BREAKFAST TABLE ROMANCE.

Waikato Times, Volume 87, Issue 13269, 26 August 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

BREAKFAST TABLE ROMANCE.

THE FRAGRANT "WINE OF THE

ORIENT."

By Francis Stopford. From Mecca came a holy man and dwelt in a hut on a high mountain. Those of his faith flocked to him, for his sanctity was .reputed to be great and lus wisdom profitable. And he emptied his leathern scrip upon the ground, turning out from it dried scraps of provender which had been given to him by kindly people on his journeyings. At the bottom of the bag were half a dozen withered brown berries; these ho unwittingly brought with him from Arabia. . It was a goodly hill where he lived. Forests clothed the base of it and its slopes were feathered with bamboos, which moaned and groaned in every passing breeze. Those who live among bamboos come to love these eerie cries, for they are to them the talk of wind and tree. Presently from those withered berries sprouted bushes with leaves of lustrous green, and in a year or two when the early rains fell they put forth clusters of white flowers of rare fragrance. When the flowers died clusters of green berries formed, each berry swelled to the size of a cherry, and then assumed a bright red hue of that fnut when ripe. Had you bitten this cherry you would have "tasted a sickly-sweet and rather sticky pulp, in the middle ot which wero two beans?, as though one round one had been split in twain and the two halves faced together. The holy man dried these berries, around them to powder, and made a fragrant drink that was new to the peoples of India. For this happened in India some centuries ago, and it is the true story of how coffee was introduced to that country. IN HAPPY ARABIA. If etymologists are right, "coffee" is indentieal with the Arabic word signifying "wine." I hope this is true, tor it would show that in Arabia three or four hundred voars ago they understood better than we appear to do to-day the true nature of stimulants. Anyhow, they were very human in happy Arabia m those distant days, for the story goes that the hist popularity of the berry arose from its being discovered that it brewed strong enough the drink was capable of keeping good men awake through the drowie.st sermons. And this property of dispelling sleep many of us know to our cost coffee still possesses. Coffee is the beverage, of Mahometans, that religion may claim to have introduced it to the world. Although the tree must have flourished from earliest times there is no trace of its use until the sixteenth century. It may be truly called the youngest of soft drinks, for tea was in popular use in China centuries before the first cup of toffee was made. Never will it attain the popularity which is its distant- cousin, tor several reasons, iimoiiK which are its singular eaprieiousness regarding soil, situation and climate. Instances can be given where one man has made a fortune out of a. coffee plantation, and not a mile awav, in apparently the same soil another man lias lost every penny lie has sunk in its cultivation. A GAMBLE.

It is also liable to sudden epidemics. veritable plagues that swc.p ;'way acres upon acres so that in two or t'nv" years the slopes of the hills formerly happily covered with bushes of shining green are arrayed with battalions of ghastly white tree-skeletons, the roads overgrown with weeds, and the bungalows broken down and deserted —an abomination of desolation.

! There is no crop grown upon this ; earth that is a greater gamble than coffee. Its harvest denends upon a few 1 showers at a single season of the year, 1 and, no matter how careful the cultiva- • tion, how assiduous the attention if the rain be withheld at the right time or ' does not fall sufficiently. But let the blossoming showers be • favorable, then behold a scene of ex- » quisite loveliness. Perhaps the true L ' romance of coffee lies in the fact that it is always cultivated amid glorious surroundings. The conditions necessary for its well-being are those which go to make up scenery delightful to the eyes. It thrives on 'high uplands and subt distances in even rows. At maturity - the outspreading branches cover the s ground. And when in the spring of the ' year the right rain has fallen a bridal veil of shimmering white is drawn over c hill and dale. The M-ent of the flowers 5" lies heavy on the air, and there is the '- murmur of the wild bees who hang in - swarms from the boughs of a lofty tree " or whose honeycombs blacken the lace r of rocky cliffs that overshadow the •' fields of'white blossoms. The flower - only lasts two or three days, but any i one who has seen a coffee plantation in - full blossom under favorable conditions will never forget the sight. ; AROMA FOR THE GODS. f Of all the perfumes of Arabia none ,- excels the aromatic fragrance of coffee u dried and ready for shipment. It will I he stored in a dark cool room on a swele tering coast, and no musk ncr vanilla it nor cocoa gives forth a richer or more delicious scent. It does not in the least r smell like coffee after it has been roasti ed, rather it resembles the most delicate :• chocolate. So volatile is the aroma that - epicures have before now had coffee, dill rectly it was dried, packed in half-pound u tins, hermetically sealed. Directly the e tin is opened, the coffee is roasted, t ground, and prepared, and in this way t its full flavor is preserved. But it is an y expensive process involving much a trouble. :i The cultivation of the beans has had v its tragedies. Many of these hinge on • the circumstance that much of the best 3 coffee land was a hot-bed of malaria be- - fore it was planted. Men have died i from thi.s dread scourge like rotten ■i sheep. Stories are told of lonely planters who have suddenly disappeared, 1 wandering into the jungle in their de- & lirium and being lost for ever, their - bones picked clean by jackal and vulr tuie. These things will be whenever • man puts up a fight against Nature, - who in wild lands is something of a 1 Hun, though lacking the, Hun's cal--1 culated brutality. If only one could visualise, the brief " history of coffef —for it is strangely ' brief if compared with the vine or the - tea-bush—whenever one sips a cup ol it, • scenes stranger than those described in "' the Arabian Nights would rise before 3 the mind's eye. and add a. charm even • to the most prosaic workaday existence.