Samuel P. Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Photograph by R. H. Lord.
Boing Boing pal Isabel Lara of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum sends along a fantastic little gem from the museum's Archives Division, unearthed during their ongoing epic move to the Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center.
Within their collection of the aeronautical papers of Samuel Pierpont Langley (1834-1906), the third Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, a letter of note to coffee lovers.
This intellectually curious man, whose interests ranged from "astronomy, astrophysics, aeronautics, and bird flight, mathematics, and the reckoning of standard time," was also really into "observing and describing all sorts of processes — and then suggesting improvements."
One of those processes, which he describes in loving detail here, is the preparation of of a really good cup of coffee at the Posthof café in the spa town of Carlsbad in Bohemia, then part of Austria-Hungary (now Karolvy Vary in the Czech Republic). The letter is addressed to his niece Mary.
Dear Mary, I hope this will interest you.
Affectionately,
Your Uncle SamuelThe best coffee in Carlsbad is at the Posthof, and is as good as I know of anywhere. I have been looking into the kitchen this morning and seeing it prepared. The statement that figs or anything of the kind are employed is legendary. There is absolutely nothing but coffee, and it owes its superior excellence to the freshness and the pains taken in its making.
1. The coffee in the berry.
There are four kinds of coffee bean employed: the Menado, Ceylon, Java and Preanger. I do not know the English equivalents for the first and last. They are of very different sizes indeed, and this difference in size of the berry must make it difficult to burn them equally.
2. Roasting.
The roasting is done in a rotary wire mesh over a slow fire. The coffee is renewed three times daily. Each time 10 to 20 pounds of coffee is roasted, a girl turning the handle, and the process occupying in each case nearly an hour. In spite of this care, when the beans come out some of them are very dark and these are picked out.
