coffee in the specifications. Many coffee driers were listed as
"grain driers," for instance. Also, many excellent devices have been
made that were never patented.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXV

WORLD'S COFFEE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS

_How coffee is roasted, prepared, and served in all the leading
civilized countries--The Arabian coffee ceremony--The present-day
coffee houses of Turkey--Twentieth-century improvements in Europe
and the United States_

Coffee manners and customs have shown little change in the Orient in the
six hundred-odd years since the coffee drink was discovered by Sheik
Omar in Arabia. As a beverage for western peoples, however, and more
particularly in America, there have been many improvements in making and
serving it.

A brief survey of the coffee conventions and coffee service in the
principal countries where coffee has become a fixed item in the dietary
is presented here, with a view to show how different peoples have
adapted the universal drink to their national needs and preferences.

To proceed in alphabetical order, and beginning with Africa, coffee
drinking is indulged in largely in Abyssinia, Algeria, Egypt, Portuguese
East Africa, and the Union of South Africa.

_Coffee Manners and Customs in Africa_

In Abyssinia and Somaliland, among the native population, the most
primitive methods of coffee making still obtain. Here the wandering
Galla still mix their pulverized coffee beans with fats as a food
ration, and others of the native tribes favor the _kisher_, or beverage
made from the toasted coffee hulls. An hour's boiling produces a
straw-colored decoction, of a slightly sweetish taste. Where the Arabian
customs have taken root, the drink is prepared from the roasted beans
after the Arabian and Turkish method. The white inhabitants usually
prepare and serve the beverage as in the homeland; so that it is
possible to obtain it after the English, French, German, Greek, or
Italian styles. Adaptations of the French sidewalk cafe, and of the
Turkish coffee house, may be seen in the larger towns.

In the equatorial provinces of Egypt, and in Uganda, the natives eat the
raw berries; or first cook them in boiling water, dry them in the sun,
and then eat them. It is a custom to exchange coffee beans in friendly
greeting.

Individual earthen vessels for making coffee, painted red and yellow,
are made by some of the native tribes in Abyssinia, and usually
acc