Uncommon Grounds Part 19

11.

Coffee as an export crop developed relatively late in Central America because square-rigged s.h.i.+ps, then in use, could only travel downwind easily. The trade winds from the Atlantic blew s.h.i.+ps westward toward the coast of Central America, but there was no easy way to sail back east. The advent of clipper s.h.i.+ps, which could sail closer to the wind, and then steams.h.i.+ps, made coffee exports more feasible.

12.

A ladino ladino in Guatemala generally refers to someone with mixed European and Indian blood, or a in Guatemala generally refers to someone with mixed European and Indian blood, or a mestizo mestizo. Pure-blooded Indians could also become ladinos ladinos, however, if they adopted Western dress and lifestyles.

13.

From 1890 to 1892, 1,200 laborers from the Gilbert Islands of the Pacific were brought by blackbirders blackbirders, or slavers, to work on the coffee plantations of Guatemala. Fewer than 800 survived the trip, and a third of these died in the first year. The last of the survivors were finally returned to the Gilbert Islands in 1908.

14.

Of course, not all finca finca owners abused their laborers. On many plantations in Brazil, Guatemala, and elsewhere, enlightened owners treated workers as humanely as possible, paid higher than standard wages, and provided some medical care. Even in such cases, however, the Indians remained poor peons, with little hope of upward mobility, while the owners lived in relative affluence. owners abused their laborers. On many plantations in Brazil, Guatemala, and elsewhere, enlightened owners treated workers as humanely as possible, paid higher than standard wages, and provided some medical care. Even in such cases, however, the Indians remained poor peons, with little hope of upward mobility, while the owners lived in relative affluence.

15.

Costa Rica had no dye industry (indigo or cochineal) because during the colonial period the Spanish would not allow it. Costa Rica thus had motivation to try coffee before Guatemala, and it was Costa Rica that pioneered new growing and processing techniques. Where Indians did remain in Costa Rica, however, as in Orosi, they were dispossessed of their land just as in Guatemala.

16.

Nonetheless, at least early American coffee was fresh roasted. "To have it very good, it should be roasted immediately before it is made," wrote Eliza Leslie in an 1837 cookbook, "doing no more than the quant.i.ty you want at that time." Another 1845 writer advised, "Do not let it boil," but she was a voice crying in the wilderness.

17.

See the end of chapter 1 for a description of the 1823 coffee crisis.

18.

The New York roaster Lewis...o...b..rn was actually the first to sell packaged coffee. Osborn's Celebrated Prepared Java Coffee came on the market in 1860, but it disappeared three years later, killed by the war economy.

19.

Abiah Folger was Benjamin Franklin's mother.

20.

Coffee adulteration was also prevalent in Europe. While traveling on the continent in 1878, Mark Twain objected to European coffee that "resembles the real thing as hypocrisy resembles holiness."

21.

Few agree about whether aged beans taste better. Generally, aging reduces the acidity, or brightness, of a cup of coffee. Aging therefore is usually considered inappropriate for the snappy high-grown coffees of Central America or the blander Brazils, but it enhances the heavy body of a Sumatra or Mysore.

22.

The tax reduction was worded vaguely due to Puerto Rican concerns. After Puerto Rico became an American protectorate in 1898, its coffee industry suffered terribly-not only from a devastating cyclone in 1899, but also because the former Spanish colony could no longer export its beans duty-free to Spain. For years the Puerto Ricans, as well as the Hawaiians-where coffee cultivation began in 1825-lobbied U.S. politicians to impose a protective tariff on all other "foreign" coffee, in order to encourage the "domestic" coffee industry. They never succeeded.

23.

Kellogg may not have liked coffee, but he liked Post's rip-off even less. "Most coffee subst.i.tutes consist of cereals in some form combined with mola.s.ses and roasted, [which] develops in these subst.i.tutes poisonous phenolic and other smoke products the same as are produced in ordinary coffee." He complained later that Post had "made some millions by the sale of a cheap mixture of bran and mola.s.ses."

24.

Post wrote in I Am Well! I Am Well! that "whisky, morphine, tobacco, coffee, excessive animal pa.s.sions, and other unnatural conditions" contributed to ill health. Post knew about "animal pa.s.sions," bedding an a.s.sociate's wife and siring two children by her in 1894 and 1896. that "whisky, morphine, tobacco, coffee, excessive animal pa.s.sions, and other unnatural conditions" contributed to ill health. Post knew about "animal pa.s.sions," bedding an a.s.sociate's wife and siring two children by her in 1894 and 1896.

25.

In his later years Post left the creation of new products to others. His cousin, Willis Post, who headed the British outpost, invented instant Postum in 1911, obviating the need to boil the drink for twenty minutes.

26.

In eighteenth-century Sweden twin brothers were sentenced to death for murder. King Gustav III commuted it to life sentences in order to study the then-controversial effects of tea and coffee. One brother drank large daily doses of tea, the other, coffee. The tea drinker died first, at eighty-three.

27.

For an a.s.sessment of coffee's effect on health, see chapter 19.

28.

See chapter 8 for a detailed account of the G. Was.h.i.+ngton brand, the most successful early instant coffee.

29.

"The air was thick with an all-embracing odor," wrote Gerald Carson in The Old Country Store The Old Country Store, "an aroma composed of dry herbs and wet dogs, or strong tobacco, green hides and raw humanity." Bulk roasted coffee absorbed all such smells.

30.

Mail-order houses also made incursions into the retail coffee market. The 1897 Sears Roebuck Catalog Sears Roebuck Catalog, for instance, offered green, whole-roasted, or roasted ground coffees.