housand
voices have asked, What is it about the French coffee?

In the first place, then, the French coffee is coffee, and not chiccory,
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 ten the
fault of the coffee we meet with. Then it is ground, and placed in a
coffee-pot with a filter, through which it percolates in clear drops,
the coffee-pot standing on a heated stove to maintain the temperature.
The nose of the coffee-pot is stopped up to prevent the escape of the
aroma during this process. The extract thus obtained is a perfectly
clear, dark fluid, known as _cafe noir_, or black coffee. It is black
only because of its strength, being in fact almost the very essential
oil of coffee. A table-spoonful of this in boiled milk would make what
is ordinarily called a strong cup of coffee. The boiled milk is prepared
with no less care. It must be fresh and new, not merely warmed or even
brought to the boiling-point, but slowly simmered till it attains a
thick, creamy richness. The coffee mixed with this, and sweetened with
that sparkling beet-root sugar which ornaments a French table, is the
celebrated _cafe-au-lait_, the name of which has gone round the world.

As we look to France for the best coffee, so we must look to England for
the perfection of tea. The tea-kettle is as much an English institution
as aristocracy or the Prayer-Book; and when one wants to know exactly
how tea should be made, one has only to ask how a fine old English
housekeeper makes it.

The first article of her faith is that the water must not merely be hot,
not merely _have boiled_ a few moments since, but be actually _boiling_
at the moment it touches the tea. Hence, though servants in England are
vastly better trained than with us, this delicate mystery is seldom left
to their hands. Tea-making belongs to the drawing-room, and high-born
ladies preside at "the bubbling and loud-hissing urn," and see that all
due rites and solemnities are properly performed,--that the cups are
hot, and that the infused tea waits the exact time before the libations
commence. Oh, ye dear old English tea-tables, resorts of the
kindest-hearted hospitality in the world! we still cher