LARGE CONSUMERS 11 



the swing of the pendulum may be witnessed in this 

 department of agriculture and commerce as well as in 

 any other, seeing that the (Chinese) tea gardens have 

 suffered no radical injury." 



At the present time there is a slightly increasing 

 demand for China tea, and although the consumption 

 in the United Kingdom is small compared with other 

 growths, yet there are signs that these delicate China 

 kinds will again come into favour, especially amongst 

 people of refined taste. The following abstract from 

 The Lancet of August 1st, 1908, may be taken as the last 

 word on rival teas, although how far the consumer 

 will be persuaded is another matter. Anyone who has 

 never drunk really fine pure China tea has missed a 

 great deal. 



" A controversy which has long been settled in the 

 minds of scientific men has been revived by trade 

 partisans. The persons, on the one hand, whose busi- 

 ness it is to sell China tea affirm that Indian tea was 

 long ago tabooed by medical men because, unless it 

 is prepared for use under very careful directions, it 

 contains an excessive amount of astringent substances, 

 known to chemists under the generic name of tannin. 

 On the other hand, the parties interested in the sale 

 of Indian and Ceylon teas declare that China tea is 

 objectionable because the leaf is prepared under 

 unwholesome conditions, that it sustains in fact 

 contamination owing to its manipulation by hand, 

 whereas Indian and Ceylon teas are immaculate in 

 this respect, because nothing is concerned in their 

 manufacture and production for the market but 

 machinery. To this view many tea connoisseurs 

 reply that the aesthetic qualities of the tea leaf are 

 injured considerably by the mechanical means 

 adopted/' 



