Friday, June 17, 2016

Thomas Jefferson Loved Coffee !



Thomas Jefferson Loved Coffee !

Many of us love to read, and if you are a Jefferson enthusiast like myself, you enjoy reading about Thomas Jefferson and the time period in which he lived, 1743-1826. Jefferson accumulated thousands of books in his lifetime, and read each one of them. Where did he find the time? Today, that would virtually be impossible to do. For Thomas Jefferson, it is likely he drank "strong" homemade coffee! It was served at breakfast, and most likely also after dinner in a silver coffee urn that was made from his own design. A cup of strong coffee like that would certainly add more hours to his day or night! 

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 while in office, at his retreat home Poplar Forest, and at 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 60 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 Maitre d'hotel:

"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."

At Monticello, coffee was served in the silver coffee urn made to Jefferson's design (above).


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