It was from Beit-el-Faguil, the European factory near Mocha, that the coffee-tree was transported to the island of Bourbon, in the year 1718, and it is remarkable that the islanders recognised the plant as natural to their own country, and brought the astonished importers abundance from their native mountains. In Bourbon they distinguish four varieties of the coffee-plant.
1. The Mocha, which is very delicate, for the plants degenerate and often perish after a good crop.
2. The Levoy, which is more hardy, but the coffee is inferior in quality.
3. The Myrtle, a variety of the Mocha, very hardy, and yielding abundant crops.
4. The Marron, or wild coffee, with such bitter and narcotic properties that it can only be used by admixture with the berries of one of the other varieties.
JAVA.--In Java, coffee is a government monopoly, and the planters bring their coffee to a central government depôt for sale at a fixed price. The island exports about 1,250,000 cwts. of coffee annually. Java coffee has lost much of its former repute from being largely saturated with moisture, artificially to the extent of 14 per cent.; this increases the weight, but must injure the quality in transport.
At the Paris Exhibition of 1855, the Netherlands Commercial Association contributed a very varied collection of two dozen varieties of coffees from the Dutch government possessions in Java, under the following classification: Brown, clear brown, deep yellow, yellow, yellowish, white, whitish, pale of Havana kind, blue, fine green, handsome green, green, greenish, mottled green, deep green West India kind, green West India kind, pale green West India kind, dark Demerara kind, green Demerara kind, deep grey, triage, common black, greenish Menado, and white Padang. The Netherlands Society sell about 1,000,000 bags or bales of coffee annually.
The following were the exports of coffee from Java in 1862:
piculs. To Holland on private account 128,047 To other countries 165,116 By the Netherlands Trading Company 877,241 --------- 1,170,404
The position of the coffee trade of Java is shown in the figures annexed, for five years:
tons. value. 1858 66,575 £2,614,505 1859 59,769 2,565,137 1860 54,638 2,486,115 1861 61,783 2,850,518 1862 63,286 3,465,747