er "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