All About Coffee, William H. Ukers [short story to read .txt] 📗
- Author: William H. Ukers
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In 1905, F.A. Cauchois introduced to the trade his Private Estate coffee maker, a filtration device employing Japanese filter paper. Finley Acker, of Philadelphia, obtained a patent the same year on a side-perforation percolator employing "porous or bibulous paper" as a filtering medium.
In 1906, H.D. Kelly, of Kansas City, was granted a United States patent on an urn coffee machine employing a coffee extractor in which the ground coffee was continually agitated before percolation by a vacuum process.
In 1907, P.E. Edtbauer (Mrs. E. Edtbauer), of Chicago, was granted a United States patent on a duplex automatic weighing machine, the first simple, fast, accurate and moderate-priced machine for weighing coffee. Eight others followed up to 1920.
In 1907, the new Pure Food and Drugs Act came into force in the United States, making it obligatory to label all coffees correctly and causing many trade practises to be altered or thrown into the discard. The most important rulings that followed are referred to in more detail in chapter XXIII, telling how green coffees are bought and sold.
In 1908, the Porto Rico coffee planters, presented a memorial to the Congress asking for a protective tariff of six cents a pound on all foreign coffees. Hawaii and the Philippines, also were to have benefited by the protection asked for. The Congress failed to grant the planters' prayer. This appeal for protection was repeated in 1921, when the Congress was asked to place a duty of five cents a pound on all foreign coffees.
In 1908, J.C. Prims, of Battle Creek, Mich. was granted a United States patent on a corrugated cylinder improvement for a gas and coal coffee roaster of fifty to one hundred and thirty pounds capacity designed for retail stores. This machine was acquired the year following by the A.J. Deer Company, and was re-introduced to the trade as the Royal roaster.
In 1908, Brazil's valorization-of-coffee enterprise was saved from disaster by a combination of bankers and the Brazil Government. A loan of $75,000,000 was placed, through Hermann Sielcken of New York, with banking houses in England, Germany, France, Belgium, and America. The complete story of this undertaking is told in chapter XXXI.
In 1909, Ludwig Roselius brought to America from Germany the caffein-free coffee which for several years had been manufactured and sold in Bremen under the Myer, Roselius, and Wimmer patent. In 1910, the product was first sold here by Merck & Company under the name of Dekafa, later Dekofa, and in 1914, by the Kaffee Hag Corporation as Kaffee Hag.
In 1911 all-fiber parchment-lined Damptite cans for coffee were introduced to the trade by the American Can Company.
As a result of preliminary meetings of Mississippi Valley coffee roasters held in St. Louis in May and June, 1911, when the Coffee Roasters Traffic and Pure Food Association was organized, a national association under the same name was started in Chicago, November 16–17, 1911. The complete story of the growth of this most important coffee trade organization in the United States is told in the next chapter.
In 1912, the United States government, after having examined into the valorization enterprise, brought suit against Hermann Sielcken, et al., to force the sale of valorized coffee stocks held in this country under the valorization agreement.
In October, 1914, the first national coffee week to advertise coffee was promoted by the National Coffee Roasters Association.
Merchants Coffee House Memorial
On May 23, 1914, the Lower Wall Street Business Men's Association unveiled a bronze memorial tablet set in the wall of the nine-story office building occupied by the Federal Refining Company on the southeast corner of Wall and Water Streets, the former site of the Merchants' coffee house. This is the building where The Tea and Coffee Trade Journal had its offices for nine years before moving to 79 Wall Street.
Bronze marker, placed May 23, 1914, on the building occupying the site of the old coffee house
Seth Low, introduced by William Bayne, Jr., president of the Lower Wall Street Business Men's Association, gave an interesting sketch of the history of the coffee house. Abram Wakeman, secretary of the association, spoke, followed by Wilberforce Eames, of the American history division of the New York Public Library.
After the flag that veiled the memorial tablet had been drawn aside, attention was called to a bronze chest which was hermetically sealed, and in which had been placed papers and other documents reflecting the life of New York today. The chest was given over to the keeping of the New York Historical Society, with the understanding that it was not to be opened until 1974, which will be the two-hundredth anniversary of the union of the Colonies.
It was from the Merchants' coffee house that the letter of May 23, 1774, was written in reply to the Committee of Correspondence in Boston. The letter suggested a "Congress of Deputies" from the Colonies, and called for a "virtuous and spirited Union." The coffee house is consequently regarded as the birthplace of the Union.
Recent Activities
A second national coffee week was held in October, 1915, under the auspices of the National Coffee Roasters' Association.
In 1916, the Coffee Exchange of the City of New York changed its name to the New York Coffee and Sugar Exchange, to admit of sugar trading.
In 1916, the National Paper Can Company of Milwaukee first introduced to the trade its new hermetically sealed all-paper can for coffee.
In 1916, Jules Le Page, Darlington, Ind., was granted two United States patents on cutting rolls to cut and not grind or crush corn, wheat, or coffee. This idea was incorporated in the Ideal steel cut coffee mill subsequently marketed by the B.F. Gump Company, Chicago.
In 1918, the World War caused the United States government to place coffee importers, brokers, jobbers, roasters, and wholesalers under a war-time licensing system to control imports and prices.
In 1918, John E. King, of Detroit, was granted a United States patent on an irregular grind of coffee consisting of coarsely grinding ten percent of the product and finely grinding ninety percent.
The most notable event of the year 1919 was the inauguration by the Brazil planters, in co-operation with an American joint coffee trade publicity committee, of the million-dollar campaign to advertise coffee in the United States.
In 1919, as a result of frost damage, and of an orgy of speculation in Brazil, prices for green coffee on the New York Exchange were forced to the highest levels since 1870; and a new high record was established for futures, twenty-four and sixty-five hundredths cents for July contracts.
In 1919, Floyd W. Robison, of Detroit, was granted a United States patent on a process for aging green coffee by treating it with micro-organisms, the product being known as Cultured coffee.
In the spring of 1920, there was held the third national coffee week, this time under the auspices of the Joint Coffee Trade Publicity Committee.
A brief history of the growth of coffee trading—Notable firms and personalities that have played important parts in green coffee in the principal coffee centers—Green coffee trade organizations—Growth of the wholesale coffee-roasting trade, and names of those who have made history in it—The National Coffee Roasters Association—Statistics of distribution of coffee-roasting establishments in the United States
Coffee trading in the American colonies probably had its beginnings about the middle of the seventeenth century. Tea seems to have preceded coffee as an article of merchandise. Several merchants in the New England and New York settlements imported small quantities of coffee with other foodstuffs toward the close of the seventeenth century.
The early supplies of the green bean were brought from the Dutch East Indies, Arabia, Haiti, and Jamaica. About 1787, the French opened Mauritius and Bourbon to American ships, which then began to bring back coffee and tea to the Atlantic-coast cities. Mocha coffee was being imported direct in American bottoms about 1804. Coffee from Brazil was first imported by the United States in 1809. Central America began shipping coffee to the United States in 1840. The total coffee imports in 1876 were 339,789,246 pounds, valued at $56,788,997, and received chiefly from Brazil, Haiti, British and Dutch East Indies, the West Indies, and Mexico.
New York early became the leading green-coffee market of the country.
There was a number of large importing merchants in New York in 1760, nearly all of whom brought in coffee. Among them were Isaac and Nicholas Gouverneur, Robert Murray, Walter and Samuel Franklin, John and Henry Cruger, the Livingstons, the Beekmans, Lott & Low, Philip Cuyler, Anthony Van Dam, Hugh and Alexander Wallace, Leonard and Anthony Lispenard, Theophylact Bache, and William Walton.
Some early green-coffee prices per pound were as follows:
1683—18s. 9d.; 1743—5s.; 1746—5s.; 1774—9s.; 1781[347]—96s. O.T.; 1782—2s. 1d. O.T.; 1783—1s.; 1789—10 cents.
Leading New York coffee importers in 1786 were Henry Sheaff, on the dock between Burling Slip and the Fly Market; John Rooney, 26 Cherry Street; William Eccles, 10 Hunters Key; Ludlow & Goold, 47 Wall Street; Scriba, Schroppel & Starmen, 17 Queen Street; and William Taylor, Crane Wharf.
The wholesale coffee roaster appeared about 1790; and from that time the separation between the green-coffee trader and the coffee roaster became more marked. In 1794 the principal green-coffee importers in New York were: Lawrence & Van Zandt; D. Smith & Co., 323 Pearl Street; Gilchrist Dickinson, 17 Taylor's Wharf; Armstrong & Barnewall, 129 Water Street; William Bowne, 265 Pearl Street; Stephen Cole & Son, 26 Ferry Street; J.S. De Lessert & Co., 123 Front Street; Joseph Thebaud, 262 Pearl Street; Nathaniel Cooper & Co., 38 Little Dock Street; Coll. M'Gregor, 28 Wall Street; David Wagstaff, 137 Front Street; Conkling & Lloyd, 15 Taylor's Wharf; and S.B. Garrick, Westphal & Co., 43 Cherry Street.
The leading New York coffee importers in 1848 were Henry and William Delafield, 108 Front Street; and Des Arts & Henser, 78 Water Street.
There were seven leading New York coffee importers in 1854, as follows: Aymar & Co., 34 South Street; Henry Coit & Son, 43 South Street; Henry Delafield, 129 Pearl Street; Howland & Aspinwall, 54 South Street; Mason & Thompson, 33 Pearl Street; J.L. Phipps & Co., 19 Cliff Street; and Moses Taylor & Co., 44 South Street.
Following the so-called "consortium" of 1868, the ramifications of which centered in Frankfort-on-the-Main—its speculations finally ending in disaster to many—the green-coffee trade was in a precarious condition until well into the eighties. "Previously," says a contemporary writer, "it had been the safest and prettiest of all colonial produce."
About 1868, "iron steamers began to be freely availed of as carriers of coffee; and later on, the telegraph became a factor, rendering the business more exciting and expensive".
Coffee consumption in the United States had, moreover, increased from one pound per capita in 1790 to nine pounds per capita in 1882.
1892–93 the biggest figure in the world's coffee trade was George Kaltenbach, a German living in Paris, whose resources were estimated at twelve million to fifteen million dollars, and whose holdings at one time were said to be one million bags. He was reported to have made $1,500,000 on his coffee corner. In September, 1892, he bested a bull clique and forced prices down to twelve cents. Aided by three other European operators, he then started a bull syndicate, and put the price
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