38o 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [December t, 1889. 
We qiinte as follows : — 
B« it known in the first, place, that the Ohina and 
Japan teas have an almost absolute control of the 
marts of this country, for the reason that the large 
importers and dealers have been able to secure a better 
profit on these than on the finer and more highlv cul- 
tivated teas of India and Ceylon. England, Ireland, 
and Scotland are unquestionably the leading tpa- 
consumine countries of the world ; therefore it maybe 
justly claimed that the cultivated taste of theBritish tea- 
drinker can be taken as a standard. The large amount 
of" English Breakfast Tea " being sold in the United 
States does not bear the faintest resemblance to the 
tea which is generally in consumption in Great Britain. 
The teas which have swept all before them in Great 
Britain, viz. the growths of India and Ceylon, are 
practically unknown here, as out of an annual consump- 
tion of about 88,000,000 in the United States only about 
quarter of a million pounds comes from India and 
Ceylon. During the last fifteen years there has been 
a revolution in the tea trade in Great Britain. In this 
short time the consumption of Indian and Ceylon tea 
has risen from 18,000,000 pounds per annum to 118,000,000 
pounds per annum; while the annual consumption of 
all other teag, including those from Ohina and Japan, 
has fa'len from 118,000,000 pounds to about 62,000,000. 
This absolutely proves that in the Judgment of the 
people of Great Britain the teas produced by India and 
Oeylnn possess qualities which lift them far above all 
others. The" have greater strength which makes 
them more economical, as the same weight of Indian 
and Ceylon tea goes much farther than that of any 
other growth. Thev also possess in the highest degree 
all those qualities which combine to make a delicious 
and invigorating beverage, viz. flavor, fragrance, and 
bouquet. Two attempts have been made to introduce 
these teas to the United States. A syndicate of Indian 
and Ceylon planters shipped two consignments of their 
teas to New York, which they determined to have sold 
in pnblie sale without reserve, in the hope that they 
would filter through into consumption and so create a 
demand for their products. These attempts were frus- 
trated by the formation of a rinsr, which bought the 
teas at its own price and reshipped them to the London 
market, showing clearly that they feared the enormous 
profits they were making on the inferior goods from 
Ohina and Japan would receive a serious blow if the 
finer and more highly cultivated teas of India and 
Ceylon were introduced into this country. 
Then as regards China teas we are told : — 
Mr. Samuel Ball has conclusively shown that through- 
out the whole tea districts of China innumerable other 
leaves are constantly emploved as substitutes for the 
genuine leaf, while a long list of plants is to be found 
in many Chinese herbals to which the term "tea" 
is applied without any regard to the fact that none of 
them are tea at all. All, however, are used at various 
times and in different places to swell the crop of 
genuine tea. and the result is, as was testified recently 
before the House of Commons, millions of pounds of 
sloe, liquorice, ash, and willow leaves, are every year 
imported in+o England from Ohina under the name 
of tea. Used lenves again a<-e often made up for the 
E-glish market with Prussian blue, silioa, gypsum, 
plumbago, lamp-black, ferruginous earth, and other 
palatable trifles ; and a recent analysis of "Finest 
Kaisow" and 'Fine Congou" revealed in the former 
an enormous admixture of mineral matter, mostly iron 
filings, and in the latter redried tea leaves, straw, 
fragments of mattinc, rice husks, willow leaves, and 
the excrement of silk worms. In some " Extra Fine 
Onnpowder" Dr. Letheby. then Government analyst, 
fo.md <*0 per cent, of iron filings and 19 per cent, of 
i 'lien, while the commissioners of the city of London 
have more than once made extensive raids on huge 
BC>n«ijrnnifflutB of adulterated and artificially colored 
Ohinesoteas. To come still further down, on the dav 
hefore the last mail left, Europe the police of Dunkirk 
acting on information from the Municipal Laboratory, 
arrested two grocers of that town on the charge of 
having, for several months, sold large quantities of 
of dyed leaves under tho name of tea. Both the trade 
men were able to show that they had been supplies 
by a wholesale firm in Paris. Samples were accord" 
inely bought from the firm by order of the Parquet 
and were sent to M. Riehe, a chemist. His report 
showed that the leaves submitted to him were not tea 
leaves. They were like, most dried leaves, of a brown- 
ish color, but this was hidden under a thin coating of 
a bluish green substance, which easily rubbed off. 
Their appearance was exactly +hat, of gunpowder tea. 
Unlike the celebrated nutmegs, it has been impossible 
to tell to what plant they belong, the leaves having 
been punched out of larger ones. The wholesale mer- 
chant denied any knowledge of the fraud, and refer- 
red the authorities to the importer, who, it transpired 
had bought the concoction direct from Canton. The 
inquiry into this cheerful business is still in progress. 
With the Indian planter the whole system is dif- 
ferent, and not only is the utmost care taken not to 
grow or ship inferior leaf, but every pound exported 
is absolutely pure. From the plantation to the ship 
the tea is practically under the care of one man. 
There_ is no passing it on from hand to hand, no 
tinkering with it, and no holding of small stocks (which 
are deteriorating every hour) until there is a largo 
enough accumulation to dispose of to a shipper. The 
tea is rolled, dried, and shipped in the shortest pos- 
sible time, and is a subject of anxious care to the 
planter from the moment of planting to the very hour 
of sale. As a plant, the Indian tree is infinitely supe- 
rior to the Chinese. India, indeed, is the real home 
of the tea plant, which, there seems little doubt, was 
introduced from India into China by Dharma in the 
year 510. The system of cultivation is superior, the 
manufactured article is pure and has no artificial color- 
ing; its intrinsic value is greater, its health -giving 
properties are far ahead of those of its rival, and 
without it as a "fortifier" an enormous proportion of 
the present imports of China tea would be absolutely 
unsaleable. 
Such advertising, followed by full particulars as to 
prices, quantity to use, &c, cannot fail to do good 
in bringing Indian and Ceylon teas more and more 
into notice and use. 
COFFEE: A CHAT WITH A MYSORE 
COFFEE PLANTER. 
" I presume that very few of those who are 
fond of a cup of good coffee for breakfast in this 
country have anything like a clear idea of the 
agricultural processes which render such indulgence 
possible," remarked George Anderson, of Mysore, 
India, an elderly gentleman, with silvery mutton- 
chop whiskers, keen gray eyes, and the tawny 
sallow complexion whioh seems to be inseperable 
from the resident of the land of torrid suns and 
diseased livers, as he smoked an after dinner cheroot 
in the lobby of the Russell House yesterday after- 
noon. " I know all about it from a long series 
of years of actual experience in coffee raising," 
he continued, " and nothing could afford me more 
pleasure than to enlighten the readers of the Detroit 
Free Press — a paper which is more widely read 
in India than perhaps any other paper in the 
world, except the London Times — upon the subject 
I have been a resident of Mysore, India, for an 
unbroken period of twenty-seven years. I went out 
to that country as a very young man when the 
possibilities of civilization were all before it. I 
have never had reason to regret doing so. If you 
are familiar with the geography of India, you are 
aware that Mvsoro is blessed with a delightful 
climate, something which cannot truthfully be said 
of many other portions of that great and rapidly 
progressing country. I experienced hotter weather 
in Salt Lake City, since coming to this country 
a few weeks ago, than I have ever known in 
Mysore during the entire period of my residence " 
" Are you a coffee planter ?" was inquired". 
