Note 166 — The Tenth Book.
Reading edition
The Coffee plant is about the size of the orange tree, the flower in colour, size, and smell, resembles the white jessamine, the berry is first green, then red, in which ripe state it is gathered.
Olearius’s description of Coffee is amusing. “They drink a certain black water which they call Cahwa, made of a fruit brought out of Egypt, and which is in colour like ordinary wheat, and in taste like Turkish wheat, and is of the bigness of a little bean. They fry, or rather burn it in an iron pan without any liquor, beat it to powder, and boyling it with fair water, they make this drink thereof, which hath as it were the taste of a burnt crust, and is not pleasant to the palate.
Amb. Travels.