Strang's Soluble Coffee
When, a few weeks back, the fact that Mr David Strang, proprietor of the Invercargill Steam Coffee Mills had applied for a patent for something entirely new in his line of business, was announced in these columns we remarked .that we should have something more to say on the subject when the process of patenting had been completed. This has now been done and the patent soluble coffee is on the market. Those who know our worthy townsman and the amount of intelligent study and research that he has thrown into what most people look upon as a very simple process of manufacture, were well aware that he was not likely to spoil a good reputation by taking up a fad, and that if he was of opinion that his discovery was a good one good it would be. Like a good many more people we have been testing the subject matter of his patent very assiduously .and find, like them, that the decoction so simply made is coffee and that of the most appetising and enticing quality. It is strange that our townsman should have been the first to think out and successfully fill what was, to use a hackneyed phrase, a felt want in connection with the well-known beverage, namely, a method of treating the coffee bean (as has been the case with cocoa nibs for years) so that the simple addition of boiling water in the cup should be sufficient to produce a fragrant drink^lacking none of the characteristics of the best coffee prepared in the best way. It may be said that essences of coffee have been in the market for half-a-century, but no one has ever used these mysterious' mixtures habitually. They are poor substitutes, the best of them, for the real article and have nothing to recommend them except the celerity with which a warm beverage of a kind may be provided. The aroma of the best coffee ever grown is destroyed by infusion or admixture with a liquid, as anyone can ascertain by smelling at a cup of the liquor when gone cold. Hence, no matter how good the essential constituents of caffiene may be that are used in these so-called essences they all lack that fragrant satisfying aroma which is characteristic of the ground article ; this arising from the fact that in order to prevent fermentation these essences are largely built up of molasses, sugar, and Russian isinglass, which in a liquid form dispel the aroma. There is no suspicion of this kind of thing about Mr Strang*s soluble coffee : it is the same article as he has gained fame and honours for all over the colonies, only that he has by experiment and the use of the steel roller mill, which is now so much employed in grinding wheat, reduced the bean to a state of very fine division which permits boiling water to instantly extract all its virtues and best qualities. Much more could be said in commendation of our townsman's latest production, but it is really unnecessary. The article speaks for itself, and there can be no doubt that the soluble coffee will soon be in very general demand throughout these colonies, and, we venbure to predict, in Britain also.