Strona 140 z 788

There were likewise different dishes for the ladies and for the

gentlemen. Here they carried around trays with an entire coffee

service, immense trays, charmingly painted with flowers, and on

them fragrant, smoking tin pots, and golden cups of Dresden

china, and with each cup a tiny little jug of cream. In no other

country is there such coffee as in Poland. In Poland, in a

respectable household, a special woman is, by ancient custom,

charged with the preparation of coffee. She is called the

coffee-maker; she brings from the city, or gets from the river

barges,42 berries of the finest sort, and she knows secret ways

of preparing the drink, which is black as coal, transparent as

amber, fragrant as mocha, and thick as honey.