77].

In New Orleans, the ground coffee was put into a tin or pewter coffee
dripper, and the infusion was made by slowly pouring the boiling water
over it after the French fashion. The coffee was not considered good
unless it actually stained the cup. This method still obtains among the
old Creole families.

Boiling coarsely pounded coffee for fifteen minutes to half an hour was
common practise in the colonies before 1800.

In the early part of the nineteenth century, the best practise was to
roast the coffee in an iron cylinder that stood before the hearth fire.
It was either turned by a handle or wound up like a jack to go by
itself. The grinding was done in a lap or wall mill; and among the best
known makes were Kenrick's, Wilson's, Wolf's, John Luther's, George W.M.
Vandegrift's, and Charles Parker's Best Quality.

To make coffee "without boiling" the cookery books of the period advised
the housewife to obtain "a biggin, the best of which is what in France
is called a Grecque."

In 1844, the _Kitchen Directory and American Housewife's_ advice on the
subject of coffee making was the following:

Coffee should be put in an iron pot and dried near a moderate fire
for several hours before roasting (in pot over hot coals and
stirring constantly). It is sufficiently roasted when biting one of
the lightest colored kernels--if brittle the whole is done. A
coffee roaster is better than an open pot. Use a tablespoonful
ground to a pint of boiling water. Boil in tin pot twenty to
twenty-five minutes. If boiled longer it will not taste fresh and
lively. Let stand four or five minutes to settle, pour off grounds
into a coffee pot or urn. Put fish skin or isinglass size of a nine
pence in pot when put on to boil or else the white and shell of
half an egg to a couple of quarts of coffee. French coffee is made
in a German filter, the water is turned on boiling hot and
one-third more coffee is needed than when boiled in the common way.

In 1856 the _Ladies' Home Magazine_ (now the _Ladies' Home Journal_)
printed the following, which fairly sums up the coffee making customs of
that period:

Coffee, if you would have its best flavor, should be roasted at
home; but _not in an open pan_, for this permits a large amount of
aroma to escape. The roaster should be a closed sphere or
cylinder. The aroma, upon which the good taste of the coffee