At the breakfast table of a friend not long ago I heard the gentleman of the house remark over his fragrant coffee: “I laughed at my wife when she went into the cooking school last summer, I thought her a model cook before; but for some reason she has improved. I never tasted such coffee as this.” My hostess answered: “The reason is simple enough. I had always cooked by rule before. I learned in my studies in cookery to reason. It makes a great difference.” It does make a difference, and never a greater than in preparing tea, coffee and chocolate. There is rarely a cup of any one of these beverages on our tables which is fit to drink; our coffee is bitter and muddy, tea is either insipid or too strong, and chocolate has failed to become the popular drink which it deserves to be, because so rarely well prepared. Few cooks understand the nature of either the coffee berry or the tea leaf, and consequently do not know how to treat them in order to extract their delicious flavor, aroma, and nerve-bracing qualities. Few cooks have an idea of the extreme delicacy of these articles, of how scientifically, even artistically, they must be treated. To extract an oil or flavor is one of the nicest experiments of the laboratory, and one for which a chemist selects his materials with the greatest care, attends strictly to the cleanliness of his vessels, watches every change in temperature, and counts even seconds in time. Making these beverages is nothing less than performing a delicate chemical experiment, and yet we are so ignorant or careless about this important work that we attend strictly to neither heat nor time, and often take just what we can most easily get to work with.