an (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'Aine, 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 GRINDE