e hold of the vessel
the cargo underwent a sweating that gave to the coffee a rare shade of
color and that, in the opinion of coffee experts, greatly enhanced its
flavor and body. The captain always received a handsome gratuity if the
coffee turned "extra brown."

[Illustration: UNLOADING JAVA COFFEE FROM A SAILING VESSEL AT A BROOKLYN
DOCK

The ship is the Gaa Paa, which made the voyage from Padang in five
months in 1912]

The demand for sweated, or brown, Javas probably had its origin in the
good old days when the American housewife bought her coffee green and
roasted it herself in a skillet over a quick fire. Coffee slightly brown
was looked upon with favor; for every good housewife in those days knew
that green coffee changed its color in aging, and that of course aged
coffee was best.

And so it came about that Java coffees were preferably shipped in
slow-going Dutch sailing vessels, because it was desirable to have a
long voyage under the hot tropical sun suitably to sweat the coffee on
its way to market and to have it a handsome brown on arrival. The
sweating frequently produced a musty flavor which, if not too
pronounced, was highly prized by experts. When the ship left Padang or
Batavia the hatches were battened down, not to be opened again until New
York harbor was reached.

Many of the old-style Dutch sailing vessels were built somewhat after
the pattern of the Goed Vrouw, which Irving tells us was a hundred feet
long, a hundred feet wide, and a hundred feet high. Sometimes she sailed
forward, sometimes backward, and sometimes sideways. After dark, the
lights were put out, all sail was taken in, and all hands turned in for
the night.

The last of the coffee-carrying sailing vessels to reach the United
States was the bark Padang, which arrived in New York on Christmas day,
1914.

[Illustration: THE BUSH TERMINAL SYSTEM OF DOCKS AND WAREHOUSES

Much of the green coffee received in New York is discharged and stored
here, at one of the most modern waterfront and terminal developments in
the world]

[Illustration: AIRPLANE VIEW OF NEW YORK DOCK COMPANY'S PIERS AND
WAREHOUSES

This is the Fulton Street section of the Brooklyn waterfront, where more
than half the coffee received in New York is unloaded. The storage
warehouses are to be seen back of the piers]

[Illustration: RECEIVING PIERS FOR COFFEE AT NEW YORK]

_Handling Coffee at New York_

The handling of the cargoes of coffee when they ar