ee, without milk or sugar, but sometimes flavored
with cardamom seeds, are served to the guest at first welcome; and
coffee may be had at all hours between meals, or whenever the occasion
demands it. Always the beans are freshly roasted, pounded, and boiled.
The Arabs average twenty-five to thirty cups (findjans) a day.
Everywhere in Arabia there are to be found cafes where the beverage may
be bought.

[Illustration: SHIPS OF THE DESERT LADEN WITH COFFEE, ARABIA]

Those of the lower classes are thronged throughout the day. In front,
there is generally a porch or bench where one may sit. The rooms,
benches, and little chairs lack the cleanliness and elegance of the
one-time luxurious "_caffinets_" of cities like Damascus and
Constantinople, but the drink is the same. There is not in all Yemen a
single market town or hamlet where one does not find upon some simple
hut the legend, "Shed for drinking coffee".

The Arab drinks water before taking coffee, but never after it. "Once in
Syria", says a traveler, "I was recognized as a foreigner because I
asked for water just after I had taken my coffee. 'If you belonged
here', said the waiter, 'you would not spoil the taste of coffee in your
mouth by washing it away with water.'"

It is an adventure to partake of coffee prepared in the open, at a
roadside inn, or khan, in Arabia by an _araba_, or diligence driver. He
takes from his saddle-bag the ever-present coffee kit, containing his
supply of green beans, of which he roasts just sufficient on a little
perforated iron plate over an open fire, deftly taking off the beans,
one at a time, as they turn the right color. Then he pounds them in a
mortar, boils his water in the long, straight-handled open boiler, or
_ibrik_ (a sort of brass mug or _jezveh_), tosses in the coffee powder,
moving the vessel back and forth from the fire as it boils up to the
rim; and, after repeating this maneuver three times, pours the contents
foaming merrily into the little egg-like serving cups.

_Cafee sultan_, or _kisher_, the original decoction, made from dried and
toasted coffee hulls, is still being drunk in parts of Arabia and
Turkey.

Coffee in Arabia is part of the ritual of business, as in other Oriental
countries. Shop-keepers serve it to the customer before the argument
starts. Recently, a New York barber got some valuable publicity because
he regaled his customers with tea and music. It was "old stuff". The
Arabian and Turkish barber