The Coffee-Tree.
Botanical name:
Arbor coffee ferens.
A BEAUTIFUL shrub of the eastern part of the world, which we keep in many of our stoves, and which flowers and bears its fruit with us. It grows eight or ten feet high; the branches are slender and weak; the leaves are large, oblong, and broad, somewhat like those of the baytree, but bigger, and thin. The flowers are white, moderately large, and like jasmine; the fruit is a large berry, black when it is ripe, and in it are two seeds, which are what we call coffee; they are whitish, and of a disagreeable taste when raw.
Coffee helps digestion, and dispels wind: and it works gently by urine. The best way of taking it is as we commonly drink it, and there are constitutions for which it is very proper.
