TESTING, BLENDING AND PREPARING. I7J 



to adorn. Again, these packets, labels and labor add as 

 much as five to eight cents to the cost of the tea, together 

 with the expense of flaunting them before the eyes of 

 the public, which must be simply enormous. The public 

 generally are ignorant in such matters, and the legitimate 

 dealer might look with amused surprise on the apparent 

 demand for packet teas if it were not that an increasing 

 number of dealers are adopting the new system. Engaged 

 as most of the grocers are in trying to stop the plague of 

 all sorts of proprietary goods which yield them so little 

 profit and make them the servants only of the manufac- 

 turers and proprietors, it is astonishing, to say the 

 least, that other dealers should be found who are adopting 

 the same system with tea. A grocer cannot manufacture 

 spices or sugar, grow wine, distil whisky or brew beer, 

 but he can, as generations of grocers have done before him, 

 sell good tea out of an honest tea-chest, or caddy 

 and make a respectable living, if not money, out of it for 

 himself and not for others, while serving the public well at 

 the same time. Surely, the attitude of the grocers on this 

 question should not be one of doubt, as they have it in their 

 power to make it clear to the public that they can sell 

 cheaper, better aud fresher teas of their own, and with a 

 far better guarantee of the source of supply named or 

 adhered to than if a paper or metallic packet with a fancy 

 label, however attractive, is trusted to. Again, there can be 

 no valid reason why every grocer, if he sees fit, should not 

 put his own teas up and offer them under his own name 

 and brand upon it, if his patrons should desire, a fancy and 

 costly packet with no other advantages attaching to it. 



T^AXBIvESlVlIfrnVG JV A FMIVEJ ARTT. 



Comparatively little is known of the art or principle 

 of mixing or blending of teas in this country, American 



