If you read Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels, you know that these two loved nothing better than strong coffee. The steward Preserved Killick was responsible for roasting, grinding, and brewing their drink, but nowhere does it say what method he used. How did they brew coffee back then?
Here’s a page discussing the history of brewing coffee. For the Napoleonic era, we’re looking at either Turkish coffee – boiling ground coffee in a small pot, pouring off the coffee into a cup, and avoiding the thick grounds in the bottom – something similar but using a linen bag to hold the grounds and keeping them out of your cup, or a modern-ish drip pot, invented in France about 1800.
Not having read the books (or knowing anything about the British Naval coffee tradition), I’d say they most likely boiled the coffee in a pot, with or without the linen bag, depending on where they learned to brew coffee. Using not quite boiling water (as in the drip pot) was a new idea at the time, which a rugged sailor may or may not be aware of.
But this is all a WAG on my part. I just got curious, googled, and figured I’d get the ball rolling here.
Oh, they didn’t boil the coffee. Jack threatened Killick more than once with having his ears nailed to a plank and being set adrift if he boiled the coffee.
Yes, indeed. Jack was particular about his coffee. And Stephen knew that the best kind was the “right Arabian moka” and took care to buy a good-sized bag when he could find it.
Heh. I like when Jack was a prisoner of war in Boston, and had to drink the Americans’ weak version of coffee. He called it “infamous hogwash”, and Stephen pretended to the waitress that he needed it made four times stronger as a tonic for his patient.
Of course, when at sea for an extended period they often had to make do - there was one occasion where the rats got into the coffee and Killick wound up grinding rat shit with the beans.
I have a copy of “Lobscouse and Spotted Dog” at home, and according to the ToC on Amazon it does include a recipe for coffee. I’ll check tonight.
Jack: This coffee has a damned odd taste.
Stephen: I attribute that to the excrement of rats.
Jack: I thought it was familiar.
…he preserved it? Thanks, I’ll be here all century.
“Preserved” was apparently the guy’s first name. They are English.
Yup, same name as the president of the Bank of America: Preserved Fish.
Far better.
Lobscouse & Spotted Dog reprinted a period recipe (1750) You roast the berries in a fire-shovel, then grind them Put the coffee pot over the fire with water, when hot, throw the water away, dry the pot by the fire, put the coffee in it, then add boiling water, let stand three or four minutes. “By this means the hot water meets the spirit of the coffee; whereas if you boil coffee, as the common way is, the spirit goes away, so that it will not be so strong nor quick to the taste.”
Attributed inaccurately to Lincoln, who was not averse to stealing a gag, “If this is tea bring me coffee, and if it is coffee bring me tea.”
I’m glad to see this thread, for I have in the past couple of days returned to Port Mahon for my second voyage with Jack and Stephen.
If I’m not mistaken, it was Dr. Samuel Johnson from whom Lincoln pinched that one.
The Aubrey/Maturin series text search finds 585 references to “coffee”. 
‘This coffee has been heated up. Boiled,’ he said, looking at his purplish brew. Killick’s face assumed a mean, pinched expression, and the thought ‘If people lay in their cots till all hours while others is toiling and moiling, they gets what they deserve’ very nearly found expression; but in fact the coffee had been boiled, a crime not far short of hanging at this time of the Captain’s day, and Killick contented himself with a disobliging sniff and the words, ‘There’s another pot coming up.’ - Desolation Island
Philip’s steward might be as discreet as a cat, but Jack would have given all his discretion and pretty ways for a pot of Killick’s coffee. He had not had a decent cup since the Java. The Americans had been kind, polite, hospitable, and their sailors thorough seamen, but they had the strangest notion of coffee: a thin, thin brew – a man might drink himself into a dropsy before the stuff raised his spirits even half a degree. Strange people." - The Fortune of War
At last the scent of coffee died away, giving place to the everyday smell of fresh sea, tar, warm wood and cordage, and distant bilge, and his ear caught the click-click of Killick’s mate’s pestle grinding the beans in the brass mortar belonging to the sick-bay; for Stephen was even more particular about his coffee than Jack, and having learnt the true Arabian way of preparing it when they were in the Red Sea (an otherwise profitless voyage) he had banished the commonplace mill. Jack’s ear also caught Killick’s shrill abuse as his mate let some of the beans skip out; it had just the same tone of righteous indignation as the dreadful bosun’s mates aboard the pahi or Sophie’s mother, Mrs Williams." - The Far Side of the World
Thanks for finding that, muldoonthief. Looks like they knew the right way to brew coffee before Jack and Stephen came along. This is pretty much how I do it in a French press, before pushing down the plunger to strain out the grounds.
Eleanor, I love that quote: “a man might drink himself into a dropsy before elevating his spirits even half a degree.” O’Brian was a poet about even the most domestic of subjects.
“A man could hang himself with Irish tape.”
I’m confused. You pour water into your French press, heat it, throw the water away, let it dry, add coffee, add boiling water, and let stand? 
Yeah, that was an odd part of the recipe. I assume it’s to preheat the coffee pot, but wouldn’t just putting it by the fire do the same? Maybe that’s a subtle “Wash out the coffee pot first, you slob!” step that you had to sneak past people in 1750.
Heh. I do warm the vessel, but not in this elaborate way - just hot tap water for a half a minute. After the steeping water comes to a full boil, I let it come down a couple of degrees before adding it to the grounds in the warm press, and let it steep 4-5 minutes before pressing. And I use a lot of grounds. I don’t like infamous hogwash, either.
I wonder if Killick filtered his brewed coffee, or if he just served the coffee with the grounds swirling around in it.
hmm could ask the author … but I hate people writing things in historical novels that they know nothing about …
like a certain modern novelist that writes about a british naval officer but every paperback version he has to print a 10-20 page PS about what he got wrong because he knew nothing of sailing let alone Napoleonic era sailing so the books are rarely on the ship unless its a battle …