Cooking for profit

There are many who claim to make 2J gallons of coffee from a pound, and the same will increase the quantity of tea to the pound but it must be at a disadvantage to the good quality of the articles. It is probable that where a business is successful in spite of a poor quality of tea and coffee provided, it would be still more successful with that point upheld. On the other hand a great deal of dissatisfaction is caused in hotels through an unsystematic way of making the tea; because there is really scarcely anything to be done that little is slighted ; a quantity of tea much too large is thrown into -water that does not boil, in the hope to obtain tea the quicker, which is bad at first; but afterwards the tea becomes so strong that nobody can drink it. There should be a measure of some sort always in the tea box, that there may be no excuse for dipping it up by uncounted handfuls. When the tea becomes so that it looks like coffee in the cups, yet has neither strength nor fragrance and of course is unfit to drink, it may be partly due to the use of black tea, but it is the certain result of allowing the tea to stand and boil too long, no matter what kind of tea may be provided. The best way to make tea for a larger quantity than can be supplied from the family tea-pot is to put the measured amount required into a box made like a quart measure, of perforated tin, having a lid to fasten on, and drop it into an urn of boiling water, containing the right proportion, and then stop the boiling and allow -J hour for the tea to draw. The box must be large enough to allow the tea to swell and the water to circulate through it. Before all the tea is drawn off add more boiling water — a fourth as much as was used at the first — for the second drawing. On an average each person takes 2 teaspoonfuls of sugar to each cup of tea — that is 1 ounce. In some good restaurants the plan adopted is to give with each cup three lumps of sugar in a butter-chip or very small saucer; and a correspondingly small individual pitcher with 2 tablespoonfuls of cream. Cost of material — 4 ounces tea 20, sugar 20, cream 30; 70c — 35 cups tea for 70c, 2c a cup. 36— Chocolate. Common unsweetened chocolate is to be used as the sweet chocolate being ^ sugar is not strong. 1 ounce common chocolate makes 4 cups. 1 heaping cupful of grated common chocolate, is 3 ounces and makes 3 quarts; it contains 7 tablespoonfuls. 1 heaping tablespoonful of grated common makes 2 cups as cups are filled. Chocolate must be cold to grate; it melts and runs when made hot. The ounces are marked on the cakes. To make chocolate take: 3 cups milk. 1 cup water. 2 heaping tablespoons grated chocolate. Boil the milk and water in a saucepan, drop in the chocolate and beat with the wire egg-whisk until the chocolate is all dissolved and it boils. It should be made to order whenever practicable, the milk and water being kept ready boiling, but if made beforehand should be kept in a sink of the steam chest or double kettle and not allowed to boil again. Cost of material by gallon — 4 ounces chocolate 10, 3 quarts milk 21, sugar 10; 41c for 18 cups 2Jc a cup — single cups cost 2Jc. 37— A Restaurant Pot of Coffee, Tea or Choolate.