[Sca-cooks] Coffee mill documentation needed

[Lilinah]

I don't know squat about SCA-period coffee grinders. Given that 
coffee are we know it (a beverage brewed of roasted coffee beans) 
doesn't show up until quite late in period (late 15th) and didn't 
make it to Constantinople until the mid-16th, any means of grinding 
the beans would be quite late in SCA-period.

I did live in Indonesia for several years in the late 1970s, a place 
where coffee is grown on many of the major islands - Sumatra, Java, 
Sulawesi, New Guinea, etc. - and where it is a very common beverage. 
I observed several families preparing coffee on Bali, Java, and 
Sumatra. First, they roasted the green beans in a kuwali, which is 
like a wok, over a fire - variously wood, charcoal, and kerosene. 
Then, in every case, the beat the beans in a moderately large mortar 
with a long pestle. This could take quite some time, and various 
female members of the family sat around chatting and taking turns 
until it was all pulverized as desired.

I am embarrassed to say i don't remember what the mortar and pestle 
were made of. The basic kitchen grinding tools are often of volcanic 
rock, but i don't recall if that is what the mortar and pestle were 
for the coffee. Probably, although wood is also a possibility.

It is certainly possible, even likely, that the Cairenes and 
Stambuliots ground their coffee a similar way.
-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita

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