nlike Europe, this same
generous cup serves again as a necessary part of the noonday and evening
meals for most people.

[Illustration: THE COFFEE ROOM OF THE HOTEL ADOLPHUS, DALLAS, TEXAS]

[Illustration: DAY-AND-NIGHT COFFEE ROOM, RICE HOTEL, HOUSTON, TEXAS]

[Illustration: HOTEL BARS REPLACED BY COFFEE ROOMS IN THE UNITED STATES

One effect of prohibition has been to lead many hotels to feature their
coffee service, bringing back the modern type of coffee room illustrated
above]

The important and indispensable part that sugar plays in the make-up of
the American cup of coffee was ably set forth by Fred Mason,[372]
vice-president of the American Sugar Refining Co., when he said:

The coffee cup and the sugar bowl are inseparable table companions.
Most of us did not realize this until the war came, with its
attendant restrictions on everything we did, and we found that the
sugar bowl had disappeared from all public eating places. No longer
could we make an unlimited number of trips to the sugar bowl to
sweeten our coffee; but we had to be content with what was doled
out to us with scrupulous care--a quantity so small at times that
it gave only a hint of sweetness to our national beverage.

Then it was that we really appreciated how indispensable the proper
amount of sugar was to a good, savory cup of coffee, and we missed
it as much as we would seasoning from certain cooked foods.
Secretly we consoled ourselves with the promise that if the day
ever came when sugar bowls made their appearance once more, filled
temptingly with the sweet granules that were "gone but not
forgotten," we should put an extra lump or an additional spoonful
of sugar into our coffee to help us forget the joyless war days.

Since sugar is so necessary to our enjoyment of this popular
beverage, it is obvious that a considerable part of all the sugar
we consume must find its way into the national coffee cup. The
stupendous amount of 40,000,000,000 cups of coffee is consumed in
this country each year. Taking two teaspoonfuls or two lumps as a
fair average per cup, we find that about 800,000,000 pounds of
sugar, almost one-tenth of our total annual consumption, are
required to sweeten Uncle Sam's coffee cup. This is specially
significant when one considers that, with the single exception of
Australia, the United S