All About Coffee Part 123

C.W. Van Vliet, of Fishkill Landing, N.Y., was granted a United States patent in 1855 on a household coffee mill employing upper breaking and lower grinding cones. He a.s.signed it to Charles Parker of Meriden, Conn.

In 1860-61 several United States patents were granted John and Edmund Parker on coffee grinders for home use.

In 1862, E.J. Hyde, of Philadelphia, was granted a United States patent on a combined coffee-roaster and stove fitted with a crane on which the roasting cylinder was revolved and swung out horizontally for emptying and refilling. This machine proved to be a commercial success. Bened.i.c.kt Fischer used one in his first roasting plant in New York. It is still being manufactured by the Bramhall Deane Company of New York.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A GLOBULAR STOVE ROASTER OF 1860]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HYDE'S COMBINED ROASTER AND STOVE]

In 1864, Jabez Burns, of New York, was granted a United States patent on the original Burns coffee roaster, the first machine which did not have to be moved away from the fire for discharging the roasted coffee, and one that marked a distinct advance in the manufacture of coffee-roasting apparatus. It was a closed iron cylinder set in brickwork. (See ill.u.s.tration, page 635.)

Jabez Burns had been a student of coffee roasting in New York for twenty years before he produced the machine that was to revolutionize the coffee business of the United States. He had brought with him from England a knowledge of the trade in that country, where he first began his business training by selling Java coffee at fourteen cents and Sumatra at eleven cents to hotels, boarding-houses, and private families.

Up to the time of the Civil War, the contrivances employed for roasting coffee in every case necessitated the removal of the roasting apparatus--whether pan, globe, or cylinder--from the fire. The process of causing coffee to discharge from the end of the roasting cylinder at the pleasure of the operator while the cylinder was still in motion was new; and the double set of f.l.a.n.g.es to produce this effect, and at the same time, during the process of roasting, to keep the coffee equally distributed from end to end of the cylinder, was new. Some one suggested this last improvement was simply an Archimedean screw placed in a cylinder, but Mr. Burns replied: "It is a double screw, a thing never suggested by the Archimedean screw. It is, in fact, a double right and left augur, one within the other, firmly secured together and also to the sh.e.l.l or cylinder, and when the cylinder revolves the desired result is obtained--the idea being entirely original."

Mr. Burns had watched the development of the coffee business from the time when the preparation of coffee was largely confined to the home, where the approved roasting implements were hot stones, or tiles, iron plates, skillets, and frying pans. Some of these were still in use twenty years after he produced his first machine; and he often said that coffee evenly roasted by such methods was just as good as if done by the best mechanical device ever invented. He also said: "Coffee can be roasted in very simple machinery. Some of the best we ever saw was done in a corn popper. Patent portable roasters are almost as numerous as rat traps or churns."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ORIGINAL BURNS ROASTER, 1864]

He early saw the practise of domestic roasting falling into disuse, as it was becoming possible to supply the consumer with roasted coffee for only a trifle more than in the green state, with all the labor and annoyance of roasting done away with--a talking point that John Arbuckle was quick to seize upon in his first Ariosa advertising.

In almost every town of any size there were concerns engaged in the roasting business. Within a few years, Burns machines were placed in all the princ.i.p.al roasting centers. Pupke & Reid in New York; Flint, Evans & Co., and James H. Forbes in St. Louis; Arbuckles & Co., in Pittsburgh; the Weikel & Smith Spice Co. in Philadelphia; Theodore F. Johnson & Co., in Newark; Evans & Walker in Detroit; W. & J.G. Flint in Milwaukee; and Parker & Harrison in Cincinnati, were among his first customers.

It is said that in 1845 there were facilities in and around New York to roast as much coffee as was then consumed in Great Britain. Steam power was being extensively used, and the roasting was done here for a large part of the country. The habit was to buy roasted coffee from the coffee and spice mills by the bag or larger quant.i.ty for country consumption; and the grocers and small tea stores, for local consumption, bought from twenty-five pounds upward at a time. This method cheapened the roasting of coffee to half a cent a pound; and then good profits could be made, for everything was cheap in those days. Even at that, it would have been impossible for each tea dealer to have roasted his own coffee for several times the amount, so the practise was generally adhered to all over the country.

Jabez Burns wrote in 1874:

It is preposterous to suppose that household roasting will be continued long in any part of this country, if coffee properly prepared can be had. This is demonstrated by the remarkable advances made in Pittsburgh and other places, where only a few years ago the sales were chiefly in green coffee. Now the amount roasted in Pittsburgh alone by those who make a business of it, exceeds the entire consumption of coffee of any kind in the United States fifty years ago. It will never pay for small stores to roast if the large manufactories will do the work well, and if they will not, small dealers will add proper machinery, and will eventually become strong competing dealers. By doing the work with proper care they will not only secure a reputation with large sales for themselves, but will command the roasting for other parties.

Until the Burns roaster appeared, coffee roasters were usually cylinders that revolved upon an axis; the other devices that were tried were not successful. Jabez Burns thus describes the first roaster he ever saw at Hull, England:

It consisted of a furnace, open at the top, and a perforated cylinder with a slide door. The axis, or shaft, of the cylinder had bearings on a frame which pa.s.sed outside the furnace, while the cylinder went down into the fire pit, the top of which could be covered over. In this position it could be turned by means of a crank on the end of a shaft The only means of testing was by the escape of the steam or aroma, whichever predominated, pa.s.sing out through the perforations at the top; but so expert was the operator and so quick to detect the aroma, that he seldom had to return the cylinder to the fire to produce a satisfactory roast. This man roasted fifty pounds or less in a batch for a number of retail stores.

Globes, consisting of two hemispheres, made of cast-iron and so arranged that they opened to fill and discharge, but operated substantially as above, only with the method of lowering into the fire changed somewhat, I have seen in use in Scotland in 1840. They were called French roasters.

In this country a few years ago the use of the long sheet-iron cylinder was almost universal, varying only in the method of placing the cylinder over the fire--some sideways on a track, others endwise, sliding on a long shaft or by turning on a crane, in either case causing considerable labor and loss of time, which often resulted in the hands of the inexperienced in more or less spoiling the batch of coffee.

From his expert knowledge of coffee and coffee-roasting problems, Jabez Burns quickly rose to a commanding position in the industry. He was a trade teacher and a trade builder. He had very definite ideas on roasting. He said:

The object of roasting is not attained until all the moisture (water of vegetation) is driven off. Roast properly--uniformly and sufficiently--and you will get all the aroma there is in the bean.

Coffees of various kinds can not be roasted to a uniform color.

Some will be of a light shade when sufficiently roasted while others will have to be roasted dark to develop the aroma.

Therefore, appearance alone is not a proper test. Aroma-saving devices have had their day. Coffee is of no use unless the aroma is fully developed, and the more it is developed by roasting the better it is. What pa.s.ses off in the roasting process can not be saved and is so small that if all of it in the country could be collected and freed of all foreign matter, it would not weigh an ounce.

Roast coffee over a slow fire so that it will be an hour before it has the color of roasted coffee, and, in contrast, produce in another batch of like quant.i.ty the same color in thirty minutes, and it will be found for all intended purposes, either to grind, sell or drink, that the latter will be, beyond all comparison, the best. Coffee should be roasted uniform and as quickly as possible, only it must not be scorched or spotted, otherwise it will have a bitter burned taste. If roasted properly it will very considerably increase its bulk and will be plump, swelled out and crisp; easily crushed in the hand or between the fingers.

In his _Spice Mill Companion_, published in 1879, Jabez Burns said further in regard to roasting:

All coffees do not roast alike; some will be a bright light color when done, and others will be dark before done. There are two infallible rules, which if properly appreciated and tried will prove to be practically useful. One is, when the aroma is sufficiently developed to produce a sharp, cutting, but aromatic sensation in the nose. Those who practice that way do not need to see the roast. The other rule is that when a berry is broken it is crisp and uniform in color inside and out. Those who are accustomed to this method may be good coffee roasters, albeit they may not have any nose at all. But we must state in this connection, that a man who has no smell and is color blind is not a fit candidate for the coffee roasting profession; and, moreover, we affirm that any person who can not roast coffee, so far as judgment is concerned, after a few trials, will never make a good operator.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BURNS GRANULATING MILL, 1872-74]

In 1867, Jabez Burns was granted a United States patent on an improved coffee cooler, mixer, and grinding mill, or granulator. Another granulator patent was issued to him in 1872. Mr. Burns had also given the subject of cooling coffees considerable study, and his cooler was the result. He argued that it was necessary to cool quickly. Before his day, various methods had been employed, such as placing the coffee in revolving drums covered with wire cloth. Sometimes a draft of cold air was applied to the cooling drums, and the dirt and chaff blown through the wire cloth. It was also customary in wholesale establishments to blow cold air up through a perforated bottom, and this had been found effective when properly applied. The Burns idea was to cool by means of suction, causing a downward draft through the coffee and wire-cloth bottomed box, which was found to be more uniform and efficient for cooling purposes, as well as in controlling smoke, heat, and dust, which by this means could be blown out of the roasting room by any convenient outlet.

On the subject of grinding, likewise, Mr. Burns had reached some definite conclusions. The French and English lap and wall mills, the English steel mills, and the Swift mills were all used in the United States. Troemner's, the Enterprise, and others--to be mentioned later in chronological order--were extending their use in a retail way; but Jabez Burns confined his attention to a practicable mill for wholesale grinding establishments.

For manufacturing purposes, burstone mills were for many years exclusively employed, especially one first known as the Prentiss & Page, and later as the Page mill. There was a time when all the coffee establishments in New York sent their coffee to Prentiss & Page to be ground. Some of the places roasted by hand, others by horse power; and if by steam, it was limited, and they did not have enough to spare for grinding.

With the march of improvement, burstone mills went into the discard. The difficulty lay in finding men experienced in stone dressing to run them; and the demand grew for a better style of grinding than could be done in a mill out of face and balance. This demand was met in an altogether different style of machine, which for twenty-five years was well known as the Barbor mill. It was for improvements on this mill that Jabez Burns in 1867, 1872, and 1874 obtained his granulator patents.

The mill comprised cutters in the form of an iron roller running in near contact with a concave, also of iron, and a revolving cylinder provided with sieves, or screens, that received the ground material, rolled it over the wire surface, sifting out the fine and discharging the coa.r.s.e automatically into the cutter, to be again manipulated until it was fine enough to pa.s.s through the meshes of the screen.

Jabez Burns patented an improved form of his roaster in 1881, and a sample-coffee roaster in 1883, before he died in 1888; and since that time his sons, who continue the business, have perfected a number of improvements and brought out new machines which will be referred to in chronological order.

James H. Nason, of Franklin, Ma.s.s., was granted a United States patent in 1865 on a percolator with fluid joints.

P.H. Vanderweyde, of Philadelphia, was granted United States patents in 1866 on a percolator and a continuous coffee-filtering machine.

Raparlier was granted a French patent on a pocket coffee-making device in 1867. In later years, his invention became very popular among French coffee drinkers. It was one of the early practicable forms of double-gla.s.s-globe filtration devices.

E.B. Manning of Middletown, Conn., was granted his first patent on a tea and coffee pot in 1868. Others followed in 1870 and 1876. In the latter year, John Bowman brought out the valve-type percolator which subsequently attained great favor in American households.

Thomas Smith & Son (Elkington & Company, Ltd., successors) began to manufacture at Glasgow, Scotland, about 1870, the Napierian vacuum coffee machine which had been invented in 1840--but never patented--by Robert Napier of the celebrated firm of Clyde s.h.i.+pbuilders. This machine makes coffee by distillation and filtration. It employs a metal globe, and a brewer from which the coffee is syphoned over into the globe through a tube, around the strainer-end of which, as it rests in the coffee liquid in the brewer, there is tied a filter cloth. It is still being manufactured by Elkington & Company.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NAPIER'S VACUUM MACHINE, 1840]

Thomas Page, a New York millwright, began the manufacture of a pull-out coffee roaster similar to the old Carter machine, in 1868. Later, Chris Abele, who was foreman in the Page shop, succeeded to the business; and in 1882, he was granted a United States patent on an improvement on a coffee roaster similar to the original Burns machine (the patent had then expired) which he marketed under the name of Knickerbocker.

_German Coffee Machinery_

The Germans first began to show an active interest in coffee machinery in 1860. In that year, Alexius Van Gulpen, of Emmerich, produced a green-coffee grader; and later (1868), in partners.h.i.+p with J.H. Lensing and Theodore von Gimborn, began the manufacture of coffee-roasting machines. From this start there developed in Emmerich quite an industry in coffee-machinery building. In 1870, Alexius Van Gulpen introduced to the German trade a globular coffee roaster employing wood and c.o.ke as fuel and having perforations and an exhauster. Van Gulpen and von Gimborn are the two names most often met with in the development of German coffee-roasting machinery.

The first recorded German patent on a coffee roaster was issued to G.

Tubermann's Son in 1877, for "a coffee burner with vertically adjusted stirring works." German patents were issued in 1878 to R. Muhlberg, of Taucha, for coffee roasters with movable part.i.tions and "screw-shaped declining walls." Six roaster patents were issued to other inventors in 1878-79.

Peter Pearson, of Manchester, took out a German patent on a coffee-roasting apparatus in 1880. Fleury & Barker, of London, were granted a coffee-roaster patent in Germany in 1881.

After 1870, Van Gulpen devoted himself to the cylinder type of roaster, on which he obtained several patents. The partners.h.i.+p between Messrs.

Van Gulpen, Lensing and von Gimborn was dissolved in 1906. They were succeeded by the Emmericher Maschinenfabrik und Eissengiesserei, and Van Gulpen & Co. Van Gulpen died in 1920. Among his inventions were a circular air fan to supply fresh air to the beans while roasting; a fire-dampening device; roasting and cooling exhausters; and a "withdrawable" mixer remaining inside the cylinder during the roasting process, but designed to be withdrawn at the end, discharging the contents with a jerk into a circular cooler. These improvements are featured in Van Gulpen & Co.'s latest Meteor machine. They make also the Typhoon and Comet machines, and a line of globular roasters.

A dozen coffee-roaster patents were issued in Germany in 1880-82. Among them was one to the Emmerich Machine Factory and Iron Foundry, Van Gulpen, Lensing & von Gimborn, Emmerich, in 1882.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN GAS AND COAL ROASTING MACHINES

Left, Perfekt gas roaster--Right, Probat coal roaster]

Numerous coffee-cooling, coffee-grinding, and coffee-making devices were patented in Germany from 1877 to 1885; among them Newstadt's coffee-extract machine in 1882, safety attachments, rapid filters, Vienna coffee makers, etc. The first Vienna coffee maker seems to have been patented in Germany in 1879.