PARAGUAY TEA GUAR AN A CAFFEINE. 87 



consumption ; and if it should turn out that the article can be issa. 

 sent to distant countries without deterioration, I shall have 

 every confidence in its ultimate adoption for general use. 



" The price here of the leaves prepared for use, is generally 

 about 1|. a pound ; and I suppose it may be prepared and packed 

 for the European market of good quality for 2d. t affording suf- :, 

 ficient profit to the planter and bringing it within reach of the 

 poorest classes of Europe." 



Such is Mr. Ward's communication. The sample which he has Infusion of 

 sent arrived in excellent condition and appears to have been very 

 carefully prepared. It consists of tolerably regular fragments 

 of shining leaves mixed with pieces of stalk. Its colour is 

 deep brown; its odour somewhat like that of a mixture of 

 coffee and tea, and extremely fragrant. Immersed in boiling water 

 a transparent, brown infusion is obtained, which when made 

 sufficently strong, forms, with the addition of sugar and milk, 

 a beverage by no means unpalatable. 



Caffeine, as is well known, is a crystallizable nitrogenized Caffeine. 

 vegetable principle, 1 existing in the berries of the coffee shrub, 

 in the leaves of the tea-plant of China, in the Yerba de Mate, or 

 Paraguay Tea, of South America, and, as MM. Berthemot, and 

 Dechastelus have proved, 2 in Guarana, the basis of a favourite 

 beverage in some parts of Brazil. The plants affording these 

 productions occupy very different positions in the vegetable 

 kingdom ; the coffee-plant belongs to the natural order Eiibiacece, 

 the tea-plant to Camelliece, the Paraguay tea (Ilex Paraguariensis, 

 St. Hil.) to the Ilicinece, and the Guarana-plant (Paullinia sorbilis, 

 Mart.) to Sapindacece. 



It is not a little remarkable that Caffeine has hitherto been Pemarkablc 

 detected only in plants which are broadly distinguished from each 

 other in their botanical characters ; but it is yet more extraor- 

 dinary that these plants should have been independently selected 

 as articles of diet by semi-barbarous nations inhabiting widely- 

 separated portions of the globe. 



1 Its composition is expressed by the formula C 8 H- N 2 2 . Theine and 

 Guaranine are identical with Caffeine. 



2 Journ. de Pharm. (Aug. 1840). tome xxvi., p. 518. 



