If ground coffee cakes in the paper, or when pinched by the fingers, or if, when a little is put into water, a part sinks while the rest swims, and the water becomes immediately discolored, the coffee is probably adulterated. The more caking and discoloration, the more chicory and the less value.
There are numerous brands of ground coffee on the market, and some of them are very popular and satisfactory. There are also various kinds of “Extracts” and “Essences” of coffee, and even humble chicory may sometimes be seen without disguise and nicely put up in yellow papers.
The theobroma tree grows in Central and South America. The seeds of its fruit, which are about the size of almonds, are gently roasted, deprived of their husks and ground to a paste. This is COCOA. If this paste be mixed with sugar and flavored with vanilla, bitter almonds, etc., it forms the well known, delicious, and nourishing CHOCOLATE, which may either be eaten as a confection or drank as a beverage. The husk, which forms about 10 per cent. of the weight of the bean, is called “SHELLS,” and used by invalids and others for making a light and delicate infusion or tea.
The aroma of cocoa is due to an essential oil which is developed, as with tea and coffee, by roasting. Its exhilarating principle, theobromine, resembles theine. It contains a large percentage of fat, is very rich and nutritious, and may be said to unite in itself the inspiring properties of tea with the strength-giving qualities of milk.
Starch, as well as sugar, is sometimes added to cocoa and chocolate by the manufacturers, and the practice is believed to be justified, owing to their richness in oil and as better fitting them for digestion. Cocoa is, however, also prepared free from starch and deprived of a portion of its oil. There are many preparations of chocolate and cocoa in market, and they embrace all grades of purity, sweetness and price.
Milk is sophisticated by robbing it of its cream, or by adding to it “The milk of the cow with the iron tail,” and by coloring it. CREAM contains about 40 per cent. of fat and 55 per cent. of water; SKIMMED MILK is water, with sugar and caseine. WHEY is merely a solution of milk sugar with a little albumen. Milk is best and most plentiful in spring, and richer but less abundant in dry seasons. The last milk drawn from the cow contains most cream. KOUMISS, the use of which is rapidly increasing, is well skimmed milk, treated with a lactic ferment for 30 or 40 hours. It is very easy of digestion. CONDENSED MILK is ordinary milk evaporated so that three pints are reduced to one. It soon spoils unless the air is excluded. PRESERVED MILK in cans contains about one-third its weight of sugar.