June i, 1891.] 
TFfE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
853 
TEA CONSUMPTION RECKONED BV YIELD 
OE LIQUOR AS WELL AS QUANTITY 
OF DRY LEAF CONSUMED. 
The coloured diagrams which Messrs. Gow, 
Wilson & Stanton annually prepare, reveal, in a 
graphic and striking form, to the eye, the in. 
creasing use, so gratifying to lovers of temperance 
and of humanity, of the “ cups which ohesr but 
not inebriate.” Progress is chiefly perceptible 
amongst communities of the Anglo-Saxon race, 
limited in the United States of America, how- 
ever, by the truly enormous use in that country 
of the allied beverage, — coffee, which is so easily 
and cheaply obtained from the neighbouring re- 
public of Brazil. Next to the Anglo-Saxons, — in 
‘‘the mother country,” in the United States, in 
the Australian Colonies, Canada and South Africa, 
come the Sclaves of Russia, for the Germans and 
Hollanders are even greater , consumers of coffee 
than the Americans, although Holland, possessing 
as she does a tea-growing colony, in Java, is 
taking to tea after an encouraging fashion. A good 
deal of cacao or ‘‘ cocoa ’’ too is consumed in France, 
Germany, Italy and other continental countries. 
The effect of the efforts now being made to create 
a taste in the United States for really good un- 
burnt tea, remains to be seen. As matters stand, 
the United Kingdom, with little more than half 
the population, consumes nearly times as much 
tee as the mixed people ( so largely Teutonic), in 
the United States. 
In Britain the increase in the consumption of 
tea has been marvellous. The figures in pounds 
for 1890 were 194 millions, so that at the re 
cent rate of increase all the probabilities are that 
1891 will show the round 200 millions, if even 
that enormous quantity is not exceeded. In the 
quarter of a century between 1866 and 1890, the 
consumption per bead of the population rose from 
3 42 lb. to 6‘07. But, as in the latter half of 
the period strong Indian tea, reinforced appre- 
ciably by the similar Oeylon product in the closing 
years of the period, has largely displaced the 
weaker China leaf, Messrs. Gow, Wilson & Stan- 
ton have shewn simultaneously the progress of 
consumption reckoned by the gallons of liquid yielded. 
This is calculated on the moderate estimate 
formed in a report to the Board of Customs to 
the effect that if 1 lb. of Chinese tea produces 
6 gallons of a certain depth of colour and 
fulness of flavour, 1 Ih. of Indian tea will 
produce gallons of a similar beverage. 
Allowing for an apparent arrest of the ad- 
vancing consumption when the process of displace- 
ment was only oommenoing, the increase in the 
consumption of tea by the people of the British 
Isles has been nnt only steady but rapid, tl us : — 
from 17 38 gallons per caput in 1866, to 24-39 in 
1876 ; 29 28 in 18 m 6, culminating in 33'40 in 1890. 
The figure for the last year of the senes is almost 
exactly double that of the first, so that, in oon- 
sequenoe of the introduction of the stronger pro- 
duct of British growth, the people of Britain have 
been able to double their consumption of the 
beverage, although the percentage of increase in 
the use of the dry leaf has been only from 3'42 
lb. to 6-07, an absolute irci*ase of 165, while the 
percentage is not 59 but 48 24. This is a result 
more gratifying to consumers than producers, and 
clear it is that we must not rely on the British 
market alone and must not relax cur efforts to 
open up new markets by creating a taste for our 
teas, which so largely combine the strength of the 
Indian product with the delicacy of that from 
‘‘far Oathay.” 
.107 
Ceylon tea, which a decade ago, was only 
beginning to intrude itself as a new and suspioiously 
regarded con^pretitor wilh products so well-known 
and established as the teas of China and India, 
has recently made such rapid progress, that its 
position in the British Market in 1890, rated by 
home consumption was such an excellent third as 
is here shewn: 
Indian 52 per cent. 
China 30 ,, ,, 
Ceylon 18 „ ,, 
Looking at the process which has recently altered 
BO materially the position of the various products, 
it requires no prophet to foretell that in a few 
years hence Ceylon will have distanced China and 
will be pressing hard on India with its half century 
of tea cultivation against on really not much more 
than a decade devoted to the enterprise. In 
round numbers the consumption of tea in tho 
principal countries importing the leaf has 
increased from 350 millions of pounds in 1880 to 
400 millions in 1890. We may, pserhaps, add for 
the minor consuming countries another 60 millions, 
in which case we get the figure 460,000 millions. 
Tea consumption in India and Ceylon is scarcely 
worth computing, and wa believe that the con- 
sumption in Chiua has been greatly exaggerated. 
For, although the Chinese constantly drink tea, 
much of the liquor is little dili'erent Irom hot 
water. We cannot help feeling that to credit 
China and its feudatories with another 500 millions 
of pounds, is an extravagant estimate. But sup- 
posing it near the mark we may take in 
round numbers 1,000 miliions of pounds, or 
say 6,OoO millions of gallons as the world’s 
consumption of tea. If peace can be pre- 
served and wealth and civilization advance, wo 
may confidently anticipate a great increase durin,. 
the closing years of this century and the whole 
of the twentieth century,— for large portions of 
mankind are discovering that eloohol, with its 
“borrowed firo” is a deceiver and a curse. If the 
civilization of a community can be tested by the 
quantity of sulpjhuric acid it uses, much more 
certainly can the moral status of a community 
be judged by a comparison of the quantities of 
non-alcoholic and alcoholio stimulants it uses. 
Our Australian e msins are super eminently a tea- 
dnnking people, _ and since 1880, when Ceylon 
equally with Indian tea was furiously denounced 
as an injurious fraud, the Australians equally with 
their friends at “home” have learned the superiority 
of our pure teas to the inferior products ootained 
from Foochow. So with the Canadians, and there 
is every hope that ere long the United States of 
America, the great ituesian Empire, and many of 
the great continental States will be amongst our 
best customers for teas, which they will discover 
to bo equal in delicacy of flavour, while much 
stronger than the China leaf, to which many of 
them still traditionally cling. Of the wretched 
Latin and mixed races, of the South American 
republics, wilh their unpatriotic factiousness and 
oonstautly recurring internecine strife, we have 
about as little hope as of the regeneration of 
Portugal, once ainoi gst the foremost states of tho 
world. — 'I here is much else in the diagrams and 
the appended remarks circulated as a Supplement 
wuli today's Observer. We content ourselves, in 
closing with a reference to figures which show 
equally the rapid decadence of China tea in 
favour of tho British producer, with the still more 
rapid, — indeed phenomenal advance of the Oeylon 
product. It was really only in 1885 that Ceylon 
tea was an appreciable factor in tho ’ figures for 
