122 CLASSIFICATION AND DESCRIPTION. 



pungent taste in the infusion, as well as being the unsus- 

 pected cause of the indigestion and nervousness among 

 those who use them to any extent. So that in view of 

 the strenuous efforts now made to introduce India and 

 Ceylon teas into the American market, it may be well to 

 here caution consumers against their injurious and dele- 

 terious effects on the human system, such injury being 

 caused, not alone by the excess of tannin, but also by 

 the sap or juice of the natural leaf not being sufficiently 

 expressed before the leaves are fired by proper fermen- 

 tation. It being claimed by physicians and others that 

 to the fixed and general use of these teas in England 

 is attributable the great increase of heart-burn, flatulency, 

 nervousness and dyspepsia among the people of that 

 country. 



Against the dubious and questionable advantages of 

 body and strength so loudly vaunted in India and Ceylon 

 teas, China and Japan possess others greater and more 

 important ones among which are that the tea-grower in 

 the latter countries working his own land in smaller 

 quantities brings greater care and more industry to the 

 task. Again in the methods of curing and firing the leaf, 

 the latter have also the advantage of superiority, as it is 

 now generally admitted by experts and others interested 

 in the business that though the " Sirocco " or hot-air 

 process may be more rapid in its work and certain not 

 to taint the leaves in any way, it is yet open to doubt 

 whether the older, slower, and more natural method of 

 firing in pans over charcoal fires is not the better, more 

 thorough and effective in its results than the new and 

 artificial one. The Chinese and Japanese have been curing 

 and firing teas by that method for centuries, and they 

 surely ought to be the best judges by this time. 

 To sum up, India and Ceylon may produce stronger 



