360 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Japonica and other species from China and Japan are favorite cultiva- 

 tions of the greenhouse in Europe and this country. Nowhere in the 

 world but on the borders of the Himalayas and in the wild regions of 

 Assam is the tea-plant found growing uncultivated, but it was not dis- 

 covered in this its natural habitation until the present century. As a 

 cultivated plant, the Chinese have certainly had it since the fourth 

 century, and they claim it to be indigenous to their own soil just as 

 confidently as they claim the parentage of numerous valuable articles. 

 China has given tea to the world, and has furnished a favorable home 

 to the plant, which is nevertheless quite as well suited in its native 

 land, farther east. When it became known in England that the tea- 

 plant grew native in the highlands of the Himalayas, English com- 

 panies engaged extensively in the cultivation of tea in that region, and 

 finally, after the correction of notable failures in methods of culture 

 and of cure, it appears that the finest teas of Asia are those of these 

 mountain-plains and the choicest plants are of variety Assamica, lately 

 propagated from the wild shrub of the mountains. 



A child would ask the question, What is there so very good in the 

 tea-plant or in its dry leaf ? And a philosopher may well ask, What is 

 there about it, that this article has had a commercial history since the 

 early middle ages, and men toil to till it, and with infinite detail to 

 pick it and dry it and roll it, and spread and stir and roast and toss it, 

 and then carry it over the globe in quantities to distribute for every 

 household and amounting in sum-total to a quarter of a billion of 

 pounds every year ? In the first place, what does the tea-leaf contain 

 the fresh leaf from the wild bush of the mountains, never gathered 

 for use, or the leaf picked on the tea-farms and carried dry to your tea- 

 caddy what kinds of compounds are in it, and can no other plant than 

 this produce them ? 



To leave out a long story of progressive investigations, and to say 

 nothing of the ways and means of analysis, the chief constituent to be 

 named is the alkaloid theine. When separated from the other constit- 

 uents of the tea-leaf, so as to be seen in its perfect purity, theine ap- 

 pears in snow-white, silky, filiform crystals, flexible and fragile, with- 

 out odor, but having a mildly bitter taste. It dissolves readily in ten 

 times its quantity of boiling water, and more slowly in a larger pro- 

 portion of boiling water. It does not vaporize or decompose in the 

 least at water-boiling heat ; it melts at higher temperature and vapor- 

 izes slowly at about 360 Fahr., without decomposition. Chemically, 

 it is a compound of the four organic elements, and is classified within 

 the borders of the great group of alkaloids, but it differs distinctly 

 from all other alkaloids (except its near relative, theobromine) in vari- 

 ous chemical characteristics. It has, also, a much larger proportion of 

 nitrogen than the other natural alkaloids. But it remains an impor- 

 tant consideration that this crystalloid constituent of the tea-leaf is 

 built on the chemical type of the alkaloids, a class of bodies which 



