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BEVERAGE PLANTS 273 

 TEA 



The American man who goes to London for a 

 short stay knows that the late afternoon is not the 

 time to do business with a Briton. One impor- 

 tant engagement calls people of high and low 

 degree — they must go and get their tea. You 

 cannot stay the universal impulse with any protest 

 that your time is limited and your errand urgent. 

 Nothing takes precedence of afternoon tea. The 

 clerks go, and you cannot get waited on in the 

 shops. Every business is shorthanded for the 

 time except the places where tea is served. They 

 are crowded. An army of servants move swiftly 

 forward to save the lives of famishing fellow- 

 countrymen, bearing pots of tea and hot water, 

 with little cakes, and thin slices of buttered bread. 

 Before six o'clock the hum of industry is resumed. 

 The man of business is ready to see you. The 

 world is a good place to live in, for everybody is 

 fortified by his tea. 



Pretty much the same the traveller finds in 

 other European cities, where the British tourist 

 has impressed upon the inn-keepers the necessity 

 for afternoon tea service of the kind rigidly his 

 own. English tea rooms attract Americans, who 

 readily fall into the tea habit. We wonder how 



