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  • From: "Jerry W. Shepperd" <shepperd AT austincc.edu>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Gentle humor at W's expense
  • Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:54:38 -0500


After I read your reference to Thomas Jefferson and coffee, I "googled" the topic and found the following reference. There is also a picture of his coffee urn "made to his specifications."

His method of making coffee sounds a bit like camp coffee, except for straining it through flannel.

http://www.monticello.org/reports/life/coffee.html
In 1824 Thomas Jefferson deemed coffee "the favorite drink of the civilised world." Jefferson enjoyed the coffee houses of Williamsburg and Paris, and served coffee at the President's House, Poplar Forest, and Monticello. He preferred beans imported from the East and West Indies, and abhorred the "green" or unripe beans that were popular in America at the time.

Jefferson estimated that a pound of coffee a day was consumed at Monticello during his retirement. His cellar was stocked with unroasted beans in barrels weighing as much as sixty pounds. Small quantities of beans were roasted and ground in the Monticello kitchen, and then prepared according to the recipe of Adrien Petit, Jefferson's French maître d'hôtel: "On one measure of the coffee ground into meal pour three measures of boiling water. Boil it on hot ashes mixed with coal till the meal disappears from the top, when it will be precipitated. Pour it three times through a flannel strainer. It will yield 2 1/3 measures of clear coffee." Coffee was served at breakfast, and likely after dinner, in a silver coffee urn made to Jefferson's design.
--Ann M. Lucas, Monticello Research Department, June 1994


At 11:25 AM 3/24/2008, you wrote:
The campus Roy worked on was a half mile from a TJ's. On the days he
drove to work I'd give him list to fill my TJ's fix. That coffee was
the standard go-to.

Maybe someone will take pity on us and send it. : )

And, I may be wrong but I think Th. Jefferson grew coffee at
Monticello. I poked around the Monticello web site briefly but I
didn't see it but now I'm of a mind to look into further so I'll
report back.

C

>
> I have an acquaintance with Mr. Coffee and his unfair distribution
> system. Until I can figure out how to grow coffee trees, or is it
> bushes, at Heartwood* I have a precarious plan. I will be leaving here
> in about a week, if the creek drops to passable. I will be taking with
> me many, many containers of Fair Trade Organic French Roast coffee
> beans available at Trader Joe's here in Phoenix. The closest TJ's to
> Heartwood is St. Louis, four hours northeast.




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