80 TE. 



good state at the expense of the coffee bush, it is doubtful whether 

 the coffee produced by the berries be not, after all, the cheapest, 

 as it certainly is the best. 



TEA. 



THE immense traffic in the produce of this simple shrub, the 

 growth of a remarkable country, hitherto almost entirely isolated 

 from the western nations, is one of the most remarkable illus- 

 trations of the enterprise and energy of modern commerce. The 

 trade in tea now gives employment to upwards of 60,000 tons of 

 British shipping, and about ten millions sterling of English capi- 

 tal, producing a revenue to this country of nearly six millions ster- 

 ling. 



Every reflecting man will admit that articles of such vast con- 

 sumption as tea and coffee (amounting together to more than 

 343,500 tons annually), forming the chief liquid food of whole 

 nations, must exercise a great influence upon the health of the 

 people. 



There is scarcely any country in the world in which a dietetic 

 drink or beverage resembling tea, is not prepared, and in general 

 use, from some exotic or indigenous shrub. The two chief plants 

 laid under contribution are, however, the Chinese tea-plant, and 

 a species of holly peculiar to South America, producing the Para- 

 guay tea. Astoria theiformis is used at Santa Fe as tea. The 

 leaves of Canothus Americanus, an astringent herb, have been used 

 as a substitute, under the name of New Jersey tea. 



It has been a matter of surprise why tea should be so much 

 sought after by the poorer classes, since by many it is looked on 

 more as a luxury than of use to the human system. The manner 

 in which it acts, and the cause why it is so much in demand by 

 all classes, is satisfactorily explained by Liebig ; and the benefit, 

 therefore, which will be conferred by selling it at a low rate, and 

 thus placing it within the means of all, has at last come to be 

 duly appreciated. Liebig says, without entering minutely into 

 the medical action of caffeine, theine, &c., it will surely appear a 

 most striking fact, even if we were to deny its influence on the 

 process of secretion, that the substance, with the addition of 

 oxygen and the elements of water, can yield taurine, the nitro- 

 genised compound peculiar to bile : 



Carbon. Nitrogen. Hydrogen. Oxygen. 



1 atom caffeine or theine = 8 2 5 2 



9 atoms water = . . 9 9 



9 atoms oxygen . = . . . . 9 



= 2 atoms taurine .8 2 14 20 



= 249 10 



To see how the action of caffeine, theobromine, theine, &c., may 

 be explained, we must call to mind that the chief constituent of 



