iddle 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