84 TEA 



countries are sold in Mincing Lane, special days in 

 the week being respectively devoted to putting up 

 " lots " of Indians, Ceylons, Chinas, and Javas. 



In London, too, the fine art of blending is practised 

 by numbers of highly skilled speciaUsts, and in many 

 of the large mercantile warehouses of this great city 

 an army of labourers is constantly employed in packing 

 and packeting tea. And London not only distributes 

 tea throughout the United Kingdom, but re-exports 

 this commodity to foreign markets. 



CHAPTER XIX 



THE CUP THAT CHEERS 



There are no statistics to tell us how much tea is 

 consumed yearly by the Chinese and Japanese. But 

 amongst all other tea-drinking nations, the people of 

 the United Kingdom, taken as a whole, use the largest 

 amount of the product per annum. In 1911 the total 

 amount of tea consumed by the " leading customer " 

 was 296,000,000 pounds, or 6| pounds per head of 

 population : of this, 169,250,000 pounds, or rather more 

 than 57 per cent., was purchased from India ; 90,500,000 

 pounds from Ceylon ; 14,500,000 pounds from China ; 

 and 21,750,000 pounds from Java and other tea-lands. 

 The next big customer is Russia, in whose domains 

 about 147,132,000 pounds of tea were used in 1910, the 

 latest year for which, at this time when I am acting as 

 your guide, a comparative list of tea-trade figures is 

 available for reference. The average consumption 

 per head in the Russian Empire works out at a 

 Kttle under 1 poimd. Russia buys the bulk of her 



