a strong man, is
employed to pulverize the grains in a heavy stone or marble mortar;
while the poorer homes use a small brass pestle and mortar, also
manufactured in Turkey.

In his _The Greeks of the Present Day_[371], Edmond Francois Valentin
About says:

The coffee which is drunk in all the Greek houses rather astonishes
the travellers who have neither seen Turkey nor Algeria. One is
surprised at finding food in a cup in which one expected drink. Yet
you get accustomed to this coffee-broth and end by finding it more
savoury, lighter, more perfumed, and especially more wholesome,
than the extract of coffee you drink in France.

Then About gives the recipe of his servant Petros, who is "the first man
in Athens for coffee":

The grain is roasted without burning it; it is reduced to an
impalpable powder, either in a mortar or in a very close-grained
mill. Water is set on the fire till it boils up; it is taken off to
throw in a spoonful of coffee, and a spoonful of pounded sugar for
each cup it is intended to make; it is carefully mixed; the coffee
pot is replaced on the fire until the contents seem ready to boil
over; it is taken off, and set on again; lastly it is quickly
poured into the cups. Some coffee drinkers have this preparation
boiled as many as five times. Petros makes a rule of not putting
his coffee more than three times on the fire. He takes care in
filling the cups to divide impartially the coloured froth which
rises above the coffee pot; it is the _kaimaki_ of the coffee. A
cup without _kaimaki_ is disgraced.

When the coffee is poured out you are at liberty to drink it
boiling and muddy, or cold and clear. Real amateurs drink it
without waiting. Those who allow the sediment to settle down, do
not do so from contempt, for they afterwards collect it with the
little finger and eat it carefully.

Thus prepared, coffee may be taken without inconvenience ten times
a day: five cups of French coffee could not be drunk with impunity
every day. It is because the coffee of the Turks and the Greeks is
a diluted tonic, and ours is a concentrated tonic.

I have met at Paris many people who took their coffee without
sugar, to imitate the Orientals. I think I ought to give them
notice, between ourselves, that in the great coffee-houses of
Athens, sugar is