Topsy-Turvy Land Arabia Pictured for Children
/ 2008-11-25 00:00:00
Nothing can be more beautiful than the green hills and fertile gardens in
the Arabian coffee country. The coffee berry grows on an evergreen tree of
about eighteen feet high; its leaves are a beautiful dark, shining green
and the blossom of the tree is pure white with a most delicate and
fragrant odour. Each tree bears an enormous number of coffee-berries; a
single tree is said to have yielded sixteen pounds! Arabia not only
produces the finest coffee in the world, but I think the Arabs know how
to prepare a good cup of coffee better than other peoples. The raw bean is
roasted just before it is used and so keeps all its strength; it is
_pounded_ fine, much finer than you can grind it, in a mortar, with an
iron pestle; lastly two smelling herbs, _heyl_ and saffron are added when
it is boiled just enough to give a flavour. Some fibres of palm bark are
stuck into the spout of the coffee-pot to act as a strainer and then the
clear brown liquid is poured into a tiny cup and handed to you in the
coffee-shop. No wonder the Arab dervishes smack their lips over this,
their only luxury.
But how did the tobacco get into our picture? You can hunt up the story
for yourselves in your school histories. Had not Sir Walter Raleigh in
1586 introduced the weed to the court of Queen Elizabeth from Virginia,
our picture and social life in Arabia would be very different.
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