44 Transactions of the 



digestion to supply as much as is necessary for repairing the waste 

 of solid tissues with food. Three or four grains of theine are 

 contained in less than half an ounce of good tea, and may be 

 taken in a day by most persons without unpleasant effects. But 

 if twice this quantity — eight grains — be taken in a day, the pulse 

 becomes more frequent, the heart beats stronger, trembling comes 

 on, and a perpetual desire to void urine. To the tannin or tannic 

 acid contained in tea-leaves are due some of the exhilarating 

 effects. Gluten forms as much as one-fourth of the weight of dry 

 tea-leaves, so that if we chose to eat them, they would prove as 

 nutritious as beans or peas. By infusing tea with water very 

 little gluten is extracted, it has therefore been recommended that 

 a little soda be put into the water along with it ; the effect then 

 being, that a portion at least of the gluten would be dissolved, and 

 the beverage, in consequence, become more nutritious. The method 

 of preparing the brick-tea, adopted by the Mongols and Tartars, is 

 believed to extract the greater part of the nutriment from the leaf. 

 They rub the tea to powder, boil it with alkaline water, to which 

 salt and fat have been added, and pour off the decoction from the 

 sediment. Of this liquid they drink from twenty to forty cups a 

 day, and on it and a little milk they can subsist for weeks in suc- 

 cession. 



I may here state that the reason why the gout and stone are 

 unknown in China is ascribed to the use of tea. 



The consumption of tea by the Chinese themselves is enormous ; 

 they drink four times as much tea as we do. 



The population of China, according to an official census taken 

 in 1825, was 352,866,012 — more than ten times our population. 

 Then estimating our annual consumption of tea at about 1 ,000,000 

 cwt., that of China must be about 40,000,000 cwts. England 

 ranks next as a tea-drinking country. The annual import of 

 Great Britain is upwards of 140,000,000 lbs., whilst that of the 

 United States of America is about 50,000,000. 



During the last year (from 1st January to 31st December 1870) 

 the quantity of tea consumed in Great Britain amounted to 

 118,000,000 lbs. ; the quantity exported to the continent, colonies, 

 &c., 30,000,000 lbs. ; and the quantity in stock in the English 

 warehouses, 31st December 1870, 79,000,000 lbs. 



This year (1871) the home consumption and exports will pro- 

 bably be very much greater, as from \st January to 31si October 

 this year the home consumption has already amounted to 

 104,000,000 lbs., and the exports to 33,400,000 lbs. 



The actual tea trade is conducted as follows : — The tea for the 

 English market is purchased and shipped from the various ports 

 in China by merchants to London — London being the great tea 



