270 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF TEA. 



I enclose the directions for making up the tins, and hope you will 

 insert them at the foot of this letter. 



Reading over the above, there is one point I find not observed on 

 as regards the loss of Tea at the Custom House. By the mode of 

 weighing, as explained, the producer often loses 2 or 3 per cent., but 

 still, strange to say, in practice, this loss is sometimes more than 

 counterbalanced by the increased weight of the Tea due to the 

 moisture imbibed while exposed (if boxes are broken in the transit) 

 anyhow at the Custom House. But I need not point out that this 

 gain is dearly bought by the deterioration of the Tea. The Custom 

 House procedure is bad in every way. More on this subject later. 



EDWARD MONEY. 



The following is also from the Tea Gazette, and is much 

 in favour of the boxes : 



PACKING OF TEA IN TIN BOXES. 



In our issue of November yth, 1881, we inserted a short editorial 

 note questioning, on the authority of certain correspondents, the 

 advisability of using tin Tea boxes for the packing of Tea, at the same 

 time asking our readers to favour us with their opinions on the subject, 

 in case we were misinformed. Our invitation has met with a response 

 from several quarters, and the correspondence we have received leads 

 us to alter the opinion we formerly held on the subject. A gentleman 

 largely interested in Tea, but in no way connected with the manu- 

 facturers of the patent tin boxes, writes to us from England : 



" I made enquiries as to the condition in which Tea packed in 

 Messrs. Harvey Brothers and Tyler's lacquered tin boxes is turned 

 out in London. I found that the Tea was not at all injured by this 

 method of packing, but that its condition is quite as good as that 

 of Tea packed in chests. Messrs. W. J. and H. Thompson assured 

 me that you were entirely mistaken in your remarks as to the 

 contamination, but they thought that an objection to the packing in 

 the lacquered tin boxes was the labour of putting up in these boxes. 

 Catalogues were shown me in which I saw that the Teas in the 

 lacquered tin boxes fetched higher rates than the same Teas packed 

 in chests, the difference being in one case 3^. per Ib." 



This is certainly a most favourable testimony, and coming as it 

 does from a disinterested party, who writes simply in defence of what 



