Addenda to "Poor Man's Friend"

Yes!!! What an eye :-)  The Great Coffee Berry was yellow soy beans.

Here is the  1910 H. W. Buckbee catalog page from yesterday I am referring to in case you landed here by chance.

Here is another reference which I think  is telling...

And there are many mentions of "so called" coffee substitutes from soy in late 1800s lit, not all folks being convinced.

There is a terrific free William Shurtleff & Akiko Aoyagi  book on soy in which he does all the work for me I find :-)

Here are some quotes.  Great book.

 "1858 Jan. 9 – In an inquiry to Moore’s Rural New-Yorker, W.H.S. of Phoenix, New York, asks for “information respecting the Coffee plant, a few seeds of which I obtained from the East this spring, and planted in my garden. They grew exceedingly well, and promised a good yield. But owing to a heavy hail storm that occurred the 31st of July,

it was badly injured.” Answer: This plant is actually the Japan Pea (an early name of the soybean). This is the earliest document seen that uses the word “coffee” in the name of the soybean or in connection with soybeans.

1894 May – The term “soy coffee” is first used in English in an article titled “A substitute for coffee” by Charles S. Plumb of Lafayette, Indiana. 

1927 Jan. – A.A. Horvath gives an interesting early history of “soybean coffee” in an article titled “The soybean as human food.” He writes (p. 30-31):

 “During the period of the Civil War in America, the soybean was extensively used in the southern states as a coffee substitute. For a considerable time seedmen sold the Ito San variety under the name of Coffee Berry and Coffee Bean (Piper & Morse [1923]). 

Soybean coffee has been used in Western Europe, in Switzerland, and in the Alpine Provinces of former Austria since the introduction of the soybean to Europe. Horvath [probably the writer’s father], 50 years ago [i.e., about 1877] was the first to prepare soybean coffee for the market in South Russia. In 1913 Marschner (Bohemia) put on the market a soybean ‘coffee without caffein’ [caffeine] under the trade mark ‘Santosa.’ In Germany, Fischer and Follmann (Dresden) also manufactured soybean coffee for the market... In China an ‘artificial bean coffee’ is prepared by the Kai Cheng Bean Products Company, Peking. 

(Note: Li Yu-ying is connected with this company).
Note 2. So far as we know, no one has been able to document the claim that the soybean was widely used during the Civil War in American as a coffee substitute. 

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And now...

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