Chapter 47
About the time that Brazil began the active cultivation of coffee, William Panter was granted the first English patent on a "mill for husking coffee." This was in 1775. James Henckel followed with an English patent, granted in 1806, on a coffee drier, "an invention communicated to him by a certain foreigner." The first American to enter the lists was Nathan Reed of Belfast, Me., who in 1822 was granted a United States patent on a coffee huller. Roswell Abbey obtained a United States patent on a huller in 1825; and Zenos Bronson, of Jasper County, Ga., obtained one on another huller in 1829. In the next few years many others followed.
John Chester Lyman, in 1834, was granted an English patent on a coffee huller employing circular wooden disks, fitted with wire teeth. Isaac Adams and Thomas Ditson of Boston brought out improved hullers in 1835; and James Meac.o.c.k of Kingston, Jamaica, patented in England, in 1845, a self-contained machine for pulping, dressing, and sorting coffee.
William McKinnon began, in 1840, the manufacture of coffee plantation machinery at the Spring Garden Iron Works, founded by him in 1798 in Aberdeen, Scotland. He died in 1873; but the business continues as Wm.
McKinnon & Co., Ltd.
About 1850 John Walker, one of the pioneer English inventors of coffee-plantation machinery, brought out in Ceylon his cylinder pulper for Arabian coffee. The pulping surface was made of copper, and was pierced with a half-moon punch that raised the cut edges into half circles.
The next twenty years witnessed some of the most notable advances in the development of machinery for plantation treatment, and served to introduce the inventions of several men whose names will ever be a.s.sociated with the industry.
John Gordon & Co. began the manufacture in London of the line of plantation machinery still known around the world as "Gordon make" in 1850; and John Gordon was granted an English patent on his improved coffee pulper in 1859.
Robert Bowman Tennent obtained English (1852) and United States (1853) patents on a two-cylinder pulper.
George L. Squier began the manufacture of plantation machinery in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1857. He was active in the business until 1893, and died in 1910. The Geo. L. Squier Manufacturing Co. still continues as one of the leading American manufacturers of coffee-plantation machinery.
Marcus Mason, an American mechanical engineer in San Jose, Costa Rica, invented (1860) a coffee pulper and cleaner which became the foundation stone of the extensive plantation-machinery business of Marcus Mason & Co., established in 1873 at Worcester, Ma.s.s.
[Ill.u.s.tration: WALKER'S ORIGINAL DISK PULPER, 1860
Much favored in Ceylon and India]
John Walker was granted (1860) an English patent on a disk pulper in which the copper pulping surface was punched, or k.n.o.bbed, by a blind punch that raised rows of oval k.n.o.bs but did not pierce the sheet, and so left no sharp edges. During Ceylon's fifty years of coffee production, the Walker machines played an important part in the industry. They are still manufactured by Walker, Sons & Co., Ltd., of Colombo, and are sold to other producing countries.
Alexius Van Gulpen began the manufacture of a green-coffee-grading machine at Emmerich, Germany, in 1860.
Following Newell's United States patents of 1857-59, sixteen other patents were issued on various types of coffee-cleaning machines, some designed for plantation use, and some for treating the beans on arrival in the consuming countries.
James Henry Thompson, of Hoboken, and John Lidgerwood were granted, in 1864, an English patent on a coffee-hulling machine. William Van Vleek Lidgerwood, American charge d'affaires at Rio de Janeiro, was granted an English patent on a coffee hulling and cleaning machine in 1866. The name Lidgerwood has long been familiar to coffee planters. The Lidgerwood Manufacturing Co., Ltd., has its headquarters in London, with factory in Glasgow. Branch offices are maintained at Rio de Janeiro, Campinas, and in other cities in coffee-growing countries.
[Ill.u.s.tration: EARLY ENGLISH COFFEE PEELER
Largely used in India and Ceylon]
Probably the name most familiar to coffee men in connection with plantation methods is Guardiola. It first appears in the chronological record in 1872, when J. Guardiola, of Chocola, Guatemala, was granted several United States patents on machines for pulping
Since then, "Guardiola" has come to mean a definite type of rotary drying machine that--after the original patent expired--was manufactured by practically all the leading makers of plantation machinery. Jose Guardiola obtained additional United States patents on coffee hullers in 1886.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GROUP OF ENGLISH CYLINDER COFFEE-PULPING MACHINES]
William Van Vleek Lidgerwood, Morristown, N.J., was granted an English patent on an improved coffee pulper in 1875.
Several important cleaning and grading machinery patents were granted by the United States (1876-1878) to Henry B. Stevens, who a.s.signed them to the Geo. L. Squier Manufacturing Co., Buffalo, N.Y. One of them was on a separator, in which the coffee beans were discharged from the hopper in a thin stream upon an endless carrier, or ap.r.o.n, arranged at such an inclination that the round beans would roll by force of gravity down the ap.r.o.n, while the flat beans would be carried to the top.
C.F. Hargreaves, of Rio de Janeiro, was granted an English patent on machinery for hulling, polis.h.i.+ng, and separating coffee, in 1879.
The first German patent on a coffee drying apparatus was granted to Henry Scolfield, of Guatemala, in 1880.
In 1885 Evaristo Conrado Engelberg of Piracicaba, So Paulo, Brazil, invented an improved coffee huller which, three years later, was patented in the United States. The Engelberg Huller Co. of Syracuse, N.Y., was organized the same year (1888) to make and to sell Engelberg machines.
Walker Sons & Co., Ltd., began, in 1886, experimenting in Ceylon with a Liberian disk pulper that was not fully perfected until twelve years later.
Another name, that has since become almost as well known as Guardiola, appears in the record in 1891. It is that of O'Kra.s.sa. In that year R.F.E. O'Kra.s.sa of Antigua, Guatemala, was granted an English patent on a coffee pulper. Additional patents on was.h.i.+ng, hulling, drying, and separating machines were issued to Mr. O'Kra.s.sa in England and in the United States in 1900, 1908, 1911, 1912, and 1913.
The Fried. Krupp A.G. Grusonwerk, Magdeburg-Buckau, Germany, began the manufacture of coffee plantation machines about 1892. Among others it builds coffee pulpers and hulling and polis.h.i.+ng machines of the Anderson (Mexican) and Krull (Brazilian) types.
Additional United States patents were granted in 1895 to Marcus Mason, a.s.signor to Marcus Mason & Co., New York, on machines for pulping and polis.h.i.+ng coffee. Douglas Gordon a.s.signed patents on a coffee pulper and a coffee drier to Marcus Mason & Co. in 1904-05.
The names of Jules Smout, a Swiss, and Don Roberto O'Kra.s.sa, of Guatemala, are well known to coffee planters the world over because of their combined peeling and polis.h.i.+ng machines.
The Huntley Manufacturing Co., Silver Creek, N.Y., began in 1896 the manufacture of the Monitor line of coffee-grading-and-cleaning machines.
_The Marvelous Coffee Package_
It is doubtful if in all nature there is a more cunningly devised food package than the fruit of the coffee tree. It seems as if Good Mother Nature had said: "This gift of Heaven is too precious to put up in any ordinary parcel. I shall design for it a casket worthy of its divine origin. And the casket shall have an inner seal that shall safeguard it from enemies, and that shall preserve its goodness for man until the day when, transported over the deserts and across the seas, it shall be broken open to be trans.m.u.ted by the fires of friends.h.i.+p, and made to yield up its aromatic nectar in the Great Drink of Democracy."
To this end she caused to grow from the heart of the jasmine-like flower, that first herald of its coming, a marvelous berry which, as it ripens, turns first from green to yellow, then to reddish, to deep crimson, and at last to a royal purple.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SPECIMENS OF COPPER COVERS FOR PULPER CYLINDERS
1--For Arabian coffee (_Coffea arabica_). 2--For Liberian coffee (_Coffea liberica_). 3--Also for Arabian. 4--For _Coffea canephora_.
5--For _Coffea robusta_. 6--For larger Arabian, and for _Coffea Maragogipe_.]
The coffee fruit is very like a cherry, though somewhat elongated and having in its upper end a small umbilicus. But mark with what ingenuity the package has been constructed! The outer wrapping is a thin, gossamer-like skin which encloses a soft pulp, sweetish to the taste, but of a mucilaginous consistency. This pulp in turn is wrapped about the inner-seal--called the parchment, because of its tough texture. The parchment encloses the magic bean in its last wrapping, a delicate silver-colored skin, not unlike fine spun silk or the sheerest of tissue papers. And this last wrapping is so tenacious, so true to its guardians.h.i.+p function, that no amount of rough treatment can dislodge it altogether; for portions of it cling to the bean even into the roasting and grinding processes.
[Ill.u.s.tration: DRYING GROUNDS, PULPING HOUSE, AND FERMENTATION VATS, BOA VISTA. BRAZIL]
[Ill.u.s.tration: PULPING HOUSE AND FERMENTATION TANKS, COSTA RICA]
[Ill.u.s.tration: COFFEE PREPARATION IN CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA]
[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA UNPULPED COFFEE SEPARATOR
Shown in combination with a Guatemala coffee pulper]
Coffee is said to be "in the husk," or "in the parchment," when the whole fruit is dried; and it is called "hulled coffee" when it has been deprived of its hull and peel. The matter forming the fruit, called the coffee berry, covers two thin, hard, oval seed vessels held together, one to the other, by their flat sides. These seed vessels, when broken open, contain the raw coffee beans of commerce. They are usually of a roundish oval shape, convex on the outside, flat inside, marked longitudinally in the center of the flat side with a deep incision, and wrapped in the thin pellicle known as the silver skin. When one of the two seeds aborts, the remaining one acquires a greater size, and fills the interior of the fruit, which in that case, of course, has but one cellule. This abortion is common in the _arabica_ variety, and produces a bean formerly called _grage_ coffee, but now more commonly known as peaberry, or male berry.
The various coverings of the coffee beans are almost always removed on the plantations in the producing countries. Properly to prepare the raw beans, it is necessary to remove the four coverings--the outer skin, the sticky pulp, the parchment, or husk, and the closely adhering silver skin.
There are two distinct methods of treating the coffee fruits, or "cherries." One process, the one that until recent years was in general use throughout the world, and is still in many producing countries, is known as the dry method. The coffee prepared in this way is sometimes called "common," "ordinary," or "natural," to distinguish it from the product that has been cleaned by the wet or washed method. The wet method, or, as it is sometimes designated, the "West Indian process"
(W.I.P.) is practised on all the large modern plantations that have a sufficient supply of water.
In the wet process, the first step is called pulping; the second is fermentation and was.h.i.+ng; the third is drying; the fourth is hulling or peeling; and the last, sizing or grading. In the dry process, the first step is drying; the second hulling; and the last, sizing or grading.
[Ill.u.s.tration: HAND-POWER DOUBLE-DISK PULPER]
_Harvesting_