An Ancient Recipe
From a rare book published in London in 1662 the following recipe is taken:
"To make the drink that is now much used called coffee.
"The coffee-berries are to be bought at any Druggist, about three shillings the pound; take what quantity you please, and over a charcoal fire, in an old pudding-pan, or frying-pan, keep them always stirring until they be quite black, and when you crack one with your teeth that it is black within as it is without; yet if you exceed, then do you waste the Oyl, which only makes the drink; and if less, then will it not deliver its Oyl, which must make the drink; and if you should continue fire till it be white, it will then make no coffee, but only give you its salt. The Berry prepared as above, beaten and forced through a Lawn Sive, is then for use.
"Take clean water, and boil one-third of it away what quantity soever it be, and it is fit for use. Take one quart of this prepared Water, put in it one ounce of your prepared coffee, and boil it gently one-quarter of an hour, and it is fit for your use; drink one-quarter of a pint as hot as you can sip it.
"Note, that instead of coffee, take English wheat, and thou wilt find it in all points as good and as profitable for thee, as I have wought and proved it, and speak it from knowledge; and I do from my heart bear witness to this drink as the best and safest for the health of man's body. And further I do know that it doth abate the fury and sharpness of the Acrimony, which is the gender of these Diseases called Cronical. And although it doth want fermentation, yet hath it the true strength of the grain if it be well prepared, and doth in no wise fume to intoxication, for that it is unfermented; and undoubtedly those which love health, will love this drink; and is an absolute enemy unto Nature's enemies."
The earliest written records of the use of coffee, as a beverage, are by Arabian writers. It is said to have prevailed in Persia as early as 875 A. D., and in Arabia about the fifteenth century.
The first English writer on the subject says: "The Turks have a drink called coffee (for they use no wine), so named of a berry as black as soot and as bitter, which they sip up as warm as they can suffer, because they find by experience that that kind of drink used helpeth digestion and preserveth alacrity." (Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy.") The first of the famous "Coffee Houses" of London dates from 1652.
The use of the beverage in England was at first confined to the wealthy, but ten years later coffee is spoken of as "now much used." It was not introduced as a beverage in France until 1662.