In mid-19th-century America, buying coffee often meant buying green beans.
Before making a cup, many households had to roast the beans themselves in an iron pan over a stove, hot coals, or an open fire. Too much heat—or too little stirring—could leave some beans scorched while others remained under-roasted.
Coffee roasting was once just another household chore.
How Arbuckle Made Roasted Coffee More Convenient
John Arbuckle and his brother Charles helped change that by selling roasted coffee in convenient one-pound packages.
Customers no longer needed to roast every batch at home, and the packaged coffee was easier to store and transport. Arbuckle’s Ariosa Coffee became especially associated with ranches, camps, and cowboys in the American West.
If you want to see how roasting equipment evolved during this period, read our article on the history of coffee roasting.
But roasting coffee before it reached the customer created another problem.
Roasted beans gradually lose aroma and develop stale flavors when exposed to air, moisture, heat, and time. Nineteenth-century packaging could not protect coffee as effectively as modern barrier bags and one-way valves.
The Arbuckles needed another solution.
Why Were Arbuckle Coffee Beans Coated?
Their answer was to give every roasted coffee bean its own protective “coat.”
John Arbuckle’s 1868 roasted-coffee patent described coating the beans with a glutinous or gelatinous mixture intended to retain their aroma. The documented recipe included eggs and white sugar, along with Irish moss, isinglass, and gelatin.
The coating was applied to the roasted coffee and dried while the beans were stirred. It was also intended to act as a clarifying agent when the ground coffee was boiled in water.
The process is often remembered more simply as an egg-and-sugar glaze.
Today, coffee companies rely on better packaging, airtight containers, and carefully controlled storage. Back then, Arbuckle was trying to protect the coffee one bean at a time.
Peppermint Candy, Coupons, and Wedding Rings
The Arbuckle brothers did not stop with convenient packaging.
A peppermint candy was placed inside the coffee package, giving customers—and apparently plenty of cowboys—one more reason to volunteer for coffee duty.
The company later added collectible trade cards and coupons. Customers could save the coupons and exchange them for household goods such as:
- Tableware
- Towels
- Scissors
- Razors
- Handkerchiefs
- Wedding rings
Buy coffee, skip the roasting chores, enjoy a peppermint, and slowly work your way toward a wedding ring.
The Arbuckle brothers certainly understood customer loyalty.