Finally, we arrive at the last great head of our subject, to wit--
_Tea_--meaning thereby, as before observed, what our Hibernian
friend did in the inquiry, "Will y'r honor take 'tay tay' or coffee
tay?"
We are not about to enter into the merits of the great tea-and-coffee
controversy, further than in our general caution concerning them in
the chapter on Healthful Drinks; but we now proceed to treat of them
as actual existences, and speak only of the modes of making the best
of them. The French coffee is reputed the best in the world; and a
thousand voices have asked, What is it about the French coffee?
In the first place, then, the French coffee is coffee, and not chickory,
or rye, or beans, or peas. In the second place, it is freshly roasted,
whenever made--roasted with great care and evenness in a little
revolving cylinder which makes part of the furniture of every kitchen,
and which keeps in the aroma of the berry. It is never overdone, so
as to destroy the coffee-flavor, which is in nine cases out of tent
the fault of the coffee we meet with. Then it is ground, and placed
in a coffee-pot with a filter through which, when it has yielded up
its life to the boiling water poured upon it, the delicious extract
percolates in clear drops, the coffee-pot standing on a heated stove
to maintain the temperature.
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