a ,0 WORLD'S PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION. 



figures for 1890 reaching upwards of 1 95, 000,000 pounds, 

 which, at the present rate of increase, will, in all prob- 

 ability, exceed 200,000,000 in 1892, as in the quarter of 

 a century between 1865 and 1890 the consumption rose 

 from 3X to 5 pounds per capita of the population. But 

 as in the latter half of that period strong India teas were 

 more freely used, being increased appreciably by the 

 similar Ceylon product in the closing years of that time 

 largely displacing the lighter liquored teas of China, a 

 larger consumption is indicated by the number of gallons 

 of liquid yielded. This is calculated on the moderate 

 estimate formed in a report to the Board of Custom to 

 the effect that if one pound of China leaf produces five 

 gallons of liquor of a certain depth of color and body, 

 one pound of India tea will yield seven and a half 

 gallons of a similar beverage. Then by allowing for an 

 apparent arrest of the advancing consumption when the 

 process of displacement was only commencing, the 

 increase in the consumption of tea in the British Islands 

 has not only been steady but rapid ; thus, from 17 gallons 

 per head in 1865 to 24 in 1876, 28 in 1886, reaching 

 33/4 gallons per head per annum in 1890, the figures of 

 last year almost exactly doubling that of the first year of 

 the series, so that in consequence of the introduction of 

 the stronger products of India and Ceylon the people of 

 Britain have been enabled to double their consumption 

 of the beverage, although the percentage of increase in 

 the leaf has been only from 3^ to 5 pounds during the 

 same period. Ceylon tea, which a decade ago was only 

 beginning to intrude itself as a new and suspiciously re- 

 garded competitor in the English market with products 

 so well known and established as the teas of China and 

 India, has recently made such rapid progress that its 

 position in the British market in 1890, rated by home 



