Show Feature: Coffee By the Pound

By Carol Mobley
 I enjoy a cup of coffee every morning along with approximately 150 million Americans.  Coffee wasn’t always an easy drink to prepare.  It wasn’t until the mid-1800’s that coffee was easily accessible to households as well as miners and cowboys out in the wild.  Two companies, both still in business today, revolutionized coffee. James Folger was the first to start with roasted and ground coffee in 1850 and soon to follow was John Arbuckle in 1860.
 Prior to 1850 coffee was purchased as unroasted beans.  When it was time to make coffee, the beans were roasted in a skillet or pot, ground and then boiled in water for coffee.  This method of making coffee produced a wide range of tastes.  The beans could be under-cooked, burned or just right.  Roasted coffee beans weighed 20% less than green coffee beans so it made more sense to travel with roasted beans.  The big drawback was that roasted beans don’t retain their flavor like unroasted beans do.
 So, Arbuckle came up with a glaze coating applied to the roasted coffee beans for “the purpose of retaining the aroma of the coffee” (Arbuckles The Coffee That Won the West by Francis Fugate).  The glaze was a mixture of sugar and egg, the egg to help settle the coffee grounds and the sugar to eliminate the bitterness of coffee.
 But it wasn’t enough that Arbuckle invented a way to keep roasted coffee beans fresh longer.  He was “undaunted by the ridicule of others in the coffee trade who derided him for selling roasted coffee in little paper bags like peanuts.” (Arbuckles The Coffee That Won the West by Francis Fugate) Cowboys liked the paper bags when out in the field – the paper filled a necessary need.  And starting in the mid 1880’s, included with each one-pound bag of coffee, Arbuckle included an advertising trade card.
 Saved, collected and traded, these advertising trade cards came in a variety of subjects from geography, religion, birds, maps both American and foreign, zoological, sports and views from around the world.  Teachers used them for object lesson cards.  Students loved them, which is evident in the number of cards that have survived since the 1890’s.  By the mid 1890’s Arbuckle discontinued the practice of including a trade card in each package.  To date, 13 sets with 50 cards in each set have been identified as well as many other cards not included in sets.  (https://www.arbycards.info/arbmain.htm)
 Some of the most popular cards are the map cards from western states.  To see Arbuckle trade cards and other interesting postcards, photos, advertising, stamps, and other small collectibles, come out to the Denver Postcard & Paper Show on May 27-28 at the Arapahoe County Fairgrounds.  The May show is being held in conjunction with the Rocky Mountain Stamp Show featuring award-winning world class exhibits.  For more information contact visit www.denverpostcardshow.com or email Carol at camobley@ephemeranet.com.

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