Today in 1889, US Patent 416157 A was issued, an invention of Samuel Cleland Davidson, for his “Apparatus For Drying Tea, Hops, SLiced Fruit, &c.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes these claims:
The object of this invention is the construction of an apparatus in which a very strong current of heated air or cool desiccated air can be used for rapidly drying tea, coffee, cocoa, cinchona, hops, sliced fruits, seeds, meal, or other such substances, on sieves or perforated trays arranged in a drying-chamber one above the other on a vertical column, and movable in successive order of rotation from bottom to top of the column without the martial being whirled by the strength of the current into heaps on the trays while in the drying-chamber, or blown away off them by it when the trays are being put into or taken out of the apparatus.
