More erudite grocers treat us to the puff literary, as in the following
instance:--
"Rich-flavoured coffees fresh-roasted daily.
"USE OF COFFEE IN TURKEY.
"Sandys, the translator of 'Ovid's Metamorphoses,' and who travelled
in Turkey in 1610, gives the following passage in his 'Travailes,'
page 51 (edit. 1657). Speaking of the Turks, he says, 'Although they
be destitute of taverns, yet they have their coffee-houses, which
sometimes resemble them. There sit they chatting most of the day, and
sip of a drink called coffa, of the berry that it is made of, in
little china dishes, as hot as they can suffer it, black as soot,
which helpeth, as they say, digestion, and procureth alacrity.'"
This pleasant sample of the puff indirect has also appended to it the
naked sentence--
"_Adulterated with chicory, of which not less than half the sample
consists._"
The worst kinds of adulterated coffee are to be found in that which is
sold in canisters. The value of the tin envelope cannot be less than 2d.,
and, as the coffee so sold is charged at the same price as that in a paper
wrapper, it must be evident that a more extensive adulteration is
necessary in order to make up the difference. Such, upon examination,
proves to be the case, as it appeared--
"That the whole twenty-nine packages, bottles, and canisters submitted
to analysis, with a single exception,[5] were adulterated.
"That in these twenty-eight adulterated samples the falsification
consisted of so-called chicory, which in many instances constituted
the chief part of the article.
"That three of the samples contained mangold-wurzel, and two of them
roasted wheat-flour."
We have said it often happens that the adulterations are adulterated.
Chicory is an instance of it. The original fraud is found to have ramified
in an endless manner; and Sir Charles Wood will doubtless be astonished to
hear of the hideous crop of falsifications his most unfortunate order has
caused to spring out of the ground.
Immediately the process of transforming chicory into coffee became
legalized by the Government, that article came into very extensive
consumption, and factories were set up especially for its secret
manufacture. The reason for this secrecy may be gathered from the list of
articles which are made to subserve the purpose: roasted wheat, ground
acorns, roasted carrots, scorched beans, roasted parsnips, mangold-wurzel,
lupin-seeds, dog's biscuits, burnt sugar, _red earth_, roasted
horse-chestnuts,--and above and beyond all _baked horses' and bullocks'
livers_. This statement rests upon the authority of Mr. P. G. Simmonds, in
a work entitled "Coffee as it is, and as it ought to be:"--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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