans had begun designing larger and fancier coffee pots made of gold, silver, tin, or porcelain. They had lids and handles at right angles to the pouring spouts, but the coffee was still boiled. The break-through to modem methods of coffee-making occurred in France in 1802, when a patent was granted for a “pharmacological-chemical coffee-making device by infusion.” At about the same time, coffee makers in the form of distillation contrivances, drip pots, and percolators began to appear throughout North America and Europe.

Except for the ibrik users of the world and some die-hard outdoor types, few people today boil their coffee. Most homes use either a drip coffee maker or a percolator. And the modem percolator is sometimes identified as a pump percolator. because it contains a pump tube through which the hot water is forced up and over the ground coffee by the pressure of the steam vapor bubbles that form around the source of heat at the bottom.

The best of Venezuela’s coffees grow against the Colombian border in the Andes mountains. and are shipped from the port of Maracaibo. Indeed.the beans called Cúcutas are actually grown on the Colombian side and only shipped from Venezuela. Cúcutas and Táchiras taste much like Colombian beans, being rich and somewhat acidy. Táehlras are often so sharp that they are favored as the strong partner in blends. Coffee from Mérida, on the other hand, is very low in acid but not at all dull. Its delicate body is highly prized.

Another growing region surrounds the city of Caracas. Its beans make a light-bodied but pleasant brew that is very popular in Europe.

Cúcuta
Táchlra
Mérida
Caracas

One of the world’s classic coffees, Mocha comes only from Yemen-or the Yernens, since now there are two. The beanis named for the port from which it was shipped until a sandbar closed the harbor in the early nineteenth century. Although the bean is irregular and ugly, it produces a unique brew: piquant, bittersweet, and very full-bodied, its high acidity makes it an excellent coffee to blend with the mellow Sumatra, Java, or milder Latin American coffees. The British like it blended with Mysore.

Grown on irrigated hillsides in the hot, dry climate of Araby, the ‘Mocha beans are the descendants of those that sustained the dervish Omar and delighted the goatherd Kaldl. The two chief varieties of Mocha are called Hodeida Shortberry and Sanaa Mocha. Since the beans are irregular, it pays to buy those that have been graded for as much uniformity as possible. Shortberrles are uniformly small beans. The grades called Mocha Extra and Mocha I should include beans of uniform size with a minimum of imperfections. True Mocha beans of any grade have been quite scarce since the Yemeni civil war split the country.

The confusion that has led people to identify the taste of Mocha with chocolate has its origin in the court of Louis XVI. A confection created for the king contained both chocolate and Mocha coffee, but ihe pastry was dubbed Mocha. Cafes and instant-coffee manufacturers continued the confusion by serving drinks containing both coffee and chocolate and calling them Mocha. The true Mocha coffee. however, has nothing to do with chocolate.

Mocha

This mountainous country is a source of arabica coffees comparable to those of neighboring Guatemala. The quality of coffees from EI Salvador, as in many other producing countries, improves with the altitude above sea level of the producing farm or plantation. Coffees from this Central American nation that are grown above 1,200 meters (4,000 feet) are enjoyed for their mild. somewhat sweet taste and medium acidity. However, they lack a distinctive flavor or aroma. Those grown at lower elevations, sometimes graded as Central Standard (as distinguished from High Grown) tend to be less full-bodied and more acidy.

EI Salvador

Some say that coffee takes its name from the Kaffa region of Ethiopia, which may be the native home of the arabica bean. Some Ethiopian coffee still grows wild in the Djimmah, Stdamo, and Kaffa areas, where it is picked and sun-dried by the local populace. Beans sold as Djimmahs betray their wild origin: they are small, irregular, and generally ugly. Gourmets who prefer ali-natural products enjoy the earthy, spicy flavor and the slightly pungent aftertaste of Djimmah.

There is some disagreement about the virtues of Djimmah, but none about the coffees of Harrar. Sometimes known as Harrar longberry or Ethiopian Mocca, the bean is indeed a close relative of true Mocha and, like its relative, it is carefully cultivated. The Harrar bean yields a liquor that is as deep in color as claret. Its flavor is strong, winey, thick. Indeed, because it is so pronounced in flavor, it is an excellent choice for thestrong partner tn a blend. Try matching it with Colombian or mild Central American beans.

Djimmah
Harrar

High-grown coffees from Jamaica are the finest in the Caribbean and among the finest in the world. The famous Blue Mountain beans grow on the slopes of the 2,251-meter (7,388 feet) mountain of that name, in plantations controlled by the Jamaican government. The roasted beans yield a mellow, aromatic brew, mildly acid and quite full-bodied. The whole effect is as delicate as broth. Blue Mountain coffee is one of the rarest coffees in the world.

Other Jamaican beans are scarce but not rare. Jamaican High Mountain coffee is grown in the Blue Mountain region on land owned by the giant Salada Tea Company. Four times as much acreage is devoted to the growing of High Mountain as is devoted to Blue Mountain, so the former is not quite so rare. Flavors are comparably excellent, although devotees of Blue Mountain detect more delicacy in their favorite. Jamaican Mountain Choice coffee is the name for coffees grown by a cooperative of small farmers. Their beans, too, are excellent, when you can find them. The most commonly seen Jamaican coffee is called either Prime Washed or just Jamaican. Though it is a fine, mellow coffee in itself, itis not the equal of its scarcer compatriots.

Blue Mountain
High Mountain
Jamaican Mountain Choice
Prime Washed

Properly grinding the roasted bean enhances the flavor of coffee. but ground coffee also loses its flavor quickly While the finer grinds of coffee increase the number of beanparticle surfaces exposed to the hot water in the coffee brewer. they also expose more of the particle surfaces to the oxygen in the air. Oxygen combines with the aromatic chemicals in the bean to promote staleness. Once it has been ground. the coffee should be used as rapidly as possible.

Grinding your own beans. therefore. is not a mere affectation. Coffee beans that have not been ground will retain their flavor from two to three times as long as ground beans. Although the flavor of the bean is established in the roasting process. the substances that are responsible for the flavor are locked inside the bean until it is pulverized in a grinder. The locked-in flavor of whole. roasted beans can be extended by grinding only as many beans as you need for each batch of beverage.

A freshly roasted bean will hold its flavor at room temperature for about a week. so unless you live a long way from a reliable supplier or want to store a quantity in the freezer. buy only the amount of whole roasted beans you expect to use in a week. A pound of coffee is usually enough for six or eight cups a day for a week.

If you make your own blends. be wary of accumulating a large variety of different kinds of coffee. They can become stale faster than you can savor the results of your experiments. If you have a friend who also enjoys blending and brewing coffees from the original beans. you can share purchases or trade the excess quantities.

Coffee grinders are not all alike. In stores that handle merchandise from the Middle East. it is possible to purchase a heavy brass mortar and pestle of the type that has been used in the Levant for centuries to grind coffee beans. This method substitutes human muscle power for electric power but it is effective and is guaranteed to strengthen the wrists and arms. Since it has no moving parts of its own. the mortar and pestle set can last a lifetime with no repairs. The French gourmet Brtllat-Savarm opined that coffee powdered in a pestle made a better brew than beans that were ground. The method. however. is labor-intensive.

A more convenient hand-operated grinder is the box-type mill. A box coffee mill is a small wooden box with a metal hopper in the top and a crank handle in the middle of the hopper. Turning the crank moves a set of gears inside the box that grind the beans as they drop through the funnelshaped hopper. A drawer at the bottom of the box collects the ground coffee. This kind of grinder has been in use in Europe and North America since the nineteenth century Until the 1930s. the box mill was a regular item in most American department stores. but today they are most easily found in such specialty stores as gourmet food shops. import shops. or antique shops. By carefully browsing in antique stores. you may find an old hand-operated coffee grinder from the pre-1930 era at a price that is no more than the cost of a 1980s model imported from the Orient.

Some users of the box coffee mill are not satisfied with its limited control over grinds-a complaint that may be justified since the device was designed originally for the typical rural home of a century ago when commercially ground and vacuum-packed cans of coffee were unheard of. However. all the models have wing nuts or regulator nuts that can be turned clockwise or counterclockwise for finer or coarser grinds of coffee. If you brew coffee in a percolator. a box mill will do fine. but if you use a drip or espresso machine. opt for an electric grinder.

A variation of the box coffee mill is the wall-mounted grinder which requires two hands to operate: one to hold the box under the grinder and one to turn the crank. It is premounted on a square of wood that is attached to a wall or side of a cabinet with four wood screws. Like the box coffee mill. the wall- or side-mounted mill. is operated by turning a crank on a shaft after beans are poured into the hopper. It also has a screw that permits rough control over the size of the grind.

Miniature versions of the old-fashioned grocery-store coffee grinder. featuring a big wheel on either side and a handle on one wheel to drive the grinder. also are available in the same price range as some of the box or side-mill grinders. All the hand-powered grinders do require some physical effort. but it is hardly strenuous. In fact. the notion seems to appeal to individuals who seek ways of getting back to the basic work methods. And the devices do contribute a bit of oldfashioned decor to the kitchen area.

Electric coffee grinders. or mills (the terms are often used interchangeably by manufacturers and salespeoplel. are available in two types: one has a set of whirling blades at the bottom of a bean hopper. similar to the blades found in some electric food blenders: the other is like an electrical version of the old hand-operated grinders. with burr-shaped discs that crush the beans into particles. Higher prices are charged for the kind that grind rather than slice the beans into tiny pieces.

Most electric mills can produce grinds suitable for all but Turkish-style preparations. The bladed mills ordinarily produce a moderately fine grind comparable to a commercial drip grind. A finer grind can be obtained by running the mill for a longer time. True grinders. which mangle the bean between revolving burrs. usually can be set for a range of grinds. Both kinds of mill can produce good ground coffee, but the true grinder has one advantage. The bladed mill slices the beans into long. flat-faceted fragments. while the burr-ground coffee presents more surfaces to the hot water. so it brews faster and stronger. The difference may be scarcely perceptible to the average coffee drinker. but perfectionists will insist on true grinding. If you want your coffee ground as fine as wheat flour. you will have to resort to the mortar and pestle.

Brewing coffee is a simple art-smash the roasted beans, force hot water through the particles, and serve the resulting infusion piping hot. Notwithstanding the simplicity of the process, generations of coffee lovers have created any number of ways of accomplishing it. This section includes descriptions of all.the devices used for grinding and brewing coffee. with comments on the advantages of each. However, there are a few general rules to follow, whatever process you use.

Some like their coffee strong. and some like it weak. The more ground coffee you use per cup of water, the stronger the drink will taste. A good benchmark measure is about 10 grams-one rounded tablespoon-of ground coffee for each 6-ounce cup. The coffee measures often included in cans of coffee or supplied with new grinders hold about this amount of coffee. At this ratio. 1 pound of coffee beans will yield about 45 cups of coffee. Some people add one extra measure “for the pot”. Doing so makes the brew a bit stronger, but if the beans are fresh the extra spoonful should not be necessary.

Another factor in making coffee is the length of time it is brewed. Some people believe that they can stretch a pound of coffee by using less and brewing it longer, Unfortunately, extended brewing will extract not only the flavorful oils of the coffee but also certain bitter, astringent substances. Overbrewed coffee tastes bad. Users of percolators should take special care. Coffee should percolate for 6 to 8 minutes, but no more. Drip coffee needs only 4 to 6 minutes: vacuum and espresso coffees need only 1 to 3 minutes.

However you make your coffee, serve it as soon as it is ready. Flavor changes noticeably within less than an hour after brewing. Indeed, one of the reasons for the success of the espresso method in public cafes is that it permits the server to brew each customer a fresh cup of coffee. Many workaday coffee drinkers have had the unpleasant experience of drinking restaurant coffee, apparently brewed in the Pleistocene era, that had a flavor like nothing so much as soaked pencil leads.

The very first decaffeinated coffee probably resulted from an accident in which a coffee shipment bound for Germany around 1900 was soaked by sea water coming in an open hatch. During experiments meant to rid the coffee beans of salt, it was found that subjecting them to pressurized steam forced out caffeine. German chemist Ludwig Roselius pursued the experiments further, discovering that solvents such as chloroform and benzene could also remove caffeine from coffee beans and tea leaves.

Two basic processes are used to extract caffeine from green coffee beans: the solvent method and the water method. The solvent method is a variation of the technique developed by Roselius. Instead of benzene orchloroform-oreven trichloroethylene, found in the 1970s to produce cancer in laboratory animals-the solvent currently used is methylene chloride. To extract the caffeine, coffee beans are placed in a retating drum and exposed to steam and methylene chloride for 12 to 18 hours. Then the beans are treated with live steam to flush out the caffeine-bearing solvent. The beans are then ready to be dried and roasted.

Though no .decaffelnated bean will yield the same flavor as its undecaffeinated counterpart, gourmets who must reduce their caffeine intake prefer to drink coffee that has been decaffeinated by the water process. Solvent is still used in this process. but the solvent never touches the bean itself. Instead. the raw beans are soaked in hot water. which leaches both oils and caffeine out of them. The solution is then removed to another chamber. where the solvent is added. The solvent combines with the caffeine and is separated out, leaving the purified solution. This solution is then put back into the chamber containing the beans, where the beans reabsorb the oils. These procedures are still not completelyeffective at removing traces of solvent from the final product, but many drinkers think a better-tasting coffee is the result. Swiss and German companies developed the water process and are its main practitioners. For added cachet, some stores label their decaffeinated beans as Swiss Water Decaffeinated. but the important thing to note is that the water process was used.

Literally hundreds of variations of the two basic methods have been patented in the twentieth century. Most attempt to remove about 97 percent of the initial caffeine content from the green coffee beans by repeating the process up to 15 times. each removing a smaller percentage of the original caffeine content.

In shopping for decaffeinated coffees. remember that robusta beans generally contain twice as much caffeine as arabica beans. A decaffeinated robusta. therefore. would still contain twice as much caffeine as a decaffeinated arabica after 97 percent of the caffeine has been removed.And all decaffeinated coffees are not processed to remove 97 percent of the caffeine. Therefore. all decaffeinated coffees are not equally caffeine-free.

The mother of instant coffee was Japanese tea. Coffee processors since the 1860s had been attempting to prepare a powdered coffee extract but had produced only thick, liquid extracts or solid cakes. But in 1899, a Japanese chemist named Dr. Sartori Kato traveled to the United States to promote a powdered tea he had invented. Americans were not interested in powdered tea but in Chicago, Dr. Kato became acquainted with local chemists and coffee roasters who encouraged him to try his tea process on coffee beans. It was a success, A Kato Coffee Company was organized and the first instant coffee was offered to the public at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. in 1901.

At about the same time, a Belgian-born Englishman named G. Washington was living in Guatemala City, the capital of Guatemala. Each afternoon. he was served coffee from a silver pot on a table in his orange grove. One day he noticed a brown powder that accumulated beneath the spout of the pot and tasted it. The powder was an instant coffee produced by nature in, the mile-high mountain climate of Guatemala. From this phenomenon was born the G. Washington Coffee Refining Company, which dominated the instant-coffee market from about 1910 until shortly before the start of World War II.

Instant coffees are generally made by one of two commercial methods, spray drying or freeze drying. Whichever method is used, the process begins with percolation. Instant coffees are basically the beverage residue of a commercial manufacturer’s huge pot of coffee.

The coffee extract that leaves the commercial percolator may resemble your homemade beverage only in name and color. Whereas you might expect to get. perhaps, 50 cups of coffee beverage per pound of ground roasted beans. a commercial percolator will squeeze the equivalent of 100 cups per pound from the coffee grounds. These pressure-cooker conditions alter the cellulose and starch molecules of the beans, changing the aroma and flavorofthe brew. And the beans selected for instant coffee processing are frequently the lower-priced varieties, partly because the commercial roaster can make a product from the cheap beans that compares in flavor with a fine-grade roasted bean treated in the same manner.

The drying stage of instant-coffee manufacture drives off the natural aromas and flavors that are volatile, but similar aromas and flavors produced from the beans during percolation, hydrolysis. and extraction remain.

Many experts agree that freeze-drying causes less of a loss of natural coffee qualities than spray drying. The basic freeze-drying method consists of freezing the coffee extract that is delivered from the percolators, removing the moisture with a vacuum pump. Removing the moisture from frozen coffee extract is sometimes called subliming.

Commercial processers, aware that these processes may affect aroma and flavor. put a good deal of effort into aromatizing instant coffees. This means adding flavors back into instants to make them taste like the real thing. Coffee flavors can be fortified or modified by such techniques as adding natural coffee oils to instant powders or granules. or pumping coffee-aroma gas through the powder. The latter procedure is like the used-car dealer’s technique of spraying the interior of an auto with “new car” aroma.

However your instant coffee is made. be aware that it is probably made out of robusta and/or poorer arabica beans. The Mexican saying “Nescafe no es cafe” (Nescafe isn’t coffee) may be an exaggeration. but don’t expect fresh coffee flavor.

Breakfast - This is usually a mixture of approximately equal portions of Brazilian Santos and an African arabica coffee such as Tanzanian peaberry or an Ethiopian Harrar. The blend may also include a third type of arabica, such as a Colombian Bogota or Armenia.

House Blend - Most specialty stores offeraHouse Blend or Special Blend that may contain a balanced blend of a number of mild and not - so-mild coffees. The blends generally contain beans from Africa, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Central America, and Indonesia. The operator of the store may, if requested, explain the exact composition of his House Blend. Some blends contain only four kinds of coffee, others contain 14, so obviously there is no standard House Blend. Ask your dealer what it contains. The best advice, if you are tempted to try one, is to purchase the smallest amount to determine whether you like it.

Mocha Java - Almost every coffee store will sell a Mocha and Java blend, even though there probably is not enough true arabica Java and Mocha produced in a typical year to make a single cup of Mocha Java beverage for all the coffee drinkers in a major city. At one time. when the world was younger and Mocha and Java were the major sources of arabica coffees, the two types evolved naturally into a popular blend. Today’s Mocha is likely to bea Mocha-style bean from Africa and a Java-style bean from the Malay Archipelago, which still can be a worthwhile combination of coffees.

The Traditional Mocha - Java blend brings together a winey, acidy Mocha and a sweetish, heavy-bodied Java, which are complementary in their effects on the palate. Other. less traditional blends, such as a combination of Kenya and Maracaibo coffees, contribute similar complementary taste effects. The best way to try this coffee blend is to buy fresh Java arabica beans and fresh Mocha beans and blend them yourself in a ratio of two parts Java to one part Mocha.

Neopolitan - A mixture of a Brazilian Santos bean and an African arabica, such as an Ethiopian Harrar, finished in a heavy, dark Italian roast and ground to a drip or espresso grind of fineness.

New Orleans - A blend of sour Brazilian beans and chicory. the latter accounting for from 20 to 40 percent of the blend. The coffee portion of the blend tends to have a harsh characteristic that coffee tasters identtfy as rioy, a trait of some Brazilian beans shipped from the port of Rio de Janeiro.

Roma - A blend of finely ground, dark-roasted beans, usually consisting of a New Orleans-style French roast together with a darker. Italian or espresso, roast. It usually includes beans that originated in Colombia and East Africa.

Viennese - A combination of Maracaibo and Mexican coffees finished in a variety of roasts. The Maracaibo beans may have a slightly dark roast and the Mexican beans a darker. French roast, with the blend typically consisting of one-third dark-roasted to twothirds medium-roasted beans.

This Latin American country is the second largest producer in the world (after Brazil) but it is first for quality. Once it was possible to buy a wide array of Colombian coffees with names like Bogota, Bucaramanga, Giradot, Honda, and Tolima. Today, the govemment has rationalized production, selling most Colombian coffee under the acronym MAM, which stands for the growing centers of Medellin, Armenia, and Manizales. Although coffees sold under the acronym may come from any of these Andean-foothill regions. each region has distinctive characteristics. Medellin is the best: rich, full-bodied, and mildly acid. Armenia is a bit thinner in the cup and somewhat less acidy, but still quite full-bodied with good aroma and a touch of the winey flavor of true Mocha. Beans from Manizales make for a rich, wineybrew, with greater acidity but less body than Medellins and less subtlety than Armenias.

Because the best Colombian beans are hand-sorted, the grading system is also important. Beans labelled supremo are all of the largest size. uniform and without imperfections. This means that they not only look nicer in the grinder. but they roast evenly and uniformly. The grade excelso means that the bag contains a mixture of supremo. medium-sized (or extra). and peaberry beans. all without imperfections. Perfect peaberries may also be sold separately. for devotees of those rounded mutants.

A rare treat is Vintage Colombian, a coffee made from beans that have been stored in warehouses for up to eight years before roasting. In the interval, the acidy characteristics of the coffee are replaced by a pleasantly sweet, almost syrupy richness. Since Colombian coffee is in demand from the day it is harvested, very little is held in storage.

Medellin
Armenia
Manizales
Vintage

Brazil is the world’s largest producer of coffee, all of it arabica. The emphasis on quantity means that even the best Brazilian beans are not usually of top quality. Bourbon Santos, named for the French colony where the ancestors of the Brazilian bean once grew. makes a smooth and palatable beverage: it is not distinctive enough to either excite or offend discriminating taste buds. Although Brazil’s unpredictable weather causes the bean to vary in quality from crop to crop. it is usually reasonable in price. The combination of mild flavor and inexpensive cost make it the ideal weak partner in a blend. Coffee called Parana. for the region in which it is grown, is comparable in quality. Brazil’s other coffees, especially those of the Rio type, are harsher, sometimes even acrid. Remarkably. Rio coffees were the main coffees imported into the United States up to the tum of the century.

Bourbon Santos
Parana
Rio

The flavor of a bean is determined by many factors, but its flavor and aroma are brought to life by roasting, during which virtually odorless green coffee beans are exposed to temperatures of between 204-2600ºC (400-5000ºF) for a period of about five minutes. Dark roasts can be produced by holding the beans in the roaster for a longer time or by adjusting the temperature. The roasting process triggers chemical reactions that can continue for days or weeks after the roasting is completed. The chemical changes eventually lead to staleness unless the roasted beans are frozen or packed in an airtight container to prevent oxidation of the volatile chemicals created by the roasting process.

A darker-roasted bean tends to have an oily surface because the longer exposure to high temperatures forces oils within the bean to the outside. The darker color is the result of carbonization of cellulose and caramelization of starches and sugars in the bean.

A century ago, almost all roasts were dark. Coffee usually was roasted in the home or by the retail merchant who had his own small, batch roaster. Coffee roasting at home was something like popping corn in the fireplace. Green beans were placed either in a cylindrical drum attached to a long rod that was turned by hand, or in special heavy skillets that rested directly in the hot ashes. Some of the devices were known as coffee burners, which suggests the condition of the finished beans.

Commercial coffee roasting was done in a similar manner, an obvious difference being that the big processors used large-scale equipment and were somewhat more delicate about the degree of roasting. A large barrel holding up to 75 kilograms (175 pounds) of green beans was loaded by a husky man who also had to turn a crank while the beans roasted in the furnace for about 30 minutes. When the smoke coming from the barrel turned a certain shade of gray, the barrel was removed from the furnace and the beans, some of them burnt by the 1093ºC (2,000ºF) heat. were dumped on a stone floor to cool.

Modern roasters have made possible a variety of roasts, each of which can lend its particular flavor to any coffee.

The guide below lists the various kinds of coffee roasts offered by gourmet and specialty shops.

After-Dinner Roast - A coffee that has been roasted to a dark. but less than very dark, brown color. It has a somewhat oily surface. An after-dinner roast lends a bittersweet, tangy flavor to the beans.

American Roast - A coffee that has been roasted to a mediumbrown color, with a dry rather than oily surface. An American roast is acidy, but also noticeably sweet and rich in flavor. It may also be labelled as regular roast. but is usually labeled as American roast because it is particularly favored by American coffee drinkers, who are notorious middle-of-the-roaders.

Cinnamon Roast - The lightest of the standard coffee-roasting categories. The finished surface is light brown and dry. A cinnamon roast has a distinctively sour flavor. Because of its popularity in the northeastern United States, a cinnamon roast may also be identified as a New England roast. It does not contain cinnamon.

City Roast - A medium-dark roast, slightly darker than an American roast but not as dark as a full-city or light French roast. A city roast lends a neutral taste, lacking the acidy characteristics of American roast and the tang of darker roasts.

Continental Roast - A dark-brown roast with an oily surface. It has more tang than a city roast and definitely lacks the acidy taste of lighter roasts. It may also be listed as a dark roast. French roast, or Italian roast.

Dark Roast - See Continental Roast.

Dry Roast - Not a true roast, but a method whereby the freshly roasted beans are allowed to cool slowly in the surrounding air, as opposed to the usual method of quenching the hot beans with water. Air drying does not Significantly affect flavor.

Espresso Roast - A very dark roasted coffee that is preferred for the fine grind required for espresso coffee-making equipment. An espresso roast results in a very oily, black bean. The taste of the carbonized cellulose dominates any natural aroma or flavor that may have been in the bean. Robusta beans are sometimes used in very dark roasts: robusta beans can only be improved in flavor by the intense roasting, whereas the heat drives out the volatile flavor factors present in an arabica bean.

French Roast - See Continental Roast.

Full City Roast - A coffee roast found mainly in the New York City area where coffee drinkers prefer their beans roasted to a degree that is just noticeably darker than a regular city roast and with a bit more tang. It may also be called high roast.

Heavy Roast - A dark-brown to nearly black roast with a surface that is even oilier in appearance than espresso or continental roast. A heavy roast is completely devoid of acidity, and its tang is all but overwhelmed by the carbonization and caramelization of the carbohydrates in the bean.

High Roast - See Full City Roast.

Italian Roast - A coffee that has been roasted to a degree that is darker than a high roast. The surface of the bean is dark brown and oily but not as dark and oily as a continental roast. An Italian roast is the type most popular with consumers in the coffeeproducing countries. It has the rich coffee tang of a dark roast, unconcealed by the taste of carbon.

Light Roast - See Cinnamon Roast.

Light French Roast - A medium- to dark-brown roast marked by spots of oil on an otherwise dry surface. It is comparable to a regular city roast in aroma and flavor.

Medium Roast - See American Roast.

New England Roast - See Cinnamon Roast.

Summer Roast - Coffee roasted in a warm. humid atmosphere to reduce the bean’s sweating. Sweated coffee. as it is also called. has a darker brown color after roasting than it would if it had been roasted under low humidity. Green coffee beans may be given a steam bath before roasting in order to increase the degree of brown coloration. This procedure improves appearance. but has little effect on flavor.

The flavor of your coffee depends in large part on the characteristics of the beans from which it is made-on the species of the bean, how and where it was grown-and how it was harvested and processed. The buyer’s guide describes the flavor of the coffees you are likely to encounter in specialty stores. A glossary explaining the terms used by professional tasters is also available. There are, nonetheless, some general factors affecting coffee flavor.

Although there are about 100 species of the genus Coffea; only four are used to make the drink we call coffee. Almost all of the coffees sought by gourmets are of the species commonly called arabica. These coffees are comparatively low yielding and flourish at higher altitudes, but their flavor is easily the most complex and delightful. The hardier and higher-yielding robusta and liberica strains are high in caffein but low in flavor. They should seldom be seen in a gourmet shop. The robusta beans betray their presence in the cup by foaming slightly and sometimes by leaving a tarry ring. In recent years, the Colombians have developed a dwarf subspecies called caturra. It matures much more rapidly than an ordinal)’ arabica plant, but has a shorter mature lifespan. It was created mainly to break the economic cycle linked to the five-to-seven-year period it takes before a newly planted arabica is ready for its first harvest. In the past, a profitable year meant that everyone would plant new arabica trees, and the new beans would glut the market exactly five to seven years later. A staggered introduction of the fastermaturing trees means a more even spread of the increased supply. The caturra beans now account for about a third of Colombia’s annual production, and in flavor they are the equal of other Colombian beans.

Just as important as species to the quality of coffee are elevation and climate. Here is where the grades that the wholesale dealers sometimes give to coffees can come in handy. Designations like supremo, excelso, AA, and jumbo specify the size and uniformity of the beans being offered. Since uniform size is important to correct roasting, such grades do have meaning for the gourmet. The size of a bean does not generally affect the taste. Gradings that refer to the elevation at which a bean is grown or to the hardness of the bean are more meaningful. Designating a bean as high grown or strictly hard should mean that the bean has been grown at the optimum elevation of 700 to 1,850 meters (between 2,000 and 6,000 feet) and in the best soil for it to develop a fine flavor. The two designations really go together, because a hard bean is usually high grown. A hard bean is not only more flavorful, but it will also roast more evenly, liberating its full flavor potential more consistently.

Different countries use different grading systems, and some fudging of the grades may occur at the retail level. It is therefore best to consider grading information together with other information about a coffee before deciding on its probable quality. Take the Costa Rican grading system, for example. From best to worst, it includes strictly hard bean, good hard bean, hard bean, medium hard bean, high-grown Atlantic, medium-grown Atlantic, and low-grown Atlantic. Thus, a “high-grown” Costa Rican coffee may not be the very best Costa Rican grade. The smart buyer, however, will note that Costa Rican coffees are generally excellent and might take a chance on a coffee described as high grown Costa Rican.

Species and grade can be good general guides to a coffee’s quality, but no pedigree will help if the coffee has been improperly harvested. Even with the utmost care, however, not every season’s crop will produce equally healthy beans. The ripeness of the beans when they are picked is extremely important, and the methods generally employed to pick the beans will influence the quality of the coffee. A bean that has been picked before it is ripe may look fine after it is roasted, but it will have an unpleasantly sharp or herbaceous flavor.

Some crop-to-crop and tree-to-tree variation cannot be avoided, but growers who strive for quantity above all else will often end up including a noticeable proportion of unripe beans in a given sample. The Brazilians, for example, pick beans by stripping whole branches, despite the fact that coffee beans can mature at very different rates, even on the same branch. Most Colombian coffees, on the other hand, are still picked manually by skilled laborers who select only the ripe beans for plucking. In Jamaica, the pickers don’t start work until local bats descend on the trees to suck the coffee cherries, thus indicating that they are ripe.

The processing necessary to remove the skin and pulp of the cherries from the bean also affects flavor. The ancient dry method, called unwashed today, specifies that the cherries be spread in the sun until the skin and pulp wither and can be removed. This process can produce fine coffee, but it is difficult to control. If the beans are packed too close together or if air circulation is insufficient, they may ferment beyond acceptable levels. producing a sour flavor referred to as rioy by tasters. Some gourmets prize this flavor, but most agree that it is unpleasant.

The modern wet method. which results in beans called washed, controls fermentation and thus reduces the chances of getting a rioy flavor. Such washed beans have their skin and pulp removed mechanically, but the remaining pulp is removed by soaking the beans in tanks. They are then dried to stop further fermentation. The designation washed bean on a label. then. will guarantee coffee of a more consistent quality than that called unwashed.

Coffees at a bona fide gourmet shop are not likely to be actually mislabelled, but there are certain labelling conventions to be aware of. House blends may be wonderful or horrible. The ideal house blend should mix a fine, expensive coffee with a less well known or cheaper but very compatible coffee, the combination making a blend less costly than the finest component but equally tasty. In practice, some shops simply throw the leftovers into the house blend, or stock a house blend that is inferior to the rest of their coffees, though not much cheaper. Ask your dealer what the specialty of the house contains. If he doesn’t know but the price is attractive, try a little bit and see.

Another convention consists of labelling coffees according to their styles. Thus, there are numerous Blue Mountain Style, Mocha Java Style, and Kona Style coffees on the market. As genuine coffees, all three are quite scarce and sought-after. The term “style” on the label means, of course, that the coffee in question is not the real thing at all, but rather some coffee that a taster has concluded tastes like the famous original. Although the taste-alike coffee maybe quite good, it is not apt to be either as good or as scarce as the original. It should not, therefore, carry a price as high (or nearly as high) as the original. If the cost is reasonable, you may well want to try such a coffee, but start with a small quantity to find out what it is like.

Be aware, too, that a dealer who seems to have mainly highpriced dark-roasted coffees is suspect. Many excellent dealers offer fine dark-roasted coffees as well as budget-priced dark roasts. While it is true that any fine coffee will reveal its quality whether it is roasted light or dark, it is also true that lesser coffees will lose their defects the darker they are roasted. Indeed, it is the charred, caramelized flavor associated with dark-roasted beans that their devotees admire, not so much the taste of the bean itself. A tasty, dark-roasted coffee can thus be made from fairly cheap beans, so you should not pay the price of a scarce coffee simply to get your cup of continental, French, or Italian roast. If the dark roast is expensive, find out why. It may be that it is made with an exquisite bean, like Kona, in which case you will have a real treat in store.

There is one rule to follow absolutely. regardless of the store you shop in: Never buy more than you can drink within a few weeks. Keeping beans in a closed container in the freezer may prolong their freshness for up to two months, but no method can preserve them indefinitely. The beans may be as much as five or six weeks out of the roaster when you buy them, so it is not a good idea to tempt fate by buying a quantity that will sit around for another five or six weeks at home.

Very few dealers today roast their own beans, so the buyer is usually dependent on the quality of work of the supplier. If you want to see and smell operations where the roasting is still done in-house. however, visit Schapira’s (I 17 West lOth Street) or Gillies 1840 (160 Bleecker Street) the next time you are in New York City, or the Graffeo Coffee House (733 Columbus Avenue) when you are in San Francisco.

If everybody liked the same kind of wine, there would be only one kind of wine,” as the saying goes, The same rule applies to coffee. For people who prefer the convenience of purchasing a can or jar of coffee that has been manufactured for a mass market, with a flavor and aroma designed to satisfy average taste buds, there are commercial blends so similar that consumers readily surrender last week’s loyalty for this week’s coupon special.

But if you are a coffee lover with discriminating taste buds, the chances are that you want to experience the tastes of unblended and blended coffees made from freshly roasted beans with names like Barahona and Blue Mountain, Coatepee and Djimmah, Kona and Kiltrnanjaro. When you serve coffee to friends, the beverage may be prepared from the fruit of trees that grew in Sumatra or Kenya, or from trees in Yemen that are descendants of plants that flourished in the’ region when it was ruled by the Queen of Sheba, Coffees with such pedigrees cannot often be found on a supermarket shelf, but they are available in specialty food shops and from mail-order merchants (see Appendix).

The Gourmet Retailer

Tea often comes in airtight tins marketed by companies with centuries-old traditions, but most gourmet coffees are sold by bulk under names given to them by the retailer. It is therefore important for the novice taster to find a coffee retailer whose recommendations can be relied on. Finding such a relationship is certainly easier in large cities where there are many retailers, but any shopper should check that the gourmet retailer satisfies the following basics.

How is the coffee stored and presented? Wooden barrels look authentic, but if they are not relatively airtight, they will allow the coffee to get stale very quickly Roasted beans left exposed to the air at room temperature for a week and a half will go rancid. When the beans are contained in covered barrels or other receptacles, does each container have its own cover? A surprising number of stores try to cover four or five bins with a single, hinged lid. The result, of course, is that all the coffees are exposed to four or five times as much air. Closed, individual receptacles are best.

If you are unsure about a dealer’s reputation for fresh coffee, buy a small amount of a type whose taste you are familiar with. If the taste disappoints, the reason is likely to be that the beans are stale. But if your dealer usually serves you well, be tolerant of occasional lapses.

The way coffee is marketed makes it difficult for the retailer to provide unblemished service. Most retailers buy their beans from roasters who, in tum, buy raw coffee in lots (called chops) of 250 bags each. In almost every chop there are a few bad bags, with diseased, substandard, old, or badly processed beans. The best roasters test beans from every bag, discarding bags whose beans are unacceptable, but such a procedure is very expensive. Consequently, some lesser coffee may get through to the retailer, still labelled as the best. The amount of bad beans is pretty small, however, so if you get a bad batch more than once or twice a year, it may be time to consider shopping elsewhere.

India and China Coffee

Today. the major coffee producer of Asia is India, which harvests about one and a half million bags of arabica and robusta beans annually. The proportions of arabica and robusta are approximately 50 percent each, and about half of the annual production is exported. The U.S.S.R. is India’s best customer. The best of India’s coffees are called plantation coffees and the finest of these comes from the Nilglri Hills. The bulk of India’s arabica crop is grown in the state of Karnataka and is often labeled as Mysore coffee. A coffee of good quality is grown in Yunnan Province, in southern China, and is beginning to enter the export market. but in very small quantities. Imports of Chinese coffee into the United States, from 1979 through 1980. totaled less than 900 bags.

Southeast Asia Coffee

The Dutch East India Company had instituted coffee cultivation in Ceylon by 1658, expanding the operation to Java at the end of the century. Coffee thus entered Southeast Asia, and a legendary type was born. Until the end of the nineteenth century, only Mocha could rival Java in the estimation of gourmets, and the two coffees were sometimes combined into the famous Mocha Java blend. Especially prized were the so-called Old Government .Javas. beans that developed an inimitable musty character after the five months they spent at sea in the holds of wooden ships.

Faster sea transport meant the end of the Old Government Javas, but far more devastating to the burgeoning coffee industries of the Far East was a leaf plague that struck the coffee plantations of Java, Sumatra, India, and Ceylon in the third quarter of the nineteenth century, All of the region’s fine arabica trees were wiped out. It was, in fact, this sudden demise of the competition that allowed Brazil’s young coffee industry to grow as rapidly as it did.

When Southeast Asia was replanted in the twentieth century, about half of the new plantings were robusta trees. At the higher elevations, however, a new strain of arabica was introduced. Most of these plantations were seriously damaged during World War II, but they have recovered strongly since then. Today, these arabica beans are among the most prized in the world. Although Java is no longer the area’s largest or finest producer, other Indonesian islandsincluding Celebes (Sulawesi), Timor, and Sumatra-export scarce but desirable coffees.

Hawaii Coffee

The Hawaiian coffee Industry is small but extremely efficient. Coffee is grown on small plots. averaging only about 2 hectares (5 acres) per grower. in pits carved out of the volcanic rock on the saddle between the Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea volcanoes. This coffee. called Kona after the region in which it is produced. is one of the finest and scarcest in the world. Unfortunately. growing Kona is becoming less and less profitable. Some of the farm families. the descendants of the original Japanese and Portuguese cultivators, are drifting away to serve the tourist industry. The Dutch company that controls some of the plots is converting to an even scarcer and more lucrative crop, macadamia nuts. Kona’s fortunes are thus unsure at best.

As Africa assumes an increasingly important role in world coffee production, the gourmet shopper is likely to find new choices in specialty stores. Many of these African coffees have only been available since the 1970s. CUriously, although the world’s arabica coffees all came originally from Ethiopia. and today all Latin American and Caribbean coffee is made from arabica beans, about 75 percent of Africa’s coffee consists of beans of the robusta species.

The robusta bean is native to Africa, too, but the relatively recent boom in its culture is due to economic, not natural, factors. Since they are more disease resistant and higher yielding than arabica beans, robusta beans are more profitable to grow. They are the preferred source for many commercial blends and especially for the huge, instant-coffee market. Like a cheap whiskey, they are effective if not exactly tasty: high in caffeine, although not distinctive in flavor.

Angola, the Ivory Coast. and Uganda are the major producers of African robusta beans. Commercially important. these countries are among the five largest coffee-producing nations in the world, ranking behind first- and second-place Brazil and Colombia. Each of the African countries grows between three and four million bags of coffee annually: much of the yearly crops of robusta beans is destined for commercial roasters in America. Still, some of the world’s finest arabica is grown in Africa. The gourmet should simply make sure that any “genuine African” coffee is also a genuine arabica.

Angola produces a small amount of arabica coffee of good quality. It may be identified by its source, either Andulo or Gando. The Ivory Coast does not export an arabica coffee, but Uganda produces an arabica that may be called Buglsu, after the district in which it is grown.

Other African countries that export both arabica and robusta beans include Burundi, Cameroon, Tanzania, and Zaire. The finest Burundi arabica is a rich, high-grown coffee with high acidity. About two-thirds of the Cameroon crop consists of robusta beans, but a small portion of the delicious arabica may reach the counters of specialty shops. Tanzania grows several hundreds of thousands of bags of fine arabica, and a smaller amount of robusta, coffees annually. The arabica may be identified as Mount Kilimanjaro or Plantation Bukoba. The buyer should make certain that a Tanzanian Bukoba is identified as a Plantation Bukoba, because Bukoba is also a district that produces much of the country’s robusta coffees. Zaire exports about one million bags of coffee annually. Most of its coffee harvest is of the robusta species but the country is also the source of two very fine arabica types, Kivu and Ituri, named after the high-elevation districts where they are grown.

The three African countries that grow only arabica beans are Ethiopia, Kenya, and Rwanda. The Rwanda crop is small. amounting to only a few hundred thousand bags per year, and the top grades are exported to European dealers. Some of the lesser (but still quite good) Rwanda arabica beans are sold in the United States.

Ethiopian coffees are of particular interest because they come from arabica coffee’s native habitat. They may be the pungent. winey wild beans harvested by local villagers from direct descendants of the trees that bore coffee beans before humans discovered their use, or the smooth but equally ancient Mocha-like Harrar from carefully cultivated plantations. The Harrar beans (called longberry) appear large and long compared to the small and scruffy-looking wild coffee beans (called shortberry), Even the wild beans from the boondocks, sometimes identified as Djimmah or Sidamo after their growing and marketing areas, are likely to be more tasty than a less-than-best arabica from most other coffeeproducing countries.

Kenya got a very late start in commercial coffee production, with first plantings early in the twentieth century. However, Kenya coffee growers were able to benefit from the centuries of experience of other countries, and only the Colombians can match the Kenyans for technical innovations. One Kenyan experiment consists of bending young trees over so that eventually the treetops and branches send out roots. The tree becomes its own trellis, increasing yield and making beans easier to pick. Nearly all of Kenya’s top grades of coffee beans are snapped up by merchants in Europe, but a few thousand bags make their way to American specialty shops each year.

A different species of coffee, called liberica, is grown in the West African nation of Liberia. The annual production amounts to perhaps 100,000 bags and the quality is somewhere between a run-of-the-mill arabica and a high-grade robusta. Most of the crop is exported to Scandinavia and other European markets.

Once, almost all the arabica coffee drunk in the West came from Yemen. Today, little remains of the plantations that made the name Mocha a household word. The port of Mocha has been closed for over a hundred years, and Yemeni exports have declined in recent years to only around 50,000 bags annually. The Yemeni civil war and the consequent division of the country into two parts has reduced exports still further. Now, no Mocha at all comes to us from South Yemen, and only a small amount comes from the North.

In terms of the manpower employed in its production, coffee is the largest agricultural commodity in.the world today. The huge coffee industries of Latin America, especially of Brazil, are mainly responsible, Brazilians were still drinking imported coffee while the Dutch, French, and Spanish were developing coffee plantations in their Caribbean and Latin American colonies. But a Brazilian military officer, Francisco de Melo Palheta, put Brazil in the coffee business with a deed even more daring than de Clleu’s burglary of the Jardin des Plantes. Both France and Holland had established colonies along the northeast coast of South America and the northern border of Brazil, and both were developing coffee plantations along a disputed boundary. Brazil was asked to arbitrate the boundary controversy.

Brazil sent Palheta to French Guiana to help resolve the dispute. According to several reports, Palheta spent quite a long time on the profect because the surveys and border inspections were frequently interrupted by visits with the wife of the Colony’s governor. When the land surveys were completed, the governor’s wife presented Palheta with a large bouquet as a token of the colony’s (and her own) appreciation. Although it was forbidden. on penalty of death, to allow coffee seeds or plantings to be removed from the French plantations. Palheta’s bouquet contained cuttings of young coffee plants-which became the cornerstone of Brazil’s massive coffee industry.

Brazil Coffee

It was 1727 when Palheta left Cayenne, French Guiana, with his bouquet of coffee cuttings and a handful of seeds. Within a few days, he had planted them near Para, Brazil, at the mouth of the Amazon River. Five years later, Brazil was in the coffee business. From Para, coffee cultivation spread southward through the states of Maranhao and Bahia and by 1770 coffee trees were growing in Rio de Janeiro. Catholic clergy, too, helped establish the coffee industry in Brazil in the eighteenth century. planting seedlings around monasteries and convents. Today, coffee is grown throughout Brazil, but most of the commercial coffee production is confined to a few states bordering the South Atlantic: the area from Bahia south to Parana.

Most commercial plantations are located on plateaus that range in altitude between 600 and 1,250 meters (2,000 and 4,000 feet) above sea level and are exposed to temperatures that average 14ºC (60ºF) in the winter and 22ºC (72ºF) in the summer. However. varied patterns of harvesting and processing have evolved in different areas of Brazil over the past two and a half centuries. Some trees seem to produce continuously. with flowers. green cherries, and ripe cherries on the branches at the same time. Other trees may suddenly flower simultaneously over tremendous areas. carpeting miles of Brazilian landscape with small white flowers.

The one-day flower show is followed by an equally simultaneous ripening of coffee cherries on millions of trees and the recruitment of all able-bodied persons in the area to bring in the harvest. Braztls, as Brazilian beans are called, can be of high quality, but Brazilian coffee growers usually try to produce a huge amount of coffee beans and quality is a secondary consideration. Often, both ripe and unripe beans are stripped from the tree, resulting in a coffee of uneven flavor.

Colombia Coffee

Colombia. even more than Brazil, is ideally suited for coffee-growing. Located at the northwestern comer of South America. Colombia has direct access to both Atlantic and Pacific shipping lanes. Its seaports are at the mouths of rivers that extend hundreds of miles inland like watery highways, winding among the mountain slopes and plateaus that support coffee farms. The soil is a mixture of humus and ancient volcanic rock particles. combining fertility with excellent drainage. The climate is so consistent that accurate forecasts can be printed a year in advance. (To find a change of climate, Colombians merely drive to a different elevation above sea level.) At the elevation of most coffee plantations. between 750 and 1,850 meters (2,500-6,000 feet), the temperature averages approximately 200ºC (70ºF) all year round. The constant weather guarantees a consistent pattern of blooming. fruiting, and harvesting, resulting in a predictably excellent coffee.

Colombia lagged behind Brazil as a commercial coffee producer by nearly a century, acquiring its first trees from the French Antilles through neighboring Venezuela around 1800. The first exports of Colombian coffee were recorded in the mid-1830s. But Colombia today is the leading producer of high-quality arabica beans. Nearly 30,000 Colombian farms and plantations produce an annual export crop of approximately 10 million bags. The Colombian typesMedellins, Armenias, Manizales, Bogotas, and others-yield flavors and aromas that assure almost immediate consumption of each year’s harvest. While favored as new-crop beans. Colombians also age gracefully and rank with aged Sumatras and Javas as the world’s finest vintage beans. But old-crop Colombian beans are scarce because of the demand for the beans before they have a chance to age.

A less publicized source of South American coffees is Venezuela. which in some years produces and exports as much arabica coffee as Costa Rica or Nicaragua. Though lesser known. the best Venezuelans are among the world’s best coffees. Venezuelan coffees are often identified simply as Maracaibos, named for the principal seaport through which the beans travel to the outside world. Maracaibos can include the Cucuta variety grown in Colombia but shipped through Maracaibo because it is the nearest seaport. Particularly prized are Merida and Caracas beans. Venezuela has been in the coffee business since 1784, when a priest started a small plantation near Caracas with seeds that he had brought from Martinique.

Another little known but important South American producer of arabica beans is Peru. which supplies the United States. its main customer, with approximately half of its annual crop of nearly 45 million kilograms (100 million pounds). The better beans of Peru, often identified simply as Peru coffees, are grown on the slopes of the Andes Mountains in the northern part of the nation. The Chanchamayo Valley, in the southern interior. is also a major producing region. Coffee has been produced in Peru for many years, but mainly for domestic consumption; the country’s entry into the export market is relatively new but promising.

Other coffee-growing countries of South America include Bolivia, Ecuador, and the former European Guianas, now known as French Guiana, Surinam, and Guyana. With the possible exception of some coffees grown in Ecuador, none of the crops is commercially important and the coffees of Ecuador are not really distinctive.