st I ever saw drink
coffee; which custom came not into England till thirty years
thereafter.

Evelyn should have said thirteen years after; for then it was that the
first coffee house was opened (1650).

Conopios was a native of Crete, trained in the Greek church. He became
_primore_ to Cyrill, Patriarch of Constantinople. When Cyrill was
strangled by the vizier, Conopios fled to England to avoid a like
barbarity. He came with credentials to Archbishop Laud, who allowed him
maintenance in Balliol College.

It was observed that while he continued in Balliol College he made
the drink for his own use called Coffey, and usually drank it every
morning, being the first, as the antients of that House have
informed me, that was ever drank in Oxon.[60]

[Illustration: MOL'S COFFEE HOUSE, EXETER, ENGLAND, NOW WORTH'S ART
ROOMS]

In 1640 John Parkinson (1567-1650), English botanist and herbalist,
published his _Theatrum Botanicum_[61], containing the first botanical
description of the coffee plant in English, referred to as "_Arbor Bon
cum sua Buna._ The Turkes Berry Drinke".

His work being somewhat rare, it may be of historical interest to quote
the quaint description here:

Alpinus, in his Booke of Egiptian plants, giveth us a description
of this tree, which as hee saith, hee saw in the garden of a
certain Captaine of the _Ianissaries_, which was brought out of
_Arabia felix_ and there planted as a rarity, never seene growing
in those places before.

The tree, saith _Alpinus_, is somewhat like unto the _Evonymus_
Pricketimber tree, whose leaves were thicker, harder, and greener,
and always abiding greene on the tree; the fruite is called _Buna_
and is somewhat bigger then an Hazell Nut and longer, round also,
and pointed at the end, furrowed also on both sides, yet on one
side more conspicuous than the other, that it might be parted in
two, in each side whereof lyeth a small long white kernell, flat on
that side they joyne together, covered with a yellowish skinne, of
an acid taste, and somewhat bitter withall and contained in a
thinne shell, of a darkish ash-color; with these berries generally
in _Arabia_ and _Egipt_, and in other places of the _Turkes_
Dominions, they make a decoction or drinke, which is in the stead
of Wine to them, and generally sold in all their tappe houses,
called by the