All About Coffee, William H. Ukers [short story to read .txt] 📗
- Author: William H. Ukers
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Transport Overseas
To bring green coffee to the consuming markets, both steamships and sailing vessels are used, although the latter have almost wholly given way to the speedier and more capacious modern steamers. Because of its large consumption, a constant stream of vessels is always on the way to the markets of the United States. The majority of these unload at New York, which in 1920 received about fifty-nine percent of all the coffee imported into this country. New Orleans came next, with about twenty-five percent; and San Francisco third, with about twelve percent.
The approximate time consumed in transporting green coffee overseas from the principal producing countries to the United States by freight steamships is shown in the table in the next column.
In some cases, that of Guadeloupe, for instance, the vessels stop at a number of ports, and this lengthens the time. This is also true of vessels running on the west coast of Central America and of those from Aden.
During the World War, one shipment of Timor coffee consumed three and a half years coming from Java to New York. It was aboard the German steamship Brisbane, which cleared from Batavia, July 4, 1914, and fearing capture, took refuge in Goa, Portuguese India, where it lay until Portugal joined the Allies. Then the Portuguese seized the vessel, and turned it over to the British, who moved it to Bombay. Here the cargo was finally transhipped to the City of Adelaide, reaching New York in January, 1918, three and a half years after the coffee left Batavia.
Transportation Time for Coffee[J] Rio de Janeiro to New York 11 to 16 days Santos " " " 14 to 18 " Bahia " " " 17 " Victoria " " " 19 " Maracaibo " " " 10 " Puerto Cabello " " " 10 " La Guaira " " " 8 " Costa Rica " " " 10 " Salvador " " " 18 " Mexico " " " 9 " Guatemala
(Puerto
Barrios) " " " 11 " Colombia " " " 10 " Haiti " " " 7 " Porto Rico " " " 5 " Guadeloupe " " " 10 " Hawaii
(via P.C.) " " " 28 " Java
(via Suez) " " " 30 " Sumatra
(via Suez) " " " 30 " Singapore
(via Suez) " " " 35 " India
(via Suez) " " " 35 " Aden
(via Suez) " " " 45 " Porto Rico " New Orleans 7 " Guadeloupe " " " 10 " Haiti " " " 7 " Guatemala " " " 8 " Colombia " " " 6 " Mexico " " " 4 " Salvador " " " 15 " Guatemala " San Francisco 10 " Costa Rica " " " 18 " Salvador " " " 14 " Mexico " " " 8 " Hawaii " " " 8 " Singapore " " " 30 " India " " " 33 "
[J] The American Legion and the Southern Cross, of the Munson Line, make the journey from Rio de Janeiro to New York in eleven days. These are freight-and-passenger vessels, and have carried as many as 5,000 bags of coffee at one time.
Java Coffee "Ex-Sailing Ships"
Up to 1915 it was the custom to ship considerable Java coffee to New York in slow-going sailing vessels of the type in favor a hundred years ago. Java coffees "ex-sailing ships" always commanded a premium because of the natural sweating they experienced in transit. Attempts to imitate this natural sweating process by steam-heating the coffees that reached New York by the faster-going steamship lines, and interference therewith by the pure-food authorities, caused a falling off in the demand for "light," "brown," or "extra brown" Dutch East Indian growths; and gradually the picturesque sailing vessels were seen no more in New York harbor. At the end they were mostly Norwegian barks of the type of the Gaa Paa.
It usually took from four to five months to make the trip from Padang or Batavia to New York. Crossing the Equator twice, first in the Indian Ocean, then in the South Atlantic, the trip was more than equal to circumnavigating the earth in our latitude. In the hold of the vessel the cargo underwent a sweating that gave to the coffee a rare shade of color and that, in the opinion of coffee experts, greatly enhanced its flavor and body. The captain always received a handsome gratuity if the coffee turned "extra brown."
The ship is the Gaa Paa, which made the voyage from Padang in five months in 1912
The demand for sweated, or brown, Javas probably had its origin in the good old days when the American housewife bought her coffee green and roasted it herself in a skillet over a quick fire. Coffee slightly brown was looked upon with favor; for every good housewife in those days knew that green coffee changed its color in aging, and that of course aged coffee was best.
And so it came about that Java coffees were preferably shipped in slow-going Dutch sailing vessels, because it was desirable to have a long voyage under the hot tropical sun suitably to sweat the coffee on its way to market and to have it a handsome brown on arrival. The sweating frequently produced a musty flavor which, if not too pronounced, was highly prized by experts. When the ship left Padang or Batavia the hatches were battened down, not to be opened again until New York harbor was reached.
Many of the old-style Dutch sailing vessels were built somewhat after the pattern of the Goed Vrouw, which Irving tells us was a hundred feet long, a hundred feet wide, and a hundred feet high. Sometimes she sailed forward, sometimes backward, and sometimes sideways. After dark, the lights were put out, all sail was taken in, and all hands turned in for the night.
The last of the coffee-carrying sailing vessels to reach the United States was the bark Padang, which arrived in New York on Christmas day, 1914.
Much of the green coffee received in New York is discharged and stored here, at one of the most modern waterfront and terminal developments in the world
Airplane View of New York Dock Company's Piers and Warehouses Airplane View of New York Dock Company's Piers and Warehouses
This is the Fulton Street section of the Brooklyn waterfront, where more than half the coffee received in New York is unloaded. The storage warehouses are to be seen back of the piers
RECEIVING PIERS FOR COFFEE AT NEW YORK
Handling Coffee at New York
The handling of the cargoes of coffee when they arrive at their destination is a source of wonder to the layman. There is probably no better place to study the handling of coffee than in New York City—the world's largest coffee center. Millions of bags of coffee pass into consumption every year through its docks, and scarcely a day goes by when there are not one or more ships discharging coffee upon the docks lining the Brooklyn shore, the center of the coffee-warehouse district for New York. In 1921, the New York Dock Company alone had 159 bonded warehouses with a storage capacity of some 65,000,000 cubic feet; and 34 piers, the longest measuring 1,193 feet and containing more than 175,000 square feet. These piers have a total deck space of sixty-one and a half acres. The wharfage distance is more than nine and a third miles. More than twenty steamship lines berth their vessels there regularly, and many of them are coffee ships. The warehouses have direct connections with all the principal railway trunk lines running into the New York district; and the whole property of the company stretches along the waterfront opposite lower Manhattan for about two and one-half miles.
Although coffee is admitted to the United States free of duty, it is subject to practically the same formalities as dutiable goods. Before the cargo can be "broken out," a government permit to "land and deliver" must be placed in the hands of the customs inspector on the dock. This done, the ship's samples, which consist of the samples sent by the exporter to the importer, are taken to the United States appraiser's office for inspection, and are then delivered to the importer's representative. Meanwhile the shipping documents covering the cargo, including bills of lading and consular invoices, have been sent to the post office for delivery to banks and bankers' agents, who check and deliver them to the customs officers for entry. The government requires that this entry shall be made within forty-eight hours of the vessel's arrival, else the cargo will be stored in a United States bonded warehouse under what is known as "general order" which makes the consignee liable for storage and cartage charges.
Unloading Coffee at One of the Covered Piers of the New York Dock Company
When a coffee ship arrives in New York, not much time is lost in discharging the cargo. As soon as the vessel is securely moored to the pier, and the government's permission to "land and deliver" is secured, the hatches are removed, the coffee is hauled out of the hold by block and tackle and swung off in slings to the pier, where dock laborers carry the bags to their proper places. If each cargo consisted of one consignment to a single importer, and contained only one variety of coffee, unloading would be a comparatively simple affair. In general practise, however, the cargoes consist of a large number of consignments and a variety of grades, necessitating a careful sorting as unloading progresses. Accordingly, even before the unloading begins, the dock is chalked off into squares, each square having a number, or symbol, representing a particular consignment. As the bags come up out of the hold, the foreman of the laborers, who has a key to the brand marks on the bags, indicates where each bag is to be placed. Coffee to be reshipped, either by lighter or rail, is heaped in piles by itself until loaded on to the lighters or freight cars.
Hoisting Coffee into the Storage Warehouses Adjoining the Brooklyn Piers
Hoisting Coffee into the Storage Warehouses Adjoining the Brooklyn Piers
RECEIVING AND STORING COFFEE AT NEW YORK
The next step is to transfer the cargo to the warehouse, and to separate each consignment according to the various kinds of coffee making up the invoices. When the importer gives his orders to store, he sends also a list of the different kinds of coffees in his consignment, called "chops" by the trade, with directions how to divide the shipment. To do this, the floor of the warehouse is chalked off into squares, as was done on the dock; but now the numbers, or symbols, in each space indicate the chops in each invoice, or consignment.
The importer naturally is eager to sample the newly arrived coffee. Sampling is generally done by trained warehouse employees, who are equipped with coffee triers, sampling instruments
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