SECTION VII.. Adulterants.

ADULTERANTS.

Great as the consumption of coffee is in Europe and the Americas, it has become so necessary in every household, that the demand continues to increase, and very full prices are maintained. The largely extended plantations in Brazil, in Ceylon, in India, in Java, and in other suitable localities, profitably opened up every day, altogether fail to keep down prices, and will long continue to offer the strong inducement of large profits!

Taking advantage of this great public want, the unscrupulous and fraudulent trader foists upon the easily-duped masses of consumers vast quantities of unwholesome and pernicious stuff, mixed in certain proportions with coffee; and, although the law has interposed in the case of chicory, forbidding, under penalties, its being sold mixed with coffee, unless especially so labelled and declared, yet who can tell the thousand and one mixtures that are still made and sold with it?

It may be said that all this can be prevented by purchasing only unground coffee, in a roasted state, ready for grinding; but there are those (to be reckoned by hundreds of thousands of families) who, having no means of grinding this roasted coffee, are compelled to buy that which is already ground, or go without altogether.

What abominations do these (in too many cases) not drink, then, under the much abused name of coffee?

These reflections are forced upon my mind every time I enter a coffee-house, and am called to put faith in the purity of the cup of coffee set before me.

Visitors to the establishments of coffee-grinders speak of bags of the husks of peas, and cobs of Indian corn, wheat, sea-biscuits, and other articles, harmless enough in themselves, and in their right places, where, indeed, they may be useful; but a coffee-mill is the wrong place for these otherwise objectionable articles of consumption. It will not be denied that the husks of peas or the cobs of maize are appropriately placed in the trough from which our pigs feed; they will even add to the delicacy and whiteness of the pork those very useful animals are intended to yield us, but they are essentially out of place in our coffee-cup. These, and various other articles, go to make what in the trade is termed “Boston,” and this preparation the visitor, who has been admitted to the arcana of the grinder, will find mixed in a large bin ready for use. One who has been thus favoured, after describing the mill used for grinding the coffee, speaks of another machine, called the “mixer.” The “mixer” is a wooden cylinder revolving on a spindle at an angle of 45°, and having internal arrangements to mix the coffee with such proportion of adulterating material as the ingenuity or impudence of the grinder may suggest. Here, like Macbeth’s witches over their cauldron, presides the genius of the place, who casts in the ingredients which constitute the villanous compound, which, done up in tins, is finally ornamented with labels such as this:

FINEST PLANTATION COFFEE,

Roasted and ground on the most approved principle by

STEAM MACHINERY.

This coffee is with confidence highly recommended to the public, as the fine aroma, so much appreciated, is entirely preserved by its being

PACKED FRESH FROM THE MILL.

We need scarcely say that the amount of nourishment contained in this abominable olio is infinitesimally small.

The Scientific American of New York, of a recent date, records the following fact: “The editor of the Baltimore American lately visited the commissary department of one of the large military hospitals, and noticed several barrels of dried coffee grounds, the purpose whereof excited his curiosity. The polite commissary informed him that they received twelve dollars a barrel for the grounds. ‘But what is it purchased for?’ he asked. ‘Well,’ said the commissary, hesitatingly, ‘it is re-aromatised by the transforming hand of modern chemistry, and put up in pound papers, which are decorated with attractive labels and high-sounding names.’”

About ten years ago, when the question of coffee adulteration was much agitated, I published a little treatise, entitled, “Coffee, as it is and as it ought to be,” in which, among other particulars, I pointed out the various sophistications practised. A compositor who was engaged in printing the work furnished me with a remarkable statement in confirmation of reports which I had previously heard.

He stated that in various parts of the metropolis, but more especially in the east, are to be found liver bakers. These men take the livers of oxen and horses, bake them, and grind them into a powder, which they sell to the low-priced coffee-shop keepers, at from 4d. to 6d. per pound; horse-liver coffee bearing the highest price. This adulterant may be known by allowing the coffee to stand until cold, when a thick pellicle or skin will be found on the top. It goes farther than coffee, and is generally mixed with chicory and other vegetable imitations of coffee.

According to the investigations of Dr. Hassall (“Food and its Adulterations”), the several adulterations of coffee may be distinguished by the following characters:

Chicory, by the size, form, and ready separation of the component cells of the root, as well as by the presence of an abundance of spiral vessels of the dotted form.

Roasted corn, by the size, form, and other characters of the starch granules, of which the grains are principally composed. Beans, also, by the form, &c., of the constituent granules of starch. Potato, by the large size, rounded form, and ready separation of the cells of the cellulose, as well as by the fibrous markings on their surfaces.

Plate 3 shows a fragment of roasted coffee as seen under the microscope, magnified 140 diameters, and the structures in a sample of coffee adulterated with chicory.

Dr. Normandy, in his evidence before the Parliamentary Committee on the Adulteration of Food, &c., stated that he had met with roasted corn in coffee to an extent of from 25 to 30 per cent.; it is recognised by the size and character of the starch granules; consists of barley and rye, and is generally very easy to detect; it floats up. If coffee has been adulterated with roasted grain, when you pour boiling water upon it you will see rising against the sides of the cup portions of the ground grain, which you sometimes can separate in considerable quantities, by capillary attraction. If you pour such coffee from the coffee-pot, some of those grains will fall with the liquid in the cup, and they will climb up, as it were, the sides of the cup a quarter of an inch, or something of that kind, all round, and you can collect them very easily.

Dr. R. D. Thompson, F.R.S., another witness, stated that a large cargo of lupins from Egypt having been imported, which could not be made any use of in consequence of their bitter taste, he was asked to give a certificate in favour of their being equal to coffee, but declined, and recommended that, after steeping, to remove the bitter principle, they should be sold for cattle. He also added that he had seen an ingenious apparatus for making artificial coffee-berries from chicory and other substances; it was something like a bullet-mould, and patented by Messrs. Duckworth of Liverpool.

The chicory itself sold is not always pure. The Board of Inland Revenue have found, on chemical examination in different samples, beans, rye, oats (roasted and ground), caramel or burnt sugar, oxide of iron and orange berries.

The principle contained in coffee, remarks Dr. Letheby, may be considered as essential to life, inasmuch as all nations

Genuine Ground Coffee.]

use it; it prevents the wear and tear of the body. Now there is nothing in chicory which can do that. Chemically there is no difference between beetroot chicory and what is called real chicory; microscopically you can discover the difference. If genuine coffee is sprinkled upon the surface of a tumbler of water, it remains a considerable time floating, and when it sinks it only slightly colours the water; chicory, on the other hand, sinks quickly, and colours the water very deeply. Ground coffee is enveloped in an oily substance, which prevents the water absorbing; chicory has no such protection, and sinks immediately.

Mr. Phillips, the chemist to the Inland Board of Revenue, states that the average per-centage of chicory to coffee, when sold mixed, was found to range from 20½ to 16¾ per cent.

At a recent meeting of the British Association of Science, Mr. Horsley called attention to the use of bi-chromate of potash, in analysing adulterated samples of coffee. With diluted solutions of pure coffee, this salt produces an intense deep porter-brown coloration, whilst upon decoctions of chicory no effect is produced. He advised the following procedure: Take equal parts of chicory and coffee, and decoct them in different quantities of water. Filter, bottle, and label the liquids. Take a teaspoonful of the chicory, and dilute till it is of a brown sherry colour; boil it in a porcelain dish, with a fragment of crystallised bi-chrome. The colour will be scarcely deepened. If a similarly diluted solution of coffee is thus treated, a deep-brown tinge is obtained. By operating with mixed liquids a scale of colours may be obtained indicating the properties of the two substances. If a few grains of the sulphate of copper be added, both decoctions yield a precipitate; that from chicory being a clay yellow, and that from coffee a sepia brown. Mixed decoctions yield intermediate tints.