offee is made after the French fashion. In PANAMA,
French and American methods obtain; as also in the PHILIPPINES.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXVI

PREPARATION OF THE UNIVERSAL BEVERAGE

_The evolution of grinding and brewing methods--Coffee was first a
food, then a wine, a medicine, a devotional refreshment, a
confection, and finally a beverage--Brewing by boiling, infusion,
percolation, and filtration--Coffee making in Europe in the
nineteenth century--Early coffee making in the United
States--Latest developments in better coffee making--Various
aspects of scientific coffee brewing--Advice to coffee lovers on
how to buy coffee, and how to make it in perfection_

The coffee drink has had a curious evolution. It began, not as a drink,
but as a food ration. Its first use as a drink was as a kind of wine.
Civilization knew it first as a medicine. At one stage of its
development, before it became generally accepted as a liquid
refreshment, the berries found favor as a confection. As a beverage, its
use probably dates back about six hundred years.

The protein and fat content, that is, the food value, of coffee, so far
as civilized man is concerned, is an absolute waste. The only
constituents that are of value are those that are water soluble, and can
be extracted readily with hot water. When coffee is properly made, as by
the drip method, either by percolation or filtration, the ground coffee
comes in contact with the hot water for only a few minutes; so the major
portion of the protein, which is not only practically insoluble, but
coagulates on heating, remains in the unused part of the coffee, the
grounds. The coffee bean contains a large percent of protein--fourteen
percent. By comparing this figure with twenty-one percent of protein in
peas, twenty-three percent in lentils, twenty-six percent in beans,
twenty-four percent in peanuts, about eleven percent in wheat flour, and
less than nine percent in white bread, we learn how much of this
valuable food stuff is lost with the coffee grounds[373].

Though civilized man (excepting the inhabitants of the Isle de Groix off
the coast of Brittany) does not use this protein content of coffee, in
certain parts of Africa it has been put to use in a very ingenious and
effective manner "from time immemorial" down to the present day. James
Bruce, the Scottish explorer, in his travels to discover the source of
the Nile in 1768-73