151 



Edible Products. 



Although the countries scheduled are the principal tea producing ones, 

 there are others where the plant is cultivated, for, contrary to the general 

 impression, tea can be grown almost anywhere under temperate or tropical 

 climatic conditions. I myself, have grown tea in the Himalaya mountains at an 

 altidude of over 6,000 feet over sea level — and seen it buried yearly under two feet 

 of snow ! It is the growing of tea profitably that is " another pair of shoes." Apart 

 from the countries named, tea is grown in Burmah, the Andaman Islands, Natal 

 (where they turn out nearly two million pounds annually), Central Africa, Fiji, the 

 Kabbaz (Caucasus), Jamaica, (experimentally) the Southern States of America— all 

 with commercial intention ; and there are countless other places where it exists 

 experimentally, in the botanical gardens, and so forth. But for the profitable 

 production of tea, there must be a forcing climate, with ample rainfall, and an 

 abundant supply of cheap labour for gathering the harvest, or " plucking" the leaf 

 as it is technically called. In the most favoured districts, where the " flushes " of 

 leaf are thickest, the outside average capacity of a labourer will not supply daily 

 more leaf than can make 5 pounds of tea ; and in less-favoured districts, the most 

 skilful and diligent hand will fail to obtain even half that amount, and this at two 

 cents a pound (which is the recognized scale of payment for the work), imposes a 

 limitation that cannot be overcome except in those particular countries where tea 

 is grown at present. On these economic grounds, the production of tea must remain 

 the monopoly of the Far East, where labour and living are cheap ; and the 

 rainfall of regular " monsoons " supply those climatic conditions which are necessary 

 to a luxuriant growth of leaf- 

 It is estimated that the amount of tea available for export from the tea- 

 producing countries is 600,000,000 pounds. How much tea remains in the countries 

 of production it is impossible to say, owing to the entire absence of any Chinese 

 statistics on this point. It is, however, a curious fact that, except in China and 

 Japan, the consumption of tea in the countries of their production is extremely 

 small, and may almost be said to be a negligible quantity. The crops of India, 

 Ceylon and Java are grown purely for export, the general population of those 

 countries being too poor to afford tea. Of the six hundred million pounds exported 

 from the countries of production, five-twelfths is taken by Great Britain, whose 

 total consumption equals that of all the other European countries and the United 

 States put together. The five-principal tea-consuming countries in the world, and 

 the amount they consumed in 1903, are given as follows :— 



Consumption 



Country. Lbs. Imported. Per Head. 



Lbs. oz. 



United Kingdom ... ... ... 255,498,000 6.03 



Russia ... ... ... ... 132,264,000 0.94 



United States... ... ... ... 104,632,000 1.30 



Australasia (1901) ... ... ... 28,380,000 7.05 



Canada ... ... ... ... 23,969,000 4.34 



The Cape of Good Hope and Holland are the only other countries where 

 there is a substantial per capita consumption, and thus, excluding China and Japan, 

 the tea-drinking communities of the world may be reckoned as consisting of the 

 above seven. 



The fact that stands out from these figures is that the English are the 

 greatest tea consumers of the civilized world, and it may therefore be interesting 

 to see what teas they prefer. Since the introduction of India tea fifty years ago 

 and of Ceylon tea twenty-five years later, they have practically discarded the use 

 of the China herb. It may be urged that this only shows natural preference for the 

 product of their own empire, but against this fact there remains the solid argument 



