Coffee
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Coffee. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the seed of an evergreen shrub which is cultivated in hot climates, and is a native of Abyssinia and of Arabia. This shrub (Coffea aro arabica) is from 15 to 20 feet in height, and belongs to the Rubiaceæ. The leaves are green, glossy on the upper surface, and the flowers are white and sweet-scented. The fruit is of an oval shape, about the size of a cherry, and of a dark-red color when ripe. Each of these contains two cells, FLOWER BEANS ✓ COFFEE PLANT and each cell a single seed, which is the coffee as we see it before it undergoes the process of roasting. Great attention is paid to the culture of coffee in Arabia. The trees are raised from seed sown in nurseries and afterward planted out in moist and shady situations, on sloping ground or at the foot of mountains. When the fruit has attained its maturity cloths are placed under the trees, and upon these the laborers shake it down. They afterward spread the berries on mats, and expose them to the sun to dry. The husk is then broken off by large and heavy rollers of wood or iron. When the coffee has been thus cleared of its husk it is again dried in the sun. A tree in great vigor will produce 3 or 4 pounds. The best coffee is imported from 4-Vol. III-Cyc Mocha, on the Red Sea. Next in quality to the Mocha coffee may perhaps be ranked that of southern India and that of Ceylon, which is strong and wellflavored and is brought to Great Britain in large quantities. Java and Central America also produce large quantities of excellent coffee. Brazilian coffee stands at the bottom of the list as regards quality. Of the best Mocha coffee that is grown in the province of Yemen little or none is said to reach the Western markets. Arabia itself, Syria, and Egypt consume fully two-thirds, and the remainder is exclusively absorbed by Turkish or Armenian buyers. The only other coffee which holds a first rank in Eastern opinion is that of Abyssinia. Then comes the produce of India, which those accustomed to the Yemenite variety are said to consider hardly drinkable. American coffee holds in the judgment of all Orientals the very last rank. The Dutch were the first to extend the cultivation of coffee beyond the countries to which it is native. By 1718 the Dutch planters of Surinam had entered on the cultivation of coffee with success, and ten years after it was introduced from that colony by the English into Jamaica, and by the French into Martinique. Coffee as an article of diet is of but comparatively recent introduction. To the Greeks and Romans it was wholly unknown. From Arabia it passed to Egypt and Turkey, whence it was introduced into England by a Turkish merchant named Edwards in 1652, whose Greek servant, named Pasqua, first opened a coffee-house in London. The excellence of coffee depends in a great measure on the skill and attention exercised in roasting it. In the Asiatic mode of preparing coffee the beans are pounded, not ground; and though the Turks and Arabs boil the coffee, they boil each cup by itself and only for a moment, so that the effect is much the same as that of infusion. Coffee acts as a nervous stimulant, a property which it owes mainly to the alkaloid caffeine. It thus promotes cheerfulness and removes languor, and also aids digestion; but in some constitutions it induces sleeplessness and nervous tremblings. The imports of coffee into the United States in 1919 amounted to 1,046,029,274 pounds, valued at $143,089,619. The consumption per capita in 1918 was 10.29 pounds. The imports in 1919 included 571,921,573 pounds from Brazil, 158,- 343,135 pounds from Central America, and 121,416,418 pounds from Colombia.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
kof'fe, the dried seed of a laurel-like evergreen shrub. Its native home is Abyssinia or Arabia. It grows to a height of six to thirty feet, but in cultivation it is pruned to a bush little higher than a man's head. Coffee trees are started in nurseries and are transplanted like fruit trees. A tree begins to bear when three years old, and produces from one to five pounds for twenty years. Methods of cultivation do not seem to differ materially from those used in raising cherries which, in fact, the ripe fruit resembles. In harvesting, the ripe berries are shaken down on cloths under the trees, the fruit is dried in the sun, then pulped, as the process is called, and washed. After drying again, and hulling and cleaning, the coffee beans are picked over, sorted, and put up in bags for market. Machines have been invented for removing the pulp green, thereby hurrying the crop to market. Mocha coffee gets its name from an Arabian port that formerly exported coffee. The supply of Mocha coffee is limited. There are no plantations. It is produced by groves of bushes surrounding the homes of the Arabs. Most of it is used by the Arabs themselves. Local dealers purchase small quantities, much as traders buy blueberries from the Chippewas. When a camel load has been collected in this tedious way, it is sent off in a caravan to Aden, perhaps 700 miles away. Rio coffee is named from a Brazilian seaport. Brazil produces two-thirds of the world's coffee. Java coffee is supposed to come from the island of Java, but it is difficult to rely on names any more. Ceylon, Porto Rico , Cuba, Hawaii, and the Philippine Islands have large plantations or coffee orchards, as they are sometimes called. The United States is the great coffee market of the world, the people of Great Britain and the Continent being more inclined to tea. New York receives more coffee than any other city in the world. Ground coffees are so adulterated with carrot, parsnip, dandelion, beans, peas, lentils, and other cheap ingredients that public favor has been extended to whole coffee that may be ground by the grocer under the eye of the purchaser. Even then artificial coffee beans are palmed off. Adulterants mixed with coffee are ground up into a sort of dough. Machines have been devised for pressing kernels out of this paste that when dried and roasted look enough like the genuine to pass careless inspection. An article in the United States Consular Report for February, 1904, gives much interesting information relative to the cultivation of coffee. According to the writer, there are in Asia, Africa, and America 49,000 coffee plantations, having 1,800,000,000 coffee-bearing trees. There are employed in the industry 2,220,000 men, women, and children. The total annual production is 2,881,000,000 pounds, or 21,500,000 bags. Five hundred trees are set to the acre. The average yield per tree is 1 3/5 pounds. The average cost of raising per pound is 4.7 cents. The average selling price at the plantation is 9 cents. The total value of the coffee crop to the planters is given at $225,000,000. Bailey's Cyclopedia (1908) puts the world's total production at "over 1,500,000,000 pounds" yearly. See Cocoa ; Tea Coffee. Flowering branch 2026 Editor's Note: Coffee's 1910 world — Brazil's valorization schemes, the new vacuum can, decaf just invented — is told from the grocer's counter in our companion Grocer's Encyclopedia (1911). (Ed: BR 2026-06-03)