65 ® 
The tropical agriculturist. 
[March 2 , 1891 . 
Temple for support. It was not to be e^peoted’ 
however, that the vintners and liquor-sellers in that 
bibulous neighbourhood would submit tamely to the 
introduction 'of a non-alcoholic beverage. Pretending 
that their neighbours disliked the smell of the roasting 
coffee, the Bonifaces of Fleet-street indicted Parr a.s a 
public nuisance, and endeavoured to force him to shut 
up his shop. The indomitable barber, nevertheless, 
persevered in the teeth of their opposition, and the 
“ Arabian drink ” soon became amazingly popular, A 
Satirist, who sympathised with tbe good old drinking 
days, was compelled to write regretfully : “ And now, 
alas 1 the drink has credit got, And he’s no gentleman 
that drinks it not.” 
Although tea was much slower than the “ Arabian 
berry” in “ catching on” with the public, yet having 
once made a start it soon outstripped its more ex- 
citing brother. On the 28th of September, 1660, 
Samuel Pepys writes in his “Diary”: “I did send 
for a cup of tee, a Ohina drink of which I never 
had tasted before and a little later he adds that, 
on reaching home, he found his wife engaged in 
making “ tee ” — “ a drink which Mr. Felling, the 
potticary, tells her is good for her cold and defluxions.” 
At that time the price of a pound of “ tee,” which 
was almost universally pronounced “ tay,” was from 
six pounds sterling to ten pounds ; and the consumption 
was suflaeient in 1669 to induce the Bast India 
Company to import “ the new commodity ” for the 
first time. Their importations came straight from the 
Flowery Land ; but in 1666 Lord Arlington brought 
over a large consignment from Holland, and sold it 
as a particular favour to his friends at sixty shillings 
a pound. It is reported, indeed, by Mr. John Timbs 
that the first cup of tea ever made in London was 
drunk by Lord Arlington in Buckingham House, 
which stood on the site now occupied by Buckingham 
Palace; Following his Lordship’s example, Garraway, 
the founder of the celebrated coffee-house in Ex- 
change-alley, issued a shop-bill proclaiming that “ Tea 
hath already been sold in England in the leaf for six 
pounds and sometimes for ten pounds the poundweight, 
and in respect of its former dearness hath only been 
used as a regalia at great feasts and entertainments. 
The said Thomas Garraway did therefore purchase a 
quantity thereof, and sold it in the leaf from sixteen 
to fifty shillings in the pound, making it into a drink, 
according to the directions of the most knowing mer- 
chants and travellers into those Eastern realms ; and 
upon experience of his continued care and industry 
in obtaining tbe best tea and making drink thereof, 
very many noblemen, gentlemen of quality, andphy- 
sicians have sent to him for the same leaf, and daily 
resort to his house to drink thereof.” The experienced 
tavern-keeper well understood what is often forgotten 
in these days — that no one can make a cup of good 
tea without bestowing time, thought, and attention 
upon the brewing thereof. The demand for tea in 
now so enormous that other countries have come into, 
competition with Ohina, and more of the leaf is 
imported from India than from the Celestial Em- 
pire. Last year Ceylon alone supplied nearly thirty- 
three million pounds out of our total consumption 
of^about six times that amount. The amazing price 
just given for Ceylon tea will undoubtedly stamp it as 
the best in the world. The Chinese drink has super- 
seded the Arabian to such an extent that there are 
said to be five consumers of tea against one of coffee 
in the United Kingdom; and so abundant are the 
eonrccs of production whence this necessary commodity 
can be drawn in the future that there is little danger 
of the bnmblo tea-drinker having to give a higher 
price for “ the cup which cheers yet not inebriates ” 
than she has paid in the past. There is but one couu- 
rty — Australia — which, relatively to population, is a 
larger tea-drinker than the United Kingdom, seeing 
that at the Antipodes the annual consumption is at 
the rate of nearly eight pounds per head, while in 
this country it is rather less than five. We trust that 
the tea-planters of India and Ceylon will be encour- 
aged by this extraordinary sale to aim at ({uiility 
as well as (juautity in their future productions. — 
Daily Telegraph, Jan. 17tb, 
THE niLL-COUHTRY PLANTING REPORT. 
MARVELLOUS SALE OF GALLEBODDB GOLDEN TIPS 
has brought me the following letter from Ool. H. 
Byrde ; — 
“Goytry, W. Pontypooh Jan. 22nd. 
“ In case you should not have received an article 
published iu the Daily Telegraph upon a sale of tea 
from Gallebodde, I venture upon the privilege of old 
associations and ‘ ancient ’ friendship gives me, to 
send it to you as a clipping from the paper, and as 
likely to be interesting to you personally, and to the 
many readers of j'our valuable paper who are now 
engaged in the new enterprize of tea cultivation, in 
which, I am thankful to say, that I have a small 
interest, for it seems part of my happiness to be 
still engaged in some enterprise in a country where 
I began to plant coffee at Black Forest now 55 years 
ago, and in which I have never been without some 
agricultural interest. 
“Alas ! one after another of our old friends are called 
to their rest, and only last week my dear old and valued 
friend and brother officer for many years, was called 
home, Major-General Wm. T. Layard, one of the 
mo^t genial and pleasant men the Rifles ever found, 
an excellent officer and a good Christian. We were 
subalterns together and were associated in after life, 
and while I mourn the loss of a friend, I cannot but 
fe^l that he is (.ne more gone to the heavenly home, 
whither we shall soon follow. * 
“ I have been glad to see from time to time that 
you are still blessed with health and strength for 
the duties of life, and I am thankful for the same 
blessing, and am actively engaged in County Counci 
work and Magisterial duties, and feel that I, toe 
should soon ‘subside’ had I no longer an abundance 
of work to do ; and your weekly issue is more and 
more valuable as years pas-s on.” 
It is surely interesting to know that there is a 
man living who commenced 
COFFEE PLANTING FIFTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, 
and who, having seen the collapse of the once 
great enterprise, with which, from its beginning, 
his family was so closely connected, has survived 
to have an interest in what promises to be the 
still greater enterprise of tea. My own conneotion 
with forest pioneering and coffee planting dates 
back to just the half-century. I was in the Amba- 
gamuwa jungles, then only touched by the axe on 
their outskirts, in May 1840. In December of that 
year I entered Uva; and by May I had cut the 
boundaries of nearly 4,000 aores and “ put in ’’ 
a couple of nurseries. The article sent by Col. 
Byrde (which you will insert in the proper place) 
is interesting. We cannot, however, meet the 
wishes of English writers by growing golden 
tips any more than the superintendent of a 
coffee plantation could obey a proprietor who 
ordered him to 
GROW ONLY PEABERRY. 
They have a similar story in Australia of the 
owner of a pastoral run who gave instructions that 
only “ wethers ” were to be bred. The crusade 
against coffee on its first introduction as a beverage 
reminds me that in my boyhood I read in one of 
Mrs. Trimmer’s books of advice to domestic servants 
to avoid tea as they would poison and to stick to 
good honest beer 1 As an advertisement this 
astonishing sale of Gallebodde tips must further 
THE INTERESTS OF CEYLON TEA, 
and I suppose the entrance of Sir Graeme Elphin. 
stone and Messrs. Figg and Powell Jones in‘o the 
directorate of Horniman’s Tea Company indicates 
that henceforward Ceylon tea will be more largely 
than ever distributed by that firm. 
