Tea 



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CHESTS OF CHINESE TEA READY FOR SHIPMENT 



trade. Whether the Chinese peasant can be induced to depart from the methods and customs 

 which have been handed down to him for countless generations is a matter open to question, 

 but the attempt on the part of the authorities is significant, and the situation may be very 

 accurately summed up in the words of an editorial of a Ceylon planting paper : "... The 

 way in which it (i.e., the Chinese trade) has steadily gone back during the last fifty years is 

 not at all conclusive proof that there can be no important recovery, under changed conditions I 

 and methods. In other words, 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." 



When we examine the figures showing the amount of tea annually consumed per head 

 of the population we find that although it is a British country which heads the list, the tea- 

 drinkers of Great Britain must give way to their sons and daughters of Australasia, who use 

 no less than 71 lbs. per person every year. In the United Kingdom the amount is about 

 a pound less, viz., 6"03 lbs. per head, and then we have Canada (4 lbs.), Holland (14 lb.), United 

 States (T30 lb.), Russia (1*25 lb:), Norway (TlOlb.), Denmark (0-36 lb.), Germany (0'131b.), 

 and France (0"061b.). The large consumption in the British Empire is very striking, though 

 not unexpectedly so ; but to the average Englishman the most surprising feature of these figures 

 is the relatively small amount consumed per head of the population of Russia. In this country 

 the Russians are commonly regarded as a great tea-drinking people, but this is a popular error, 

 for only the comparatively wealthy classes in Russia can afford to buy tea, which is quite 

 beyond the reach of the poor peasants who form the great bulk of the population. 



The rise in popularity of tea in England was comparatively slow up to the beginning of the 

 nineteenth century. In 1711 the consumption per head was only 0"03 lb., and in 1780 it had 

 risen to only 0"57 lb. During the first four decades of the next century the average stood 

 at about 1*25 lb., but after 1840, the period at which tea-planting was rapidly being extended 

 in India, the consumption rose very quickly. In spite of the increasing consumption, however, 

 tea has continued to fall in price owing to the enormous increase in production. 



With regard to the chemistry, of tea, the most important constituents from the point of 

 view of the quality of the beverage are an essential oil, tannin, and an alkaloid known as theine. 

 The flavour of the tea is largely due to the essential oil, but the remarkable stimulating and 

 refreshing^qualities of the beverage are due to the theine which is-also-found in coffee, Paraguay 



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