The coffee it produces is pretty good (it will taste similar to what a french press can produce), and I’ve been enjoying the small specialty batches of roasted beans that Starbucks has been making just for it – if your local Starbucks has it, try the Kona blend.

Further reading: Tasting the Future of Starbucks Coffee From a New Machine

Taken in 1979, it supposedly shows the first espresso cart in the U.S.

From the foreword:

Civilization in its onward march has produced only three important non-alcoholic beverages — the extract of the tea plant, the extract of the cocoa bean, and the extract of the coffee bean.

Leaves and beans — these are the vegetable sources of the world’s favorite nonalcoholic table-beverages. Of the two, the tea leaves lead in total amount consumed; the coffee beans are second; and the cocoa beans are a distant third, although advancing steadily. But in international commerce the coffee beans occupy a far more important position than either of the others, being imported into non-producing countries to twice the extent of the tea leaves. All three enjoy a world-wide consumption, although not to the same extent in every nation; but where either the coffee bean or the tea leaf has established itself in a given country, the other gets comparatively little attention, and usually has great difficulty in making any advance. The cocoa bean, on the other hand, has not risen to the position of popular favorite in any important consuming country, and so has not aroused the serious opposition of its two rivals.

Coffee is universal in its appeal. All nations do it homage. It has become recognized as a human necessity. It is no longer a luxury or an indulgence; it is a corollary of human energy and human efficiency. People love coffee because of its two-fold effect — the pleasurable sensation and the increased efficiency it produces.

Coffee has an important place in the rational dietary of all the civilized peoples of earth. It is a democratic beverage. Not only is it the drink of fashionable society, but it is also a favorite beverage of the men and women who do the world’s work, whether they toil with brain or brawn. It has been acclaimed “the most grateful lubricant known to the human machine,” and “the most delightful taste in all nature.”

No “food drink” has ever encountered so much opposition as coffee. Given to the world by the church and dignified by the medical profession, nevertheless it has had to suffer from religious superstition and medical prejudice. During the thousand years of its development it has experienced fierce political opposition, stupid fiscal restrictions, unjust taxes, irksome duties; but, surviving all of these, it has triumphantly moved on to a foremost place in the catalog of popular beverages.

But coffee is something more than a beverage. It is one of the world’s greatest adjuvant foods. There are other auxiliary foods, but none that excels it for palatability and comforting effects, the psychology of which is to be found in its unique flavor and aroma.

Men and women drink coffee because it adds to their sense of well-being. It not only smells good and tastes good to all mankind, heathen or civilized, but all respond to its wonderful stimulating properties. The chief factors in coffee goodness are the caffein content and the caffeol. Caffein supplies the principal stimulant. It increases the capacity for muscular and mental work without harmful re-action. The caffeol supplies the flavor and the aroma — that indescribable Oriental fragrance that wooes us through the nostrils, forming one of the principal elements that make up the lure of coffee. There are several other constituents, including certain innocuous so-called caffetannie acids, that, in combination with the caffeol, give the beverage its rare gustatory appeal.

The year 1919 awarded coffee one of its brightest honors. An American general said that coffee shared with bread and bacon the distinction of being one of the three nutritive essentials that helped win the World War for the Allies. So this symbol of human brotherhood has played a not inconspicuous part in “making the world safe for democracy.” The new age, ushered in by the Peace of Versailles and the Washington Conference, has for its hand-maidens temperance and self-control. It is to be a world democracy of right-living and clear thinking; and among its most precious adjuncts are coffee, tea, and cocoa — because these beverages must always be associated with rational living, with greater comfort, and with better cheer.

Like all good things in life, the drinking of coffee may be abused. Indeed, those having an idiosyncratic susceptibility to alkaloids should be temperate in the use of tea, coffee, or cocoa. In every high-tensioned country there is likely to be a small number of people who, because of certain individual characteristics, can not drink coffee at all. These belong to the abnormal minority of the human family. Some people can not eat strawberries; but that would not be a valid reason for a general condemnation of strawberries. One may be poisoned, says Thomas A. Edison, from too much food. Horace Fletcher was certain that over-feeding causes all our ills. Over-indulgence in meat is likely to spell trouble for the strongest of us. Coffee is, perhaps, less often abused than wrongly accused. It all depends. A little more tolerance!

Trading upon the credulity of the hypochondriac and the caffein-sensitive. in recent years there has appeared in America and abroad a curious collection of so-called coffee substitutes. They are “neither fish nor flesh, nor good red herring.” Most of them have been shown by official government analysts to be sadly deficient in food value — their only alleged virtue. One of our contemporary attackers of the national beverage bewails the fact that no palatable hot drink has been, found to take the place of coffee. The reason is not hard to find. There can be no substitute for coffee. Dr. Harvey W. Wiley has ably summed up the matter by saying, “xV substitute should be able to perform the functions of its principal. A substitute to a war must be able to fight. A bounty-jumper is not a substitute.”

It has been the aim of the author to tell the whole coffee story for the general reader, yet with the technical accuracy that will make it valuable to the trade. The book is designed to be a work of useful reference covering all the salient points of coffee’s origin, cultivation, preparation, and development, its place in the world’s commerce and in a rational dietary.

Good coffee, carefully roasted and properly brewed, produces a natural beverage that, for tonic effect, can not be surpassed, even by its rivals, tea and cocoa. Here is a drink that ninety-seven per cent of individuals find harmless and wholesome, and without which life would be drab indeed — a pure, safe, and helpful stimulant compounded in nature’s own laboratory, and one of the chief joys of life!

History of Coffee in Old New York

The Dutch founders of New York seem to have introduced tea into New Amsterdam before they brought in coffee. This was somewhere about the middle of the seventeenth century. We find it recorded that about 1668 the burghers succumbed to coffee.  Coffee made its way slowly, first in the homes, where it replaced the “must”, or beer, at breakfast. Chocolate came about the same time, but was more of a luxury than tea or coffee.

After the surrender of New York to the British in 1674, English manners and customs were rapidly introduced. First tea, and later coffee, were favorite beverages in the homes. By 1683 New York had become so central a market for the green bean, that William Penn, as soon as he found himself comfortably settled in the Pennsylvania Colony, sent over to New York for his coffee supplies. It was not long before a social need arose that only the London style of coffee house could fill.

Read the rest here.

If you’re someplace where good coffee is not easily prepared or are on the go like me, give this stuff a shot. Packets of three are available for $3, and boxes of 12 for $10.

Coffee is for closers only.