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Title: Tea and Tea Drinking
Author: Reade, Arthur
Language: English
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[Illustration: SORTING TEA IN CHINA.
_Frontispiece._]
TEA AND TEA DRINKING.
[Illustration]
BY
ARTHUR READE,
AUTHOR OF "STUDY AND STIMULANTS"
London:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.
1884.
[_All rights reserved._]
LONDON:
PRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LIMITED,
ST. JOHN'S SQUARE.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Introduction of Tea 1
CHAPTER II.
The Cultivation of Tea 18
CHAPTER III.
Tea-Meetings 32
CHAPTER IV.
How to make Tea 49
CHAPTER V.
Tea and Physical Endurance 66
CHAPTER VI.
Tea as a Stimulant 79
CHAPTER VII.
The Friends and the Foes of Tea 105
CHAPTER VIII.
Tea as a Source of Revenue 134
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
Sorting Tea in China _Frontispiece_
A Tea Plantation 25
Watering a Tea Plantation 41
Gathering Tea-Leaves 57
Pressing Tea-Leaves 73
Pressing Bags of Tea 89
Drying Tea-Leaves 108
Sifting Tea 125
Tea-Tasting in China 137
PREFACE.
The question of the influence of tea, as well as that of alcohol and
tobacco, has occupied the attention of the author for some time. Apart
from its physiological aspect, the subject of tea-drinking is extremely
interesting; and in the following pages an attempt has been made to
describe its introduction into England, to review the evidence of its
friends and foes, and to discuss its influence on mind and health. An
account is also given of the origin of tea-meetings, and of the methods
of making tea in various countries. Although the book does not claim to
be a complete history of tea, yet a very wide range of authors has been
consulted to furnish the numerous details which illustrate the usages,
the benefits, and the evils (real or imaginary) which surround the
habit of tea-drinking.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION OF TEA.
Introduced by the East India Company--Mrs. Pepys making her first
cup of tea--Virtues of tea--Thomas Garway's advertisement--Waller's
birthday ode--Tea a rarity in country homes--Introduced into the
Quaker School--Extension of tea-drinking--The social tea-table a
national delight--England the largest consumer of tea.
"I sent for a cup of tee--a China drink--of which I had never drank
before," writes Pepys in his diary of the 25th of September, 1660. It
appears, however, that it came into England in 1610; but at ten guineas
a pound it could scarcely be expected to make headway. A rather large
consignment was, however, received in 1657; this fell into the hands
of a thriving London merchant, Mr. Thomas Garway, who established a
house for selling the prepared beverage. Another writer states that
tea was introduced by the East India Company early in 1571. Though it
may not be possible to fix the exact date, one fact is clear, that it
was a costly beverage. Not until 1667 did it find its way into Pepys'
own house. "Home," he says, "and there find my wife making of tea,
a drink which Mr. Pelling, the potticary, tells her is good for her
cold and defluxions." Commenting upon this entry, Charles Knight said,
"Mrs. Pepys making her first cup of tea is a subject to be painted.
How carefully she metes out the grains of the precious drug which Mr.
Pelling, the potticary, has sold her at an enormous price--a crown an
ounce at the very least; she has tasted the liquor once before, but
then there was sugar in the infusion--a beverage only for the highest.
If tea should become fashionable, it will cost in their housekeeping as
much as their claret. However, Pepys says the price is coming down, and
he produces the handbill of Thomas Garway, in Exchange Alley, which the
lady peruses with great satisfaction."
This handbill is an extraordinary production. It is entitled "An exact
description of the growth, quality, and virtues of the leaf tea, by
Thomas Garway, in Exchange Alley, near the Royal Exchange in London,
tobacconist, and seller and retailer of tea and coffee." It sets forth
that--
"Tea is generally brought from China, and groweth there upon little
shrubs and bushes. The branches whereof are well garnished with white
flowers that are yellow within, of the lightness and fashion of
sweet-brier, but in smell unlike, bearing thin green leaves about the
bigness of scordium, myrtle, or sumack; and is judged to be a kind
of sumack. This plant hath been reported to grow wild only, but doth
not; for they plant it in the gardens, about four foot distance, and
it groweth about four foot high; and of the seeds they maintain and
increase their stock. Of this leaf there are divers sorts (though all
one shape); some much better than others, the upper leaves excelling
the others in fineness, a property almost in all plants; which leaves
they gather every day, and drying them in the shade or in iron pans,
over a gentle fire, till the humidity be exhausted, then put close
up in leaden pots, preserve them for their drink tea, which is used
at meals and upon all visits and entertainments in private families,
and in the palaces of grandees; and it is averred by a padre of
Macao, native of Japan, that the best tea ought to be gathered but by
virgins, who are destined for this work. The particular virtues are
these; it maketh the body active and lusty; it helpeth the head ache,
giddiness and heaviness thereof; it removeth the obstructiveness of
the spleen; it is very good against the stone and gravel, cleaning
the kidneys and ureters, being drank with virgin's honey, instead
of sugar; it taketh away the difficulty of breathing, opening
obstructions; it is good against tipitude, distillations, and cleareth
the sight; it removeth lassitude and cleanseth and purifieth acrid
humours and a hot liver; it is good against crudities, strengthening
the weakness of the ventricle, or stomach, causing good appetite and
digestion, and particularly for men of corpulent body, and such as are
great eaters of flesh; it vanquisheth heavy dreams, easeth the frame
and strengtheneth the memory; it overcometh superfluous sleep, and
prevents sleepiness in general, a draught of the infusion being taken;
so that, without trouble, whole nights may be spent in study without
hurt to the body, in that it moderately healeth and bindeth the mouth
of the stomach."
Other remarkable properties are attributed to the Chinese herb; but the
extracts we have given sufficiently indicate the efforts made to arrest
attention and to induce people to buy tea. As a further inducement,
this enterprising dealer assures his readers that whereas tea "hath
been sold in the leaf for six pounds, and sometimes for ten pounds the
poundweight, the said Thomas hath ten to sell from sixteen to fifty
shillings in the pound." This clever puff had the desired effect; for,
according to the Diurnal of Thomas Rugge, "There were at this time
(1659) a Turkish drink, to be souled almost in every street, called
coffee, and another kind of drink called tea; and also a drink called
chocolate, which was a very hearty drink." It was advertised in the
public journals. The _Mercurius Politicus_, of the 30th of September,
1658, sets forth: "That excellent, and by all physicians approved,
China drink, called by the Chineans Teha, by other nations Tay, alias
Tee, is sold at the 'Sultaness Head' coffee-house, in Sweeting's Rents,
by the Royal Exchange, London." It was sold also at "Jonathan's"
coffee-house, in Exchange Alley. In her "Bold Strike for a Wife" Mrs.
Centlivre laid one of her scenes at "Jonathan's." While the business
goes on she makes the coffee boys cry, "Fresh coffee, gentlemen! fresh
coffee! Bohea tea, gentlemen!" But the most famous house for tea was
Garway's, or, as it appears in "Old and New London," "Garraway's
Coffee-house," which was swept away a few years ago in the "march
of improvement." For two centuries, however, it had been one of the
most celebrated coffee-houses in the city. Defoe mentions it as being
frequented about noon by people of quality who had business in the
city, and "the more considerable and wealthy citizens;" but it was also
the resort of speculators. Here the South Sea Bubblers met, as well
as the lovers of good tea. Dean Swift, in his ballad on the South Sea
Bubble, calls 'Change Alley "a narrow sound, though deep as hell;" and
describes the wreckers watching for the shipwrecked dead on "Garraway's
Cliffs."
But the influence of Royalty did more than anything else to make
tea-drinking fashionable. "In 1662," remarks Mr. Montgomery Martin, in
a treatise on the 'Past and Present State of the Tea Trade,' published
in 1832, "Charles II. married the Princess Catherine of Portugal, who,
it was said, was fond of tea, having been accustomed to it in her own
country, hence it became fashionable in England." Edmund Waller, in a
birthday ode on her Majesty, ascribes the introduction of the herb to
the queen, in the following lines:--
"Venus her myrtle, Phoebe has his bays;
Tea both excels, which she vouchsafes to praise.
The best of Queens and best of herbes we owe,
To that bold nation which the way did show
To the fair region, where the sun does rise,
Whose rich productions we so justly prize.
The Muse's friend, tea, does our fancy aid,
Repress those vapours which the head invade,
And keeps that palace of the soul serene,
Fit on her birthday to salute the Queen."
Waller is believed to have been the first poet to write in praise of
tea, and no doubt his poem did much to promote its use among the rich.
In Lord Clarendon's diary, 10th of February, 1688, occurs the following
entry:--
"Le Père Couplet supped with me; he is a man of very good conversation.
After supper we had tea, which he said was as good as any he had drank
in China. The Chinese, who came over with him and Mr. Fraser, supped
likewise with us."
In the _Tatler_, of the 10th of October, 1710, appears the following
advertisement:--
"Mr. Favy's 16_s._ Bohea tea, not much inferior in goodness to the
best foreign Bohee tea, is sold by himself only at the 'Bell,' in
Gracechurch Street. Note.--The best foreign Bohee is worth 30_s._ a
pound; so that what is sold at 20_s._ or 21_s._ must either be faulty
tea, or mixed with a proportionate quantity of damaged green or Bohee,
the worst of which will remain black after infusion."
Tea continued a fashionable drink. Dr. Alex. Carlyle, in his
"Autobiography," describing the fashionable mode of living at
Harrowgate in 1763, wrote:--"The ladies gave afternoon's tea and coffee
in their turn, which coming but once in four or six weeks amounted to a
trifle." Probably the ladies did not drink so much as their servants,
who are reported to have cared more for tea than for ale. In 1755 a
visitor from Italy wrote:--"Even the common maid-servants must have
their tea twice a day in all the parade of quality; they make it their
bargain at first; this very article amounts to as much as the wages of
servants in Italy." This demand was a serious tax upon the purses of
the rich; for at that time tea was still excessively dear. According to
Read's _Weekly Journal, or British Gazetteer_, of the 27th of April,
1734, the prices were as follows:--
Green tea 9_s._ to 12_s._ per lb.
Congon 10_s._ " 12_s._ "
Bohea 10_s._ " 12_s._ "
Pekoe 14_s._ " 16_s._ "
Imperial 9_s._ " 12_s._ "
Hyson 20_s._ " 25_s._ "
Gradually, however, the prices came down as the consumption increased.
In 1740 a grocer, who had a shop at the east corner of Chancery Lane,
advertised the finest Caper at 24_s._ a pound; fine green, 18_s._;
Hyson, 16_s._; and Bohea, 7_s._ The latter quality was no doubt used in
the "Tea-gardens" which at that time had become popular institutions
in and around London. The "Mary-le-Bon Gardens" were opened every
Sunday evening, when "genteel company were admitted to walk gratis,
and were accommodated with coffee, tea, cakes, &c." The quality of
the cakes was an important feature at such gardens: "Mr. Trusler's
daughter begs leave to inform the nobility and gentry that she intends
to make fruit tarts during the fruit season; and hopes to give equal
satisfaction as with the rich cakes and almond cheesecakes. The fruit
will always be fresh gathered, having great quantities in the garden;
and none but loaf-sugar used, and the finest Epping butter." In one
respect the "good old times" were better than these. Gone are the
"fruit tarts," the "rich cakes," and the fragrant cup of tea from the
suburban "Tea-gardens," which rarely supply refreshment either for man
or beast. At any rate, it is a misnomer to call them "Tea-gardens."
We think "Beer-gardens" would more accurately indicate their
character. Some day, probably, the landlords of "public-houses" and
of "tea-gardens," will endeavour to meet the wants and tastes of all
persons. At present they utterly ignore the existence of a large class,
not necessarily teetotalers, to whom a cup of tea is more cheering than
a glass of grog after a long walk from the city.
Among the most famous tea-houses is Twining's in the Strand. It
was founded, Mr. E. Walford says, "about the year 1710, by the
great-great-grandfather of the present partners, Mr. Thomas Twining,
whose portrait, painted by Hogarth, 'kitcat-size,' hangs in the back
parlour of the establishment. The house, or houses--for they really
are two, though made one practically by internal communication--stand
between the Strand and the east side of Devereux Court. The original
depôt for the sale of the then scarce and fashionable beverage, tea,
stood at the south-west angle of the present premises, on the site of
what had been 'Tom's Coffee-house,' directly opposite the 'Grecian.' A
peep into the old books of the firm shows that in the reign of Queen
Anne tea was sold by the few houses then in the trade at various prices
between twenty and thirty shillings per pound, and that ladies of
fashion used to flock to Messrs. Twining's house in Devereux Court, in
order to sip the enlivening beverage in their small China cups, for
which they paid their shillings, much as now-a-days they sit in their
carriages eating ices at the door of Gunter's in Berkeley Square on hot
days. The bank was gradually engrafted on the old business, after it
had been carried on for more than a century from sire to son, and may
be said as a separate institution to date from the commercial panic of
1825."
Although tea was extensively used in London and some of the principal
cities, it did not become popular in country houses. "For instance, at
Whitby," writes the historian of that town, "tea was very little used
a century ago, most of the old men being very much against it; but
after the death of the old people it soon came into general use." Old
habits die hard. The stronger beverage of English ale had been so long
in use that the old folks could not be induced to relinquish it for a
foreign herb. A striking instance of the force of habit is related by
Dr. Aikin, in his history of Manchester (1795). "About 1720," he says,
"there were not above three or four carriages kept in the town. One of
these belonged to Madame ----, in Salford. This respectable old lady
was of a social disposition, and could not bring herself to conform
to the new-fashioned beverage of tea and coffee; whenever, therefore,
she made her afternoon's visit, her friends presented her with a
tankard of ale and a pipe of tobacco. A little before this period a
country gentleman had married the daughter of a citizen of London;
she had been used to tea, and in compliment to her it was introduced
by some of her neighbours; but the usual afternoon's entertainment at
gentlemen's houses at that time was wet and dry sweetmeats, different
sorts of cake, and gingerbread, apples, or other fruits of the season,
and a variety of home-made wines." At that time it was the custom for
the apprentices to live with their employers, whose fare was far from
liberal; but "somewhat before 1760," remarks Dr. Aikin, "a considerable
manufacturer allotted a back parlour with a fire for the use of his
apprentices, and gave them tea twice a day. His fees, in consequence,
rose higher than had before been known, from 250_l._ to 300_l._, and he
had three or four apprentices at a time." Tea was evidently a costly
beverage, for "water pottage" appears to have been the usual dish
provided for apprentices. Those who could afford it, however, drank the
Chinese herb. There are many references to tea in "The Private Journal
and Literary Remains of John Byrom," a famous Manchester worthy; and
these clearly indicate that in the middle of the eighteenth century tea
was very generally provided for visitors. But in some towns the older
people were much opposed to tea. The prejudice against it was, however,
gradually overcome; the young took kindly to it, and the women,
especially, found it an agreeable substitute for alcoholic drinks.
Not until 1860 was tea introduced into the Quaker School at Ackworth,
where John Bright received a portion of his early education. When
a boy the great orator was unable to endure the Spartan system of
training in force there, and after twelve months' experience he
was removed to a private school. For breakfast both boys and girls
had porridge poured on bread; for dinner little meat, but plenty
of pudding. For a third meal no provision seems to have been made.
Mr. Henry Thompson, the historian of the school, thus describes the
circumstances under which tea was introduced into the school:--
"In the autumn of 1860, Thomas Pumphrey's health having been in a
failing condition for some months, he was requested to take a long
holiday for the purpose of recruiting it, if possible. On his return,
after a three months' absence, learning that the conduct of the
children had been everything that he could desire, he devised for
them a treat, which was so effectively managed that we believe it is
looked upon by those who had the pleasure of participating in it as
one of the most delightful occasions of their school-days. He invited
the whole family--boys, girls, and teachers--to an evening tea-party.
The only room in the establishment in which he could receive so
large a concourse of guests was the meeting-house. In response to
his kind proposal, willing helpers flew to his aid. The room where
all were wont to meet for worship, and rarely for any other purpose,
was by nimble and willing fingers transformed, in a few days, into
a festive hall, whose walls and pillars were draped with evergreen
festoons and half concealed by bosky bowers, amidst whose foliage
stuffed birds perched and wild animals crouched. Amidst the verdant
decorations might also be seen emblazoned the names of great patrons
of the school and of the five superintendents who for more than eighty
years had guided its internal economy. They who witnessed the scene
tell us of two wonderful piles of ornamentation which were erected
at the entrances to the minister's gallery--the one symbolic of the
activities of the physical, the other of the intellectual, moral, and
religious life, as its good superintendent would have them to be....
The village having been requisitioned for cups and saucers for this
great multitude, the whole school sat down to a genuine, social,
English tea table for the first time in its history."
There can be no doubt that milk is better than tea for the young,
but tea now forms part of the dietary at almost every school, and we
question whether there is a house in England where tea is unknown. Dr.
Edward Smith, writing in 1874, said,--
"No one who has lived for half a century can have failed to note
the wonderful extension of tea-drinking habits in England, from the
time when tea was a coveted and almost unattainable luxury to the
labourer's wife, to its use morning, noon, and night by all classes.
The caricature of Hogarth, in which a lady and gentleman approach in
a very dainty manner, each holding an oriental tea-cup of infantile
size, implies more than a satire upon the porcelain-purchasing habits
of the day, and shows that the use of tea was not only the fashion of
a select few, but the quantity of the beverage consumed was as small
as the tea-cups."
In another chapter we have given some interesting statistics showing
the extent of the consumption of this wonderful beverage, which has
exercised such an influence for good in this country.
"A curious and not uninstructive work might be written," Dr. Sigmond
said in 1839, "upon the singular benefits which have accrued to this
country from the preference we have given to the beverage obtained
from the tea-plant; above all, those that might be derived from the
rich treasures of the vegetable kingdom. It would prove that our
national importance has been intimately connected with it, and that
much of our present greatness and even the happiness of our social
system springs from this unsuspected source. It would show us that
our mighty empire in the east, that our maritime superiority, and
that our progressive advancement in the arts and the sciences have
materially depended upon it. Great indeed are the blessings which have
been diffused amongst immense masses of mankind by the cultivation of
a shrub whose delicate leaf, passing through a variety of hands, forms
an incentive to industry, contributes to health, to national riches,
and to domestic happiness. The social tea-table is like the fireside
of our country, a national delight; and if it be the scene of domestic
converse and agreeable relaxation, it should likewise bid us remember
that everything connected with the growth and preparation of this
favourite herb should awaken a higher feeling--that of admiration,
love, and gratitude to Him who 'saw everything that He had made, and
behold it was very good.'"
Tea is the national drink of China and Japan; and so far back as 1834
Professor Johnston, in his "Chemistry of Common Life," estimated that
it was consumed by no less than five hundred millions of men, or more
than one-third of the whole human race! Excluding China, England
appears to be the largest consumer of tea, as shown in the following
table compiled by Mr. Mulhall, and printed in his "Dictionary of
Statistics:"--
_Consumption of luxuries per inhabitant per year._
+--------------------------+-------------------+
| | Ounces. |
| +---------+---------+
| | Coffee. | Tea. |
+--------------------------+---------+---------+
| United Kingdom | 15 | 72 |
| France | 52 | 1 |
| Germany | 83 | 1 |
| Russia | 3 | 7 |
| Austria | 35 | 1 |
| Italy | 18 | 1 |
| Spain | 4 | 1 |
| Belgium and Holland | 175 | 8 |
| Denmark | 76 | 8 |
| Sweden and Norway | 88 | 2 |
| United States | 115 | 21 |
+--------------------------+-------------------+
CHAPTER II.
THE CULTIVATION OF TEA.
Description of the tea-plant--Indigenous to China--Introduced into
India--Work in a tea-garden--Tea-gatherers in China--A Chinese
tea-ballad--How tea is cured--How the value of tea is determined.
The tea-plant formerly occupied a place of honour in every gentleman's
green-house; but as it requires much care, and possesses little beauty,
it is now rarely seen. Linnæus, the Swedish naturalist, was greatly
pleased at a specimen presented to him in 1763, but was unable to
keep it alive. Dr. Edward Smith describes the plant as being closely
allied to the camellias; but states that the leaf is more pointed, is
lance-shaped, and not so thick and hard as that of the camellia. Dr.
King Chambers suggests the spending of an afternoon at a classified
collection of living economic plants; such, for instance, as that
at the Botanical Gardens, Regent's Park. It is much pleasanter, he
points out, to think of tea as connected with the pretty little
camellia it comes from, than with blue paper packets, and the despised
"grounds" which for ever after acquire an interest in our minds.
The tea-plant, although cultivated in various parts of the East, is
probably indigenous to China; but is now grown extensively in India. In
consequence of the poorness of the quality of the tea imported by the
East India Company, and the necessity of avoiding an entire dependence
upon China, the Bengal Government appointed in 1834 a committee for the
purpose of submitting a plan for the introduction and cultivation of
the tea-plant; and a visit to the frontier station of Upper Assam ended
in a determination on the part of Government to cultivate tea in that
region.[1] In 1840 the "Assam Company" was formed, and it is claimed
for them that they possess the largest tea plantation in the world.
Some idea of the progress of tea cultivation in India may be gathered
from the following official figures. In 1850 there was one tea-estate,
that of the Assam Company, with 1876 acres under cultivation, yielding
216,000 lbs. In 1870 there were 295 proprietors of tea-estates, with
31,303 acres under cultivation, yielding 6,251,143 lbs. In 1872-73
the area of land held by tea-planters covered 804,582 acres, of which
about 75,000 were under cultivation, yielding 14,670,171 lbs. of
tea, the average yield per acre being 208 lbs. Every year thousands
of acres are being brought under cultivation, and in a short time it
seems likely that we shall be independent of China for our supplies of
tea. In the year 1879-80 the exports of Indian tea to Great Britain
rose to 40,000,000 lbs., and in the following year to 42,000,000
lbs. In Ceylon, also, a proportionate increase is taking place. The
plant appears to be a native of the island. In Percival's "Account of
Ceylon," published in 1805, occurs the following paragraph:--
"The tea-plant has been discovered native in the forests of Ceylon.
It grows spontaneously in the neighbourhood of Trincomalee and other
northern parts of Ceylon.... I have in my possession a letter from an
officer in the 80th Regiment, in which he states that he found the real
tea-plant in the woods of Ceylon of a quality equal to any that ever
grew in China."
A large quantity of tea is now imported from this island, and new
plantations, it is reported, are being made every month; day by day
more of the primeval forest goes down before the axe of the pioneer,
and before another quarter of a century has passed it is anticipated
that the teas of our Indian empire will become the most valuable of its
products.
The cultivation of tea in India, and the processes to which it is
subjected after the leaf is gathered, differ from those of China.
According to Dr. Jameson, the great difficulty of the Indian
tea-planter arises from the wonderful fertility of the soil and the
strength of the tea-plant. As soon as the plants "flush" the leaf
must be plucked, or it deteriorates to such an extent as to become
valueless, and at the next "flush" the plant will be found bare of
the young leaves. The delay of even a single day may be fatal. The
leaf when plucked must be roasted forthwith, or it ferments and
becomes valueless, as is also the case in China. There, however,
the tea-harvest occurs only four or five times a year, but in India
once a fortnight during some seven months of the year. The number of
work-people required on a tea-farm may be estimated from the figures
given by Dr. Rhind, who says that to manufacture eighty pounds of black
tea per day twenty-five tea-gatherers are requisite, and ten driers and
sorters; to produce ninety-two pounds of green tea, thirty gatherers
and sixteen driers and sorters.
From "A Tea-Planter's Life in Assam" we take the following account of
work in a tea-garden:--
"After the soil has been deep-hoed and is quite ready, transplanting
from the nursery begins; few men sow the seed at stake. The nursery
is made and carefully planted with seed on the first piece of ground
that is cleared, so that by the time the remainder of the garden is
ready to be planted out the seed has developed into a small plant,
with strength enough to stand being transplanted. Holes are prepared
at equal distances, into which the young plants are carefully
transferred. The greatest caution is exercised in both taking them up
and putting them in their new places, that the root shall be neither
bent up nor injured in any way. For this work women and children are
employed, as it is light, but requires a gentle hand to pat down
the earth around the young plant. It speedily accommodates itself
to its new circumstances, and thrives wonderfully if the weather is
at all propitious. A succession of hot days with no rain has a most
disastrous effect on transplants; their heads droop and but a small
percentage will be saved, which means that most of the work will have
to be done over again. Once started, plenty of cultivation is the only
thing required to keep the plant healthy, and it is left undisturbed
for a couple of years to increase in size and strength. At the end
of the second year, when the cold season has sent the sap down, the
pruning knife dispossesses it of its long, straggling top shoots,
and reduces it to a height of four feet; every plant is cut to the
same level. The third year enables the planter to pluck lightly his
first small crop. Year succeeds year, and the crop increases until
the eighth or ninth year, when the garden arrives at maturity and
yields as much as ever it will. During the rains the gong is beaten at
five o'clock every morning, and again at six, thus allowing an hour
for those who wish to have something to eat before commencing the
labours of the day. In the cold weather the time for turning out is
not so early; even the Eastern sun is lazier, and there is not so much
work to get through. Few of the coolies take anything to eat until
eleven o'clock, when they are rung in. The leaf plucked by the women
is collected and weighed, and most of the men have finished their
allotted day's work by this time, so they retire to their huts to eat
the morning meal and to pass the remainder of the day in a luxury of
idleness. For the ensuing two or three hours there is perfect rest,
except for the unfortunate coolies engaged in the tea-house; their
work cannot be left, and as fast as the leaf is ready it must be fired
off, else it would be completely ruined. At two o'clock the women
are turned out again to pluck, and those men who have not finished
their hoeing have to return to complete their task. About six o'clock
the gong sounds again, the leaf is brought in, weighed, and spread,
and outdoor work is over for the day. No change can be made in the
tea-house work, which goes on steadily, and if there has been much
leaf brought in the day before, firing will very frequently last from
daybreak until well into the night, or small hours of the morning."
At present, however, the greater proportion of tea consumed in England
comes from China and Japan, which produce no less than 325,000,000 lbs.
annually, against 52,000,000 lbs. by India.
[Illustration: A TEA PLANTATION.]
India may be the tea-country of the future, but China still supplies
nearly all the world. Millions of acres are devoted to its
cultivation, and the late Dr. Wells Williams states that the management
of this great branch of industry exhibits some of the best features
of Chinese country life. It is only over a portion of each farm that
the plant is grown, and its cultivation requires but little attention,
compared with rice and vegetables. The most delicate kinds are looked
after and cured by priests in their secluded temples among the hills;
these have often many acolytes, who aid in preparing small lots to be
sold at a high price. But the same authority tells us that the work
of picking the leaves, in the first instance, is such a delicate
operation that it cannot be intrusted to women. Female labour is paid
so badly that they cannot afford to exercise the gentleness which
characterizes their general movements; and when they come upon the
scene of operations they make the best of their short harvest.
The second gathering takes place when the foliage is fullest. This
season is looked forward to by women and children in the tea-districts
as their working time. They run in crowds to the middle-men, who have
bargained for the leaves on the plants, or apply to farmers who need
help. "They strip the twigs in the most summary manner," remarks Dr.
Williams, "and fill their baskets with healthy leaves, as they pick
out the sticks and yellow leaves, for they are paid in this manner:
fifteen pounds is a good day's work, and fourpence is a day's wages.
The time for picking lasts only ten or twelve days. There are curing
houses, where families who grow and pick their own leaves bring them
for sale at the market rate. The sorting employs many hands, for it
is an important point in connection with the purity of the various
descriptions, and much care is taken by dealers, in maintaining the
quality of their lots, to have them cured carefully as well as sorted
properly."
Like hop-picking in this country, tea-picking is very tedious work, but
its monotony is relieved by singing during the live-long day. The songs
of the hop-pickers are not generally characterized by loftiness of tone
or purity of sentiment, but travellers in China speak highly of the
songs of the tea-pickers. For instance, Dr. Williams quotes in his book
on "The Middle Kingdom" a ballad of the tea-picker, which he considers
one of the best of Chinese ballads, if regard be had to the character
of the sentiment and metaphors. One or two verses will give an idea of
this charming ballad,--
"Where thousand hills the vale enclose, our little hut is there,
And on the sloping sides around the tea grows everywhere,
And I must rise at early dawn, as busy as can be,
To get my daily labour done, and pluck the leafy tea.
"The pretty birds upon the boughs sing songs so sweet to hear,
And the sky is so delicious now, half drowsy and half clear;
While bending o'er her work each maid will prattle of her woe,
And we talk till our hearts are sorely hurt and tears unstinted flow."
The method of curing is thus described:--
"When the leaves are brought in to the curers they are thinly spread
on shallow trays to dry off all moisture by two or three hours'
exposure. Meanwhile the roasting-pans are heating, and when properly
warmed some handfuls of leaves are thrown on them, and rapidly moved
and shaken up for four or five minutes. The leaves make a slight
crackling noise, become moist and flaccid as the juice is expelled,
and give off even a sensible vapour. The whole is then poured out upon
the rolling-table, when each workman takes up a handful and makes it
into a manageable ball, which he rolls back and forth on the rattan
table to get rid of the sap and moisture as the leaves are twisted.
This operation chafes the hands even with great precaution. The balls
are opened and shaken out, and then passed on to other workmen, who go
through the same operation till they reach the head-man, who examines
the leaves, to see if they have become curled. When properly done, and
cooled, they are returned to the iron pans, under which a low charcoal
fire is burning in the brickwork which supports them, and there kept
in motion by the hand. If they need another rolling on the table it
is now given them. An hour or more is spent in this manipulation,
when they are dried to a dull-green colour, and can be put away for
sifting and sorting. This colour becomes brighter after the exposure
in sifting the cured leaves through sieves of various sizes; they
are also winnowed to separate the dust, and afterwards sorted into
the various descriptions of green tea. Finally, the finer kinds are
again fired three or four times, and the coarser kinds, as Twankay,
Hyson, and Hyson-skin, once. The others furnish the young Hyson,
gunpowder, imperial, &c. Tea cured in this way is called _luh cha_, or
'green tea,' by the Chinese, while the other, or black tea, is termed
_hung cha_, or 'red tea,' each name being taken from the tint of the
infusion. After the fresh leaves are allowed to lie exposed to the air
on the bamboo trays over night or several hours, they are thrown into
the air and tossed about and patted till they become soft; a heap is
made of these wilted leaves, and left to lie for an hour or more, when
they have become moist and dark in colour. They are then thrown on the
hot pans for five minutes and rolled on the rattan table, previous
to exposure out of doors for three or four hours on sieves, during
which time they are turned over and opened out. After this they get a
second roasting and rolling, to give them their final curl. When the
charcoal fire is ready, a basket, shaped something like an hour-glass,
is placed end-wise over it, having a sieve in the middle, on which the
leaves are thinly spread. When dried five minutes in this way they
undergo another rolling, and are then thrown into a heap, until all
the lot has passed over the fire. When this firing is finished, the
leaves are opened out and are again thinly spread on the sieve in the
basket for a few minutes, which finishes the drying and rolling for
most of the heap, and makes the leaves a uniform black. They are now
replaced in the basket in greater mass, and pushed against its sides
by the hands, in order to allow the heat to come up through the sieve
and the vapour to escape; a basket over all retains the heat, but the
contents are turned over until perfectly dry and the leaves become
uniformly dark."
When this process is completed, every nerve is strained to put the
tea into the market quickly, "and in the best possible condition;
for, although it is said that the Chinese do not drink it until it is
a year old, the value of new tea is superior to that of old; and the
longer the duration of a voyage in which a great mass of tea is packed
up in a closed hold, the greater the probability that the process of
fermentation will be set up. Hence has arisen the great strife to bring
the first cargo of the season to England, and the fastest and most
skilfully commanded ships are engaged in the trade, both for the profit
and honour of success."
Dr. E. Smith, an authority upon the subject, showed that the value
of tea is determined in the market by its flavour and body; by the
aromatic qualities of its essential oil and the chemical elements
of the leaf, rather than by the chemical composition of its juices.
Delicacy and fulness of flavour, with a certain body, are the required
characteristics of the market. The same authority tells us that
the tea-taster prepares his samples from a uniform and very small
quantity, viz. the weight of a new sixpence, and infuses it for five
minutes with about four ounces of water in a covered pottery vessel;
and in order to prevent injury to his health by repeated tasting, does
not swallow the fluid. He must have naturally a sensitive and refined
taste, should be always in good health, and able to estimate flavour
with the same minuteness at all times.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Russia, also, has become impressed with the importance of growing
its own tea; but the efforts of its agriculturists appear to have been
unsuccessful. Samples of the produce of the tea-plants which have
been acclimatized in Georgia were lately exhibited in the hall of the
Agricultural Society of the Caucasus at Tiflis, and appear to have
excited considerable interest. The local journals, however, admit that
the samples proved to be rather poor in flavour, and that their aroma
resembled that of Chinese teas of very inferior quality. It is pleaded,
however, that these specimens were grown by a planter of little
experience in the Chinese methods of cultivation and preparation, and
hopes are entertained of ultimate success.--_Manchester Examiner_,
April 23, 1884.
CHAPTER III.
TEA-MEETINGS.
The teetotalers and tea--Extravagance of ladies--Joseph
Livesey--Reformed drunkards as water-carriers--One thousand two
hundred persons at one tea-party--How they brewed their tea--How
the Anti-Corn-Law League reached the people--Singing the praises
of tea--Tea-drinking contests--"Tea-fights"--Hints on tea-meeting
fare--Tea as a revolutionary agent.
How did tea-meetings originate? According to a writer in the _Newcastle
Chronicle_, the teetotalers were the first to introduce these popular
social gatherings. "Originally started as a medium of raising funds,"
he says, "they were conducted in a very different style from that so
widely adopted at the present day. Our friends knew of no such thing
as a contract for the supply of the viands at so much a head, and
they had no experience to teach them how many square yards of bread a
pound of butter could be made to cover. Our wives and sweethearts then
undertook the purveying and management of our tea-parties. Each took
a table accommodating from sixteen to twenty persons, and presided in
person. And, oh! what hearty, jolly, comfortable gatherings we used to
have in the old Music Hall in Blackett Street, amidst the abundance
of singing hinnies, hot wigs, and spice loaf, served up in tempting
display, tea of the finest flavour served in the best china from the
most elegant of teapots, accompanied with the brightest of spoons,
the thickest of cream, and the blandest of smiles! It is much to be
regretted that this excess of gratification should have produced
an evil which ultimately changed the character of these pleasant
assemblies. A spirit of rivalry among the ladies as to who should have
the richest and most elegantly-furnished table became so prevalent that
their lords and masters were obliged to protest against the excessive
expenditure; and thus the ladies, not being allowed to have their own
way, declined to take any further share in the work. This was a great
misfortune, as the proceeds considerably augmented the resources of the
Temperance Society."
No such fate met these popular gatherings in other towns. They were
conducted on a scale of great magnitude, especially in the birthplace
of the temperance movement in England, the town of Preston. Here lives
Joseph Livesey, the patriarch of the movement, now in his ninety-first
year. The third tea-party of the Preston Temperance Society in 1833, at
Christmas, is thus described:--
"The range of rooms was most elegantly fitted up for the occasion. The
walls were all covered with white cambric, ornamented with rosettes
of various colours, and elegantly interspersed with a variety of
evergreens. The windows, fifty-six in number, were also festooned
and ornamented with considerable taste. The tables, 630 feet in
length, were covered with white cambric. At the upper and lower ends
of each side-room were mottoes in large characters, 'temperance,
sobriety, peace, plenty,' and at the centre of the room connecting the
others was displayed in similar characters the motto, 'happiness.'
The tables were divided and numbered, and eighty sets of brilliant
tea-requisites, to accommodate parties of ten persons each, were
placed upon the table, with two candles to each party. A boiler, also
capable of containing 200 gallons, was set up in Mr. Halliburton's
yard, to heat water for the occasion, and was managed admirably by
those reformed characters. About forty men, principally reformed
drunkards, were busily engaged as waiters, water-carriers, &c.;
those who waited at the tables wore white aprons, with 'temperance'
printed on the front. The tables were loaded with provisions, and
plenty seemed to smile upon the guest. A thousand tickets were printed
and sold at 6_d._ and 1_s._ each, but the whole company admitted is
supposed to be about 1200; 820 sat down at once, and the rest were
served afterwards. The pleasure and enjoyment which beamed from
every countenance would baffle every attempt at description, and the
contrast betwixt this company and those where intoxicating liquors are
used is an unanswerable argument in favour of temperance associations."
A tea-party at Liverpool, in 1836, was attended by a greater number,
and the account shows very clearly that the early temperance gatherings
will contrast favourably with the large Blue Ribbon meetings held at
the present time:--
"The great room where tea was provided was fitted up in a style of
elegance surpassing anything we could have imagined. The platform and
the orchestra for the band were most tastefully decorated. The beams
and walls of the building were richly ornamented with evergreens and
appropriate mottoes. The tables were laid out with tea-equipages
interspersed with flower-pots filled with roses. When the parties sat
down, in number about 2500, a most imposing sight presented itself.
Wealth, beauty, and intelligence were present; and great numbers of
reformed characters respectably clad, with their smiling partners,
added no little interest to the scene, which was beyond the power of
language to describe."
In 1837 the _Isle of Man Temperance Guardian_ reported a tea-meeting
at Leeds, at which nearly 700 persons sat down; another at Bury,
where "500 of both sexes sat down." A tea-party at Exeter is thus
described:--"The arrangements were very judicious, and nearly 400 made
merry with the 'cup that cheers, but not inebriates,' among whom were
numbers of highly respectable ladies and citizens of Exeter. This novel
feature presented a most interesting and gratifying sight, from the
spirit of cordiality and good-feeling which pervaded it, and cannot
but have the most beneficial effect upon society." For the benefit
of societies which had not adopted this new and successful method
of reaching the public, the secretary of the Bristol Society gave
the following account of a Christmas tea-party:--"The tables were
provided with tea-services, milk, sugar, cakes and bread and butter,
and one waiter appointed to each, who was furnished with a bright,
clean tea-kettle, while the tea, which was previously made, stood in
a corner of the room in large barrels, with a tap in each, from which
each waiter drew his supply as required, and filled the cups when
empty, without noise, confusion, or delay." The following receipt for
tea-making was given in the _Preston Temperance Advocate_, of July,
1836:--
"At the tea-parties in Birmingham they made the tea in large tins,
about a yard square, and a foot deep, each one containing as much
as will serve about 250 persons. The tea is tied loosely in bags,
about 1/4lb. in each. At the top there is an aperture, into which the
boiling water is conveyed by a pipe from the boiler, and at one corner
there is a tap, from which the tea when brewed is drawn out. It may
be either sweetened or milked, or both, if thought best, while in the
tins. Being thus made, it can be carried in teapots, or jugs, where
those cannot be had. Capital tea was made at the last festival by this
plan."
Considering the high price of tea and of bread at that time, it is
scarcely credible that a charge of 9_d._ per head for men and women,
and of 6_d._ for "youths under fourteen," was found sufficient to
defray the cost, as well as to benefit the funds of the Temperance
Society. The value of such gatherings to the temperance movement it
is impossible to estimate. Weaned from the use of fiery beverages,
the reformed drunkard needed a substitute which would be at once
harmless, as well as stimulating. In tea he found exactly what he
wanted. He needed, moreover, company of an elevating kind; and in
the tea-party he found the craving for the companionship of men
and women fully satisfied. It was by this agency chiefly that the
converts to teetotalism were kept together and instructed in the
principles of total abstinence from all intoxicating liquors; and we
are not surprised that the consumption of drink fell off largely in
consequence. Dr. J. H. Curtis, writing in 1836, contended that the
introduction of tea and coffee into general use had done much towards
reducing the consumption of intoxicating drinks; and, although the
expenditure upon intoxicating drinks still remains a formidable amount,
there can be no doubt that the general use of tea has lessened the
consumption of alcohol.
These gatherings continue very popular, but do not draw such large
numbers as in the early days of the movement; but it is open to
question whether the time spent upon them might not be more profitably
employed. A writer in the _Band of Hope Chronicle_ (January, 1882)
calls attention to this aspect of tea-meetings:--"There should be," he
contends, "moderation even in tea-drinking, and when we hear of four
or five hours at a stretch being spent over this process at public
gatherings, as it seems the good folks do in some parts of the Isle
of Man, one cannot but feel there is need for improvement. What would
be thought if the time were occupied with the consumption of stronger
beverages than tea. There would be little prospect of orderliness in
the after-proceedings then; so, anyhow, the tea-drinkers have the best
of it even when they are at their worst."
The example of the teetotalers was followed by other reformers. The
_Preston Temperance Advocate_, of October, 1837, says:--"A tea-party
was held at Salford, in honour of the return of Joseph Brotherton,
Esq., M.P., for this town, to which he was invited. It was attended
by 1050 persons, nearly 900 of whom were ladies, and the spectacle
presented to the eye by such an assemblage was one of the most pleasing
which I have ever witnessed." The Anti-Corn-Law League also adopted
similar means of bringing their friends and subscribers together.
"On the 23rd of November, 1842," writes Mr. Archibald Prentice, the
historian of the movement, "the first of a series of deeply-interesting
_soirées_ in Yorkshire, in furtherance of the great object of Corn-Law
Repeal, was celebrated in the saloon, beautifully decorated for the
occasion, of the Philosophical Hall, Huddersfield. The occasion,
says the _Leeds Mercury_, was one of high importance, not only for
the dignity and benevolence of the object contemplated, but for the
enthusiastic spirit manifested by the assembly of both sexes, of
the first respectability, extensive in number, and intelligent and
influential in its character. More than 600 persons sat down to tea,
and more than double that number would have been present had it been
possible to provide accommodation." Mr. Prentice records many other
tea-meetings attended by 600 and 800 persons. "In Manchester," writes
Mr. Henry Ashworth, "a number of ladies took up the Corn-Law question,
and held an Anti-Corn-Law tea-party, which was attended by 830 persons."
[Illustration: WATERING A TEA-PLANTATION.]
A hymn was specially composed for use at temperance gatherings, its
purport being to show the superiority of tea-meetings over public-house
meetings. It consisted of eight verses, and was printed in the _Moral
Reformer_ of February, 1833. One verse will give an idea of its
character:--
"Pure, refined, domestic bliss,
Social meetings such as this,
Banish sorrow, cares dismiss,
And cheer all our lives."
Total abstinence has not yet found much favour among artists, who too
often paint the fleeting pleasures of the wine-cup rather than the
enduring pleasures of temperance; but in Mr. Collingwood Banks we have
an artist who can sing the praises of a cup of tea as well as paint
the charms of a fireside tea-table. To him we are indebted for the
following song, which ought speedily to become popular among temperance
societies:--
"THE CUP FOR ME.
"Let others sing the praise of wine,
Let others deem its joys divine,
Its fleeting bliss shall ne'er be mine,
Give me a cup of tea!
The cup that soothes each aching pain,
Restores the sick to health again,
Steals not from heart, steals not from brain,
A friend when others flee.
"When sorrow frowns, what power can cheer,
Or chase away the falling tear
Without the vile effects of beer,
Like Pekoe or Bohea?
What makes the old man young and strong,
Like Hyson, Congou, or Souchong,
Which leave the burthen of his song
A welcome cup of tea.
"Then hail the grave Celestial band,
With planning mind, and planting hand,
And let us bless that golden land
So far across the sea;
Whose hills and vales give fertile birth
To that fair shrub of priceless worth,
Which yields each son of mother earth
A fragrant cup of tea."
Another hymn in praise of tea was used in Cornwall, and often sung
at tea-meetings by the Rev. J. G. Hartley, a minister of the United
Methodist Free Churches. The lines possess little poetical merit, but
are worth quoting on account of the pleasure with which they have been
received by tens of thousands of people, and of their influence in
unlocking the pockets of the people when the box went round.
"When vanish'd spirits intertwine,
And social sympathies combine,
What of such friendship is a sign?
A cup of tea, a cup of tea.
"When dulness seizes on the mind,
And thought no liberty can find,
What can the captive powers unbind?
A cup of tea, a cup of tea.
"If one has given another pain,
And distant coldness both maintain,
What helps to make them friends again?
A cup of tea, a cup of tea.
"And if discourse be sluggish growing,
Whate'er the cause to which 'tis owing,
What's sure to set the tongue a-going?
A cup of tea, a cup of tea.
"If things of use or decoration
Require a friendly consultation,
What greatly aids the conversation?
A cup of tea, a cup of tea.
"And lastly let us not forget
The occasion upon which we're met,
What helps to move a chapel-debt?
A cup of tea, a cup of tea."
"It has served us many a good turn," writes Mr. Hartley, "and has
helped to clear many a chapel-debt." It would be difficult, no
doubt, in our day to cite a single case of a tea-party attended
by 500 persons; but if large gatherings are fewer, small ones
are more frequent. Every chapel, every church, every day-school,
every Sunday-school, every religious association has at least four
tea-parties a year: and thus not only is a very large amount of tea
consumed, but a very large number of people are brought under good
influences.
In rural districts the Christmas tea-party is the event of the year.
It is attended by all the lads and lasses in the neighbourhood; by
the milkmaids and the ploughmen, who make sad havoc with the cake.
Wonderful, also, is the amount of tea consumed. In fact a tea-drinking
contest takes place at these annual reunions. At any rate he is the
hero of the table who can drink the most.
We have referred to the decreasing popularity of tea-meetings, and
believe that one way of reviving the interest in these festivals would
be to provide better refreshments, as well as a greater variety.
From the Land's End to John O'Groats, the bill of fare is limited
to currant-cake and bread and butter of the cheapest kind. In some
cases, where the charge is a shilling per head, beef and sandwiches
are provided. An announcement of "a knife and fork tea" at a Primitive
Methodist Chapel never fails to secure a good attendance of the members
and friends. In Lancashire such meetings are not unfrequently called
"tea-fights," probably on account of the scramble for sandwiches
which characterizes the proceedings. But neither cake nor sandwich
is sufficient to tempt all who are interested in these social
entertainments. The promoters would do well to follow the example of
the Vegetarian Society, and provide more fruit and substantial bread,
both white and brown. In summer all the fruits in season should be
placed upon the tables, and in winter stewed fruits. The following
hints on "Tea-Meeting Fare," written by the late Mr. R. N. Sheldrick,
who was an active missionary agent of the Vegetarian Society, may prove
of service to all who cater for tea-meetings:--
"1. Provide good tea, pure, fresh-ground coffee, cocoa, &c. Let the
making of these decoctions be superintended by an experienced friend;
serve up nice and hot, but without milk or sugar, leaving these to be
added or not, according to individual tastes.
"2. Procure a plentiful supply of good whole-meal wheaten (brown)
bread, some white bread, some currant-cake--home-baked if possible,
without dripping or lard; two or three varieties of Reading biscuits,
such as Osborne, tea, picnic, arrowroot, &c.
"3. Purchase from the nearest market sufficient lettuce, kale, celery,
cress, and other fresh salads according to season; also provide a
liberal supply of figs, muscatels, almonds, nuts, oranges, apples,
pears, plums, cherries, strawberries, peaches, or such other fruit as
may be in season.
"4. Take care, whatever arrangement be adopted, not to let these
things be hidden away until the latter part of the feast. Fruits
should have the place of honour. The plates or baskets of fruit should
have convenient positions along the tables with the bread and butter,
biscuits, &c.
"5. Place the arrangements under the control of a well-selected
committee of ladies, who will see that the tables are tastefully laid
out, and that everybody is supplied. Let there be also, if possible, a
profusion of fresh-cut flowers."
Tea, it is true, has not yet worked a complete revolution in the
habits of the people, but it has done much to lessen intemperance. Dr.
Sigmond, writing nearly half a century ago, referred to its influences
for good: "Tea has in most instances," he said, "been substituted
for fermented or spirituous liquors, and the consequence has been a
general improvement in the health and in the morals of a vast number of
persons. The tone, the strength, and the vigour of the human body are
increased by it; there is a greater capability of enduring fatigue; the
mind is rendered more susceptible of the innocent pleasures of life,
and of acquiring information. Whole classes of the community have been
rendered sober, careful, and provident. The wasted time that followed
upon intemperance kept individuals poor, who are now thriving in the
world and exhibiting the results of honest industry. Men have become
healthier, happier, and better for the exchange they have made. They
have given up a debasing habit for an innocent one. The individuals
who were outcasts, miserable, abandoned, have become independent and
a blessing to society. Their wives and their children hail them on
their return home from their daily labours with their prayers and
fondest affections, instead of shunning their presence, fearful of some
barbarity, or some outrage against their better feelings; cheerfulness
and animation follow upon their slumbers, instead of the wretchedness
and remorse which the wakening drunkard ever experiences."
This picture, it will be observed, is a little over-coloured; but, in
the main, it will be granted that tea and other similar beverages have
done a good deal to displace spirituous and fermented liquors. The
use of tea has certainly resulted in great benefit to the health and
morals of the people.
CHAPTER IV.
HOW TO MAKE TEA.
The Siamese method of making tea--A three-legged teapot--Advice of
a Chinese poet--How tea should be made--How Abernethy made tea for
his guests--The "bubbling and loud-hissing urn"--Tate's description
of a tea-table--The tea of public institutions--Rev. Dr. Lansdell on
Russian tea--The art of tea-making described--The kind of water to
be used. The Chinese method of making tea--Invalids' tea--Words to
nurses, by Miss Nightingale.
The mode of preparation of tea for the table has always given rise
to discussion. Different nations have different methods. In Siam one
method was thus described in a book entitled "Relation of the Voyage
to Siam by Six Jesuits," which was published in 1685. "In the East
they prepare tea in this manner: when the water is well boiled,
they pour it upon the tea, which they have put into an earthen pot,
proportionally to what they intend to take (the ordinary proportion
is as much as one can take up with the finger and thumb for a pint of
water); then they cover the pot until the leaves are sunk to the bottom
of it, and afterwards serve it about in china dishes to be drunk as
hot as can be, without sugar, or else with a little sugar-candy in the
mouth; and upon that tea more boiling water may be poured, and so it
may be made to serve twice. These people drink of it several times a
day, but do not think it wholesome to take it fasting."
In "Recreative Science" (vol. i., 1821) there appears a very curious
note relating to the translation of a Chinese poem. The editor
says,--"Kien Lung, the Emperor of the Celestial Empire, which is in the
vernacular China, was also a poet, and he has been good enough to give
us a receipt also--would that all didactic poetry meddled with what its
author understood. The poet Kien did, and he has left the following
recipe how to make tea, which, for the benefit of the ladies who study
the domestic cookery, is inserted: 'set an old three-legged teapot over
a slow fire; fill it with water of melted snow; boil it just as long as
is necessary to turn fish white or lobsters red; pour it on the leaves
of choice, in a cup of Youe. Let it remain till the vapour subsides
into a thin mist, floating on the surface. Drink this precious liquor
at your leisure, and thus drive away the five causes of sorrow.'"
Poets, as everybody knows, are allowed a good deal of licence, and
tea-maids may be pardoned if they are sceptical of the value of the
advice of the Chinese poet. How, then, should tea be made? First and
foremost, remarks Dr. Joseph Pope, it should be remembered that tea is
an infusion, not an extract. An old verse runs thus:--
"The fragrant shrub in China grows,
The leaves are all we see,
And these, when water o'er them flows,
Make what we call our tea."
Dr. Pope lays emphasis on the word _flows_; it does not say _soak_.
There is, he contends, an instantaneous graciousness, a momentary
flavour that must be caught if we would rightly enjoy tea. Assuredly
Dr. Abernethy, the celebrated surgeon, must be credited with the
possession of this "instantaneous graciousness." "Abernethy," said
Dr. Carlyon, in his "Early Years and Late Reflections," "never drank
tea himself, but he frequently asked a few friends to come and
take tea at his rooms. Upon such occasions, as I infer from what I
myself witnessed, his custom was to walk about the room and talk
most agreeably upon such topics as he thought likely to interest his
company, which did not often consist of more than two or three persons.
As soon as the tea-table was set in order, and the boiling water ready
for making the infusion, the fragrant herb was taken, not from an
ordinary tea-caddy, but from a packet consisting of several envelopes
curiously put together, in the centre of which was the tea. Of this
he used at first as much as would make a good cup for each of the
party; and to meet fresh demands I observed that he invariably put an
additional tea-spoonful into the teapot; the excellence of the beverage
thus prepared insuring him custom. He had likewise a singular knack of
supplying each cup with sugar from a considerable distance, by a jerk
of the hand, which discharged it from the sugar-tongs into the cup with
unerring certainty, as he continued his walk around the table, scarcely
seeming to stop whilst he performed these and the other requisite
evolutions of the entertainment."
If every woman had treated her guests in the same manner, there would
have been little outcry against tea. The innovation of a "bubbling and
loud-hissing urn" was strongly condemned by Dr. Sigmond, who, writing
in 1839, after quoting Cowper, remarked: "Thus sang one of our most
admired poets, who was feelingly alive to the charms of social life;
but, alas! for the domestic happiness of many of our family circles,
this meal has lost its character, and many of those innovations which
despotic fashion has introduced have changed one of the most agreeable
of our daily enjoyments. It is indeed a question amongst the devotees
to the tea-table, whether the bubbling urn has been practically an
improvement upon our habits; it has driven from us the old national
kettle, once the pride of the fireside. The urn may be fairly called
the offspring of indolence; it has deprived us, too, of many of those
felicitous opportunities of which the gallant forefathers of the
present race availed themselves to render them amiable in the eyes of
the fair sex, when presiding over the distribution
"Of the Soumblo, the Imperial tea,
Names not unknown, and sanative Bohea."
The consequence of this injudicious change is, that one great enjoyment
is lost to the tea-drinker--that which consists in having the tea
infused in water actually hot, and securing an equal temperature when a
fresh supply is required. Such, too, is what those who have preceded us
would have called the degeneracy of the period in which we live, that
now the tea-making is carried on in the housekeeper's room, or in the
kitchen--
"For monstrous novelty, and strange disguise,
We sacrifice our tea, till household joys
And comforts cease."
What, he asks, can be more delightful than those social days described
by Tate, the poet-laureate?
"When in discourse of nature's mystic powers
And noblest themes we pass the well-spent hours,
Whilst all around the virtues--sacred band,
And listening graces, pleased attendants stand.
Thus our tea-conversations we employ.
Where, with delight, instructions we enjoy,
Quaffing, without the waste of time or wealth,
The sovereign drink of pleasure and of health."
Fortunately for the lovers of the teapot and the kettle, a change in
the fashion of making tea is taking place, the "loud-hissing urn"
being now confined almost exclusively to a public tea-party and the
coffee tavern. The quality of tea and coffee supplied by the latter
institution has long been considered _the_ blot upon an otherwise
excellent movement. Not too severely did the _Daily Telegraph_ speak a
short time ago against the atrocious stuff supplied under the name of
tea in public institutions. The editor said,--
"The very look of it is no longer encouraging. It is either a
pale, half-chilled, unsatisfactory beverage, or it contains a dark
black-brown settlement from over-boiled tea-leaves. The consumption
of tea, no doubt, in England is enormous, and we boast to foreigners
that we are fond of our tea; the fashion of tea-drinking, owing mainly
to our example, has extended to France, once extremely heretical on
the point; and yet where is the foreigner to find a good cup of tea
in England? At the railway stations? Very rarely. At the restaurants?
Scarcely ever. And at the newly-started tea and coffee palaces,
which are to promote sobriety, the great and crying complaint is
that the tea and coffee are so poor that the best-intentioned people
are forced back to the dangerous public-house, in order to obtain a
little stimulant, for it is idle to deny that both tea and coffee
are stimulating to the constitution. Everywhere a great reform in
tea is required. Once on a time no confectioner, railway-station, or
refreshment-house could rival the home-made brew, made under the eye
of the mistress of the household, with the kettle on the hob and the
ingredients at hand; but now that the good old custom of tea-making
is considered unladylike, and the manufacture has been handed over to
the servants, the great charm of the beverage has virtually departed.
No one can conscientiously say that they like English tea as at
present administered, for the very good reason that it is no longer
prepared scientifically. The English fashion of drinking tea would be
laughed to scorn by the educated Chinaman or the accomplished Russian.
Indeed, it is surprising in how few houses a good cup of tea can be
obtained now that it has become unfashionable for the mistress of the
establishment, not only to preside over her own tea-table, but to have
complete sway over that most necessary article, a kettle of boiling
water. The Chinese never dream of stewing their tea, as we too often
do in England. They do not drown it with milk or cream, or alter its
taste with sugar, but lightly pour boiling water on a small portion
of the leaves. It is then instantly poured off again, by which the
Chinaman obtains only the more volatile and stimulating portion of
its principle. The most delicious of all tea, however, can be tasted
in Russia--supposed to import the best of the Chinese leaves, as it
imports the best of French champagne."
[Illustration: GATHERING TEA-LEAVES.]
According to the Rev. Dr. Lansdell, however, the Russians do not pay
extravagantly for their tea, "When crossing the Pacific," he says, "I
fell in with a tea-merchant homeward bound from China, and from him I
gathered that three-fourths of the Russian trade is done in medium and
common teas, such as are sold in London in bond from 1_s._ 2_d._ down
to 8_d._ per English pound, exclusive of the home duty. The remaining
fourth of their trade includes some of the very best teas grown in the
Ning Chou districts--teas which the Russians will have at any price,
and for which in a bad year they may have to pay as much as 3_s._ a
pound in China, though in ordinary years they cost from 2_s._ upwards.
The flowery Pekoe, or blossom tea, costs also about 3_s._ in China."
But Dr. Lansdell heard of some kind of yellow tea which cost as much as
five guineas a pound, the Emperor of China being supposed to enjoy its
monopoly; but a friend of the doctor told him that he did not think it
distinguishable from that sold at 5_s._ a pound.
The excellence of the Russian tea is attributed, in part, to the fact
that it is carried overland. "Whilst travelling eastwards," says Dr.
Lansdell, "we had frequently met caravans or carts carrying tea. These
caravans sometimes reach to upwards of 100 horses; and as they go at
walking pace, and when they come to a river are taken over by ferry,
it is not matter for surprise that merchandise should be three months
in coming from Irkutsk to Moscow." Whatever the cause, all travellers
eulogize the Russians as tea-makers. Dr. Sigmond, for instance, says,--
"My own experience of the excellence of tea in Russia arose out of a
curious incident, which occurred to me during a hasty visit I made to
that highly-interesting country. Previous to this adventure, I had
been in the habit of taking coffee as my ordinary beverage, and was
by no means satisfied with it. I had no idea of the prevailing habit
of tea-drinking, previous to my arrival, at Moscow. In the course of
the afternoon I left my hotel alone, obtaining from my servant a card,
with the name of the street, La Rue de Demetrius, written upon it. I
wandered about that magnificent citadel, the Kremlin, until dark, and
I found myself at some distance from the point from which I started,
and I endeavoured to return to it, and asked several persons the way
to my street, of which they all appeared ignorant. I therefore got
into one of the drotzskies, and intimated to my Cossack driver that
I should be enabled to point out my own street. Although we could
not understand each other, we did our mutual signs; and with the
greatest cheerfulness and good-nature this man drove me through every
street, but I could nowhere recognize my hotel. He therefore drove me
to his humble abode in the environs; he infused the finest tea that
I had ever seen in a peculiarly-shaped saucepan, set it on a stove,
and this, when nearly boiled, he poured out; and a more delicious
beverage, nor one more acceptable after a hard day's fatigue and
anxiety, I have not tasted."
Other travellers refer to the excellence of tea in Russia. If we could
have an improvement in the quality of tea made in England, we feel sure
that a decrease in the consumption of intoxicating drinks would result.
Some reform has already taken place at railway-stations. For the
reduction of the price of a cup of tea from sixpence to fourpence on
the Great Northern Railway the public are indebted to the Hon. Reginald
Capel, Chairman of the Refreshment-Rooms and Hotels' Committee of
that company. On the Midland Railway, also, a reduction in the price
of non-intoxicating beverages has been made. At the present time the
coffee taverns stand most in need of reform.
With the object of inducing our tea-makers to reform their methods
of tea-making, we quote some important recommendations of leading
physicians. Dr. King Chambers, in his valuable manual of "Diet in
Health and Disease," remarks that the uses of tea are (1) to give an
agreeable flavour to warm water required as a drink; (2) to soothe
the nervous system when it is in an uncomfortable state from hunger,
fatigue, or mental excitement. The best tea therefore is, he contends,
that which is pleasantest to the taste of the educated consumer, and
which contains most of the characteristic sedative principles. As Dr.
Poore has pointed out, tannic acid, which is one of the dangers as
well as one of the pleasures of tea, is largely present in the common
teas used by the poor. "The rich man," he says, "who wishes to avoid
an excess of tannic acid in the 'cup that cheers,' does not allow
the water to stand on the tea for more than five, or at most eight
minutes, and the resulting beverage is aromatic, not too astringent,
and wholesome. The poor man or poor woman allows the tea to simmer
on the hob for indefinite periods, with the result that a highly
astringent and unwholesome beverage is obtained. There can be no doubt
that the habit of drinking excessive quantities of strong astringent
tea is a not uncommon cause of that atonic dyspepsia, which seems to
be the rule rather than the exception among poor women of the class
of sempstresses." The late Dr. Edward Smith devoted considerable
attention to this subject, and we cannot do better than quote his
observations:--"The aim should be to extract all the aroma and dried
juices containing theine, with only so much of the substance of the
leaf as may give fulness, or, as it is called, _body_ to the infusion.
If the former be defective, the respiratory action of the tea and the
agreeableness of the flavour will be lessened, whilst if the latter
be in excess there will be a degree of bitterness which will mash
the aromatic flavour. As the theine is without flavour, its presence
or absence cannot be determined by the taste of the tea. All agree,
therefore, that the tea should be cooked in water, and that the water
should be at the boiling-point when used; but there is not an agreement
as to the duration of the infusing process. If the tea be scented or
artificially flavoured, the aroma may be extracted in two minutes,
but the proper aromatic oil of the tea requires at least five minutes
for its removal. If flavour is to be considered, it is clear that an
inferior tea should not be infused so long as a fine tea.
"The kind of water is believed to have great influence over the
process; soft water is preferred. The Chinese direction is, 'Take it
from a running stream; that from mill-springs is the best, river-water
is the next, and well-water is the worst;' that is to say, take water
well mixed with air. Hence avoid hard water, but prefer tap-water or
running water to well-water. It is the practice of a good housewife in
the country to send to a brook for water to make tea, whilst she will
use the well water for drinking." The mode of making tea in China is to
put the tea into a cup, to pour hot water upon it, and then to drink
the infusion off the leaves. While wandering over the tea-districts
of China, Mr. Fortune only once met with sugar and a tea-spoon. "The
merchant invited us to drink tea," writes the Rev. Dr. Lansdell, who
recently visited the Mongolian frontier at Maimatchin, "and told us
that the Chinese use this beverage without sugar or milk three times a
day; namely, at rising, at noon, and at seven in the evening. They have
substantial meals at nine in the morning and four in the afternoon."
Dr. King Chambers considers tea most refreshing to the dyspeptic if
made in the Russian fashion, with a slice of lemon on which a little
sugar-candy has been sprinkled, instead of milk or cream. One small
cup of an evening is enough. He also gives the following receipt for
making invalids' tea:--
"Pour into a small china or earthenware teapot a cup of quite boiling
water, empty it out, and while it is still hot and steaming put in the
tea and enough boiling water to wet it thoroughly, and set it close
to the fire to steam three or four minutes. Then pour in the quantity
of water required, boiling from the kettle, and it is ready for use."
Miss Nightingale offers a word of advice to nurses upon the amount of
tea which should be given. "A great deal too much against tea is,"
she remarks, "said by wise people, and a great deal too much of it
is given to the sick by foolish people. When you see the natural and
almost universal craving in English sick for their tea, you cannot but
feel that Nature knows what she is about. But a little tea or coffee
restores them quite as much as a great deal; and a great deal of tea,
and especially of coffee, impairs the little power of digestion they
have; yet a nurse, because she sees how one or two cups of tea or
coffee restore her patient, thinks three or four cups will do twice as
much. This is not the case at all: it is, however, certain that there
is nothing yet discovered which is a substitute to the English patient
for his cup of tea."
CHAPTER V.
TEA AND PHYSICAL ENDURANCE.
Tea and dry bread _versus_ porter and beefsteak--Tea for
soldiers--Opinion of Professor Parkes--Tea _versus_ spirits--Tea and
Tel-el-Kebir--Lord Wolseley's testimony--Pegs and teapots--Temperance
in the navy--Drinking the health of her Majesty in a bowl of
tea--Cycling and tea-drinking--Mountain-climbing--Tea in the
harvest-field--Cold tea as a summer drink.
Tea is not only a valuable stimulant to the mind, but is the most
beneficial drink to those engaged in fatiguing work. Dr. Jackson, whom
Buckle quotes as an authority, testified in 1845, that even for those
who have to go through great fatigues a breakfast of tea and dry bread
is more strengthening than one of beefsteak and porter. "I have been,"
says Dr. Inman, "a careful reader of all those accounts which tell of
endurance of prolonged fatigue, and have been touched with the almost
unanimous evidence in favour of vegetable diet and tea as a beverage,
that I have determined in every instance where long nursing, as of a
fever patient, is required, to recommend nothing stronger than tea for
the watcher." In the army, as well as in the hospital, tea is slowly,
but surely, supplanting the use of grog. "As an article of diet for
soldiers," remarked Professor Parkes, "tea is most useful. The hot
infusion, like that of coffee, is potent both against heat and cold;
is most useful in great fatigue, especially in hot climates, and also
has a great purifying effect on water. Tea is so light, is so easily
carried and the infusion is so readily made, that it should form the
drink _par excellence_ of the soldier on service. There is also a
belief that it lessens the susceptibility to malaria, but the evidence
on this point is imperfect."
Admiral Inglefield, writing in January, 1881, strongly commended the
use of tea and coffee as heat producers.
"During this almost Arctic weather, and in the midst of these almost
Arctic surroundings, permit me as an old Arctic officer to plead for a
short hearing in behalf of those whose lives may still be in jeopardy
for want of some practical experience how to take care of themselves.
Among the working classes there is an all-prevailing idea that nothing
is so effectual to keep out cold as a raw nip of spirits, and this
delusion is to their minds justified, because they find the "raw nip"
setting the heart, and blood in more rapid motion; and heat being
generated while the influence remains, a sensation of warmth is the
natural result, but after a short space reaction sets in, and a slower
circulation must ensue. In the evidence given before the last Arctic
Committee, of which I was a member, all the witnesses were unanimous
in the opinion that spirits taken to keep out cold was a fallacy, and
that nothing was more effectual than a good fatty diet, and hot tea
or coffee as a drink. Seamen who journeyed with me up the shores of
Wellington Channel, in the Arctic Regions, after one day's experience
of rum-drinking, came to the conclusion that tea, which was the only
beverage I used, was much preferable, and they quickly derived great
advantage from its use while undergoing hard work and considerable
cold. If cabmen, watchmen, railway servants, and those who from the
nature of their duties are compelled to expose themselves during this
inclement weather could be persuaded to give up entirely the use of
spirituous liquors and use hot tea or coffee for a beverage, I can
promise that they would be better fortified to withstand the cold,
they would experience more lasting comfort, and there would be more
shillings to take to their homes on a Saturday night; happily, also,
the trial of temperance for a time, to meet the present emergency,
might become with some the habit of a life."
The soldiers who captured Tel-el-Kebir drank nothing but tea. It was
served out to them three times a day. The correspondent of the _Daily
News_ (12th of September, 1882) wrote, "Sir Garnet Wolseley having
ordered that the troops under his command should be allowed daily a
triple allowance of tea, extra supplies of that article are being sent
out from the commissariat stores to Ismailia. It is stated that the
extra issue of tea is very acceptable to the men, who find a decoction
of the mild stimulant in their canteen-bottles the most refreshing and
invigorating beverage they can carry with them on the march."
Lord Wolseley having been asked for his temperance testimony, replied
in an interesting letter, in which he strongly commended the use of
tea. "Once during my military career," he says, "it fell to my lot
to lead a brigade through a desert country for a distance of over
600 miles. I fed the men as well as I could, but no one, _officer_
or _private_, had anything stronger than tea to drink during the
expedition. The men had peculiarly hard work to do, and they did it
well, and without a murmur. We seemed to have left crime and sickness
behind us with the 'grog,' for the conduct of all was most exemplary,
and no one was ever ill. I have always attributed much of our success
upon that occasion to the fact that no form of intoxicating liquor
formed any portion of the daily ration."
Evidence from other quarters shows very conclusively that soldiers
would rather drink tea than grog. In an account of the return march
through the Khyber Pass, the Rev. Gelson Gregson states that they were
very kindly and hospitably received by the medical officer in charge,
"who had a good brew of tea ready, with cheese and biscuits, much more
sensible than another medico, who came round with a brandy-bottle as
soon as we got in. Every one enjoyed the tea, and did not even call for
a peg. I believe," he adds, "that pegs would soon go out of fashion if
teapots were only oftener introduced." Tea, unfortunately, requires
some trouble to make; but doubtless this difficulty is in a fair way
of being removed by the pressure from without. Total abstinence is
increasing greatly both in the army and navy. Miss Weston, whose
labours amongst the blue jackets are well known, claims that one
man out of every six is a teetotaler; and the _Hong Kong Telegraph_
recently gave an account of a tea-meeting held with the men of H.M.S.
_Orontes_ and their successors in the port, at which between 300 and
400 sat down in the Temperance Hall. Mr. James Francis, Organizing
Agent of the Royal Naval Temperance Society, having asked Admiral
Willes to say a few words, his Excellency advanced to the top of the
room and said, "Soldiers, sailors, and marines, I am going to ask
you to drink the health, in a flowing bowl of tea, of her Gracious
Majesty, the Queen, and in so doing I take the opportunity of bidding
the marines and sailors going home on the 20th farewell. I wish them
a pleasant passage and a happy meeting with their friends. I invite
those lately come out to support by example those who are going away.
I consider this an excellent institution. Drunkenness is the cause of
nearly all the crimes in the navy, and I dare say also in the army. I
ask you to drink the health of the Queen, and give her Majesty three
cheers." The toast was duly drunk in sparkling Bohea, three rounds
of cheers being given for her Majesty and "one more" for the gallant
admiral. Mr. Haly, R.N., then proposed "The health of his Excellency,
the Governor," the toast receiving like treatment. Mr. Chisham, R.N.,
next proposed "The health of Miss Agnes Weston," and said that no
words of his could make her dearer than she already was to the British
sailor. The toast was duly honoured, as was also that of Mr. Francis.
The use of tea among cricketers, scullers, pedestrians, cyclists,
and others is also becoming more general; for instance, Mr. Wynter
Blyth, Medical Officer of Health for Marylebone, says, "I have studied
the diets recorded as in use, and find that those who have done long
journeys successfully have used that class of diet which science
has shown most suitable for muscular exertion--viz. one of a highly
nitrogenized character: plenty of meat, eggs, and milk, with bread,
but not much butter, and no alcohol. I have cycled for over fifty
miles, taking frequent draughts of beer, and in these circumstances,
although there has been no alcoholic effect, it has caused great
physical depression. The experience of others is the same. However
much it may stimulate for a little while, a period of well-marked
depression follows. I attribute this in part to the salts of potash
which some beers contain, in part to injurious bitters, and in part
to the alcohol. My own experience as to the best drink when on the
road is most decidedly in favour of tea. Tea appears to rouse both
the nervous and muscular system, with, so far as I can discover, no
after-depressing effect."
[Illustration: PRESSING THE TEA-LEAVES.]
The use of alcohol is almost invariably condemned in the various
handbooks on training; but the use of tea is always commended. Mr. C.
J. Michôd, late Hon. Sec. of the London Athletic Club, in his "Guide
to Athletic Training," considers tea preferable for training purposes,
as it possesses less heating properties, and is more digestible. The
greatest pedestrian of our time, Mr. Edward Payson Weston, finds in
tea and rest the most effective restoratives. Lately he walked 5000
miles in 100 days, and after each day's work, lectured on "Tea _versus_
Beer." Even the publicans on the roads, he says, used to meet him with
cups of tea and basins of milk. A Norwich physician, Dr. Beverley,
testified to the value of tea in mountain-climbing. "The hardest
physical work I have done," he says, "has been mountain-climbing in
Switzerland, and on such occasions after a breakfast, of which coffee
and milk and bread formed the chief articles of food, it was my custom
to fill my flask with an infusion of cold tea, made over-night from a
stock kept for the purpose in my knapsack, and this I invariably found
to be the most refreshing drink for such purposes. This is confirmed
by all experienced in Alpine ascents, who know only too well that the
man who has recourse to his flask of brandy or sherry seldom gains the
mountain-top."
In the harvest-field, also, tea is being substituted for beer. At a
conference of the members of the Newbury Chamber of Agriculture, held
in July, 1878, Mr. T. Bland Garland maintained that nothing can be
more unsuitable as a thirst-quenching beverage during hard work in hot
weather than beer, and stated that in 1871 he determined to supply no
more beer to his labourers under any circumstances. He had agreed as
an alternative, to pay the men 18_s._ instead of 14_s._, and the women
9_s._ instead of 7_s._; but reflecting that the people would probably
find it impossible to supply themselves with a suitable substitute
for the beer, and would, in a measure, be driven to the public-house,
he determined to supply them with tea. He thus describes his method of
brewing tea,--
"I purchased a common flat-bottomed 8-1/2-gallon iron boiler, with
a lid, long spout, and tap; this is taken in a cart to the field,
with a few bricks to form a temporary fireplace, a few sticks for the
fire, some tea in 7-oz. packets, and sugar in 4-lb. packets. The first
thing in the morning a woman lights the fire, boils the water, the
bailiff puts on the 7 ozs. of tea in a small bag, to boil for ten to
fifteen minutes, then removes it and puts in 4 lbs. of sugar; if skim
milk can be spared, two to four quarts are added, but this is not a
necessity, although desirable. All the labourers are then at liberty
to take as much as they like at all times of the day, beginning at
breakfast-time, and ending when they leave off work at night. If the
field is large, they send large cans to the boiler for it; so soon as
the quantity in the boiler is reduced to two gallons, it is drawn off
in a pail for consumption, whilst another boilerful is being prepared.
The knowledge that they have at their disposal as much good tea as
they choose to drink during every minute of the day materially lessens
their thirst.
The cost of tea in my case is as follows:--
s. d.
7 ozs. of tea 1 0
4 lbs. of sugar 1 2
Skim milk about 0 2
----
2 4
or 8-1/2 gallons of tea, at 3-1/2_d._ per gallon.
I had twenty-eight men and women employed in hay-making this year,
and the consumption was,--
Gals.
Generally, 2 boilers full per day 17
Occasionally, 2-1/2 " " 21-1/4
On one day, 3 " " 25-1/2
My calculation is, that they drink on the average two-thirds of a
gallon each per day, at a cost of 2_d._ Thus I pay them, in lieu of
beer, 8_d._ per day in money, and 2_d._ in tea, or 10_d._ in all. But
if the change involved a much larger expenditure than the cost of the
beer, employers would be amply remunerated in the better and larger
amount of work done, the better disposition of their labourers, the
decrease of pauperism, and the general well-being of the people."
Mr. Garland, having benefited so much by the substitution of tea for
beer, was naturally anxious that other farmers should follow his
example, and urged them to "let the additional wages be given to the
full value of the beer; let the tea be good, and made with care in
the field, not sent out from the house, or there will not be enough;
be sure that it is always within the reach of every labourer, without
stint. See to this yourself: trust it to no one; beer has many friends.
Be firm in carrying out the change, and it will be a source of great
satisfaction to you and to your labourers, with very little trouble
and at no extra expense." The late Sir Philip Rose testified that the
men on his farm "were in better condition at the conclusion of the
day, less stupid and sullen, and certainly much better fitted the next
morning to resume their labours, than with the old system of beer." It
would be easy to multiply extracts, but enough has been said to prove
the benefit of tea over alcohol, whether in marching or fighting,
cricketing or sculling, cycling or mowing. We may add that cold tea is
considered by many writers on the subject one of the most refreshing
and satisfactory summer drinks, provided it be not spoiled by the
addition of milk and sugar. It ought to be made early in the day, and
left to stand in a stone jar until thoroughly cool, and should then be
flavoured, in the Russian fashion, with slices of fresh lemon.
CHAPTER VI.
TEA AS A STIMULANT.
Rum-punch and poets--Alcohol as a stimulant--The king of the
tea-drinkers--Dr. Johnson's teapot--Jonas Hanway's attack--Eloquence
inspired by tea-drinking--A delightful tea-story--An absent-minded
poet--George Dyer's breakfast-party--An empty cupboard--Hazlitt a
prodigious tea-drinker--Barry Cornwall disgusted with Hazlitt's
teetotal principles--Wordsworth's love of sugar in his tea--Testimony
of other authors--Tea as a tonic--Tea denounced--Tea at St.
Stephen's--Lord Palmerston, Mr. Gladstone, and M. Clemenceau
quoted--Hartley Coleridge's poem on tea.
When James Hogg, the "Ettrick Shepherd," visited Keswick, he invited
Southey to his inn. The invitation was heartily accepted. Southey
stayed half an hour, but showed no disposition to imbibe. "I was," says
Hogg, "a grieved as well as an astonished man when I found that he
refused all participation in my beverage of rum-punch. For a poet to
refuse his glass was to me a phenomenon, and I confess I doubted in my
own mind, and doubt to this day if perfect sobriety and transcendent
poetical genius can exist together; in Scotland I am sure they cannot."
No doubt; but, since Burns and Hogg have passed away, a new generation
has arisen. The poet, the essayist, the historian, and the journalist
no longer write under the influence of alcohol. As Mr. George R. Sims
says, the idea that drink quickly excites the brain is exploded.
Healthier stimulants have taken its place. It cannot be denied that
some good work has been done under the influence of tea. Look at Dr.
Johnson, for instance. That fine old Tory is worthy of the title of the
king of the tea-drinkers. He loved tea quite as much as Porson loved
gin. Tea was Johnson's only stimulant. He drank it in bed, he drank it
with his friends, and he drank it while compiling his dictionary. One
of his friends thus describes his mode of life: "About twelve o'clock I
commonly visited him, and frequently found him in bed, or declaiming
over his tea, which he drank very plentifully. He generally had a
levee of morning visitors, chiefly men of letters. He declaimed all
the morning, then went to dinner at a tavern, where he commonly stayed
late, and then drank his tea at some friend's house, over which he
loitered a great while, but seldom took supper." At his house in Gough
Square, off Fleet Street, he frequently drank tea with his dependants,
some of whom were blind, and some were deaf. Boswell has left us a
graphic picture of these interesting gatherings:--"We went home to
his house to tea. Mrs. Williams made it with sufficient dexterity,
notwithstanding her blindness," though he describes her putting her
fingers into the cups to feel if they were full; but then it was
Johnson's favourite beverage, and he adds, "I willingly drank cup after
cup, as if it had been the Heliconian Spring. There was a pretty large
circle there, and the great doctor was in very good humour, lively and
ready to talk upon all sorts of subjects." Mr. F. Sherlock, a fertile
writer on the temperance question, claims Dr. Johnson as a teetotaler,
and has placed him in his gallery of "Illustrious Abstainers." If
the learned doctor was an abstainer from alcoholic drinks, he made up
for his abstinence from wine by indulging to excess in the milder and
less dangerous stimulant of tea. If he did not write his dictionary by
the aid of the Chinese drink, his teapot was never far away from his
writing-table. "I suppose," said Boswell, "that no person ever enjoyed
with more relish the infusion of that fragrant leaf than Johnson. The
quantities which he drank at all hours were so great, that his nerves
must have been uncommonly strong not to have been extremely relaxed
by such an intemperate use of it; but he assured me he never felt the
least inconvenience from it."
Johnson's indulgence did not escape the notice of Jonas Hanway, who
was so alarmed for the safety of the nation that he wrote an essay on
"Tea and its Pernicious Consequences," pronouncing it the ruin of the
nation, and of every one who drank it. Johnson replied to the attack,
and described himself as a "hardened and shameless tea-drinker, whose
kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening,
with tea solaces the midnight, and with tea welcomes the morning."
Johnson's defence did not, however, silence, his critics. Sir John
Hawkins characterized tea-drinking as unmanly, and, like John Wesley,
almost gave it the colour of a crime. The worthy lexicographer, it must
be confessed, was a thirsty soul, for his teapot held at least two
quarts. But Mr. Philip Gilbert Hamerton writes of a clergyman whose
tea-drinking indulgences exceeded those of Johnson. This self-denying
Christian, who "from the most conscientious motives denied himself ale
and wine, found a fountain of consolation in the teapot. His usual
allowance was sixteen cups, all of heroic strength, and the effect upon
his brain seems to have been altogether favourable, for his sermons
were both long and eloquent."
Dr. Gordon Stables offered prizes for original anecdotes about this
delightful and healthful beverage, but he laments that he obtained none
worthy of printer's ink, and has come to the conclusion that tea is
not the drink of his beloved country; that, had he offered prizes for
anecdotes about whisky-drinking, "Scotia, my auld, respected mither,
would have shown out in a different light." No doubt; Scotland has long
been famous for rigid orthodoxy, combined with a love of whisky; but
Mr. Stables must have forgotten the delightful tea-story told by Barry
Cornwall about George Dyer. Dyer seems to have been as absent-minded as
Bowles,[2] the poet.
Barry Cornwall says,--
"Poor George Dyer--whom Lamb has celebrated--formed one subject of
conversation this evening. He invited some one--I think it was Llanos,
the author of 'Esteban' and 'Sandoval'--to breakfast with him one day
in Clifford's Inn. Dyer, of course, forgot all about the matter very
speedily after giving the invitation; and when Llanos went at the
appointed hour, he found nothing but little Dyer, and his books, and
his dust--the work of years--at home. George, however, was anything
but inhospitable, as far as his means or ideas went; and on being
told that Llanos had come to breakfast, proceeded to investigate his
cupboard. He found the remnant of a threepenny loaf, two cups and
saucers, a little glazed teapot, and a spoonful of milk. They sat
down, and (Dyer putting the hot water into the teapot) commenced
breakfast. Llanos attacked the stale crust, which Lazarillo de Tomes
himself would have despised, and waited with much good-humour and
patience for his tea. At last, out it came. Dyer, who was half blind,
kept pouring out--nothing but hot water from the teapot, until Llanos,
who thought a man might be guilty of too much abstinence, inquired if
Dyer had not forgot _the tea_. 'God bless me!' replied Dyer, 'and so
I have.' He began immediately to remedy his error, and emptied the
contents of a piece of brown paper into the teapot, deluged it with
water, and sat down with a look of complete satisfaction. 'How very
odd it was that I should make such a mistake!' said Dyer. However, he
now determined to make amends, and filled Llanos' cup again. Llanos
thought the tea had a strange colour, but not having dread of aqua
tofana before his eyes, he thrust his spoon in and tasted. It was
_ginger_! Seeing that it was in vain to expect commonplaces from the
little absentee, Llanos continued cutting and crumbling a little bread
into his plate for a short time, and then departed. He went straight
to a coffee-house in the neighbourhood, and was just finishing a
capital breakfast when Dyer came in, to read the paper, or to inquire
after some one who frequented the coffee-house. He recognized Llanos,
and asked him how he did; but felt no surprise at seeing him devouring
a second breakfast. He had totally forgotten all the occurrences of
the morning."
Hazlitt, like Dr. Johnson, was a prodigious tea-drinker, and his
peculiar habits and manners were minutely photographed by his friends.
His failings were, no doubt, greatly exaggerated, but we believe
ourselves on safe ground in quoting Patmore's account of his friend's
devotion to the teapot:--
"Hazlitt usually rose at from one to two o'clock in the day--scarcely
ever before twelve; and if he had no work in hand, he would sit over
his breakfast (of excessively strong black tea, and a toasted French
roll) till four or five in the afternoon--silent, motionless, and
self-absorbed, as a Turk over his opium-pouch; for tea served him
precisely in this capacity. It was the only stimulant he ever took,
and at the same time the only luxury; the delicate state of his
digestive organs prevented him from tasting any fermented liquors.
He never touched any but _black_ tea, and was very particular about
the quality of that, always using the most expensive that could be
got; and he used, when living alone, to consume nearly a pound in a
week. A cup of Hazlitt's tea (if you happened to come in for the first
brewage of it) was a peculiar thing; I have never tasted anything
like it. He always made it himself, half filling the teapot with tea,
pouring the boiling water on it, and then almost immediately pouring
it out, using with it a great quantity of sugar and cream. To judge
from its occasional effect upon myself, I should say that the quantity
Hazlitt drank of this tea produced ultimately a most injurious effect
upon him, and in all probability hastened his death, which took place
from disease of the digestive organs. But its _immediate_ effect
was agreeable, even to a degree of fascination; and not feeling any
subsequent reaction from it, he persevered in its use to the last,
notwithstanding two or three attacks, similar to that which terminated
his life."
From Barry Cornwall, also, we have similar testimony concerning
Hazlitt's indulgence. Proctor was as much disgusted with Hazlitt's
spare diet as Llano's was with Dyer's, and wrote,--
"I saw a great deal of Hazlitt during the last twelve or thirteen
years of his stormy, anxious, uncomfortable life. In 1819 he resided
in a small house in York Street, Westminster, where I visited him, and
where Milton had formerly dwelt; afterwards he moved from lodging
to lodging, and finally went to live at No. 6, Frith Street, Soho,
where he fell ill and died. I went to visit him very often during his
late _breakfasts_ (when he drank tea of an astounding strength), not
unfrequently also at the Fives Court, and at other persons' houses;
and once I dined with him. This (an unparalleled occurrence) was
in York Street, when some friend had sent him a couple of Dorking
fowls, of which he suddenly invited me to partake. I went, expecting
the usual sort of dinner; but it was limited solely to the fowls and
bread. He drank nothing but water, and there was nothing but water to
drink. He offered to send for some porter for me, but, being out of
health at the time, I declined, and escaped soon after dinner to a
coffee-house, where I strengthened myself with a few glasses of wine."
[Illustration: PRESSING BAGS OF TEA.]
Proctor would have fared little better had he visited the Lake poets;
for, according to Miss Mitford, "the Wordsworths have no regular
meals, but go to the cupboard when hungry, and eat what they want."
Wordsworth, by the way, appears to have liked his tea well sweetened;
for, when he visited Charles Lamb, at his lodgings in Enfield, _one_
of the extra "teas" in the week's bill was charged sixpence. On
Lamb's inquiry what this meant, the reply was, that "the elderly
gentleman"--meaning Wordsworth--"had taken such a quantity of sugar
in his tea." Proctor, on the other hand, seems to have had a
deep-rooted antipathy to tea, and to have found a wife who shared his
feelings. Writing to his "lady-love," he said, "Will your friend give
me some blanc-mange? but no, I don't like blanc-mange. I hate nothing
but _green tea_, and my enemies, and insincerity, and affectation, and
undue pretence. It is partly, I believe, because you have none of these
that I love you so much." No; he liked something stronger than tea, and
wrote of "brains made clear by the irresistible strength of beer." But
some of the sweetest poems, the brightest novels, and the finest essays
have been written without the aid of either wine or beer. Shelley's
beverage, for instance, consisted of copious and frequent draughts of
cold water, but tea was always grateful. Bulwer Lytton's breakfast
consisted of dry toast and a cup of cold tea, or hot tea impatiently
tossed into a tumbler half full of cold water. De Quincey said that he
usually drank tea from eight o'clock at night to four in the morning.
Kant's breakfast consisted of a cup of tea and a pipe of tobacco, and
on these he worked eight hours. Motley, the historian, usually rose
before seven, and, with the aid of a cup of tea or coffee, wrote until
the family breakfast-hour. That revolutionary poet, Victor Hugo, drinks
tea, but fortifies it with a drop of rum.
More than three hours a day at the work of literary production is
generally considered destructive; but a case is known to the author
in which a well-known writer has been engaged in literary composition
from seven to ten hours a day for at least ten years. The work he has
accomplished in every department of literature during this period is
truly astonishing: and its quality is admittedly high. Yet his only
stimulant is tea. He is practically a life abstainer, and has never
used tobacco. After a spell of work extending over three hours, a cup
of tea and a break of half an hour have enabled him to resume his
work and to continue writing far into the night. Tea is becoming the
favourite stimulant of brain-workers; and although De Quincey drank
laudanum for some time, he was enthusiastic in his praise of tea. He
said,--
"For tea, though ridiculed by those who are naturally coarse in
their nervous sensibilities, or are become so from wine-drinking, and
are not susceptible of influence from so refined a stimulant, will
always be a favourite beverage of the intellectual; and, for my part,
I would have joined Dr. Johnson in a _bellum internecinum_ against
Jonas Hanway, or any other impious person who should have presumed to
disparage it. But here, to save myself the trouble of too much verbal
description, I will introduce a painter, and give him directions for
the rest of the picture.... Paint me, then, a room seventeen feet by
twelve, and not more than seven and a half feet high, ... and near
the fire paint me a tea-table; and (as it is clear that no creature
can come to see one on such a stormy night), place only two cups and
saucers on the tea-tray; and if you know how to paint such a thing,
symbolically or otherwise, paint me an eternal teapot--eternal _à
parte ante_ and _à parte post_; for I usually drink tea from eight
o'clock at night to four in the morning. And as it is very unpleasant
to make tea, or to pour it out for oneself, paint me a lovely young
woman sitting at the table."
But even a "lovely young woman" would have failed to satisfy the tastes
of the historian Buckle, who was a most fastidious tea-drinker. "No
woman," he declared, "could make tea until he had taught her." The
great thing, he believed, was to have the cups and even the spoons
warmed. Commenting upon the confession of William Cullen Bryant, that
he never took coffee or tea, William Howitt said,--"I regularly take
both, find the greatest refreshment in both, and never experienced
any deleterious effects from either, except in one instance, when by
mistake I took a cup of tea strong enough for ten men. On the contrary,
tea is to me a wonderful refresher and reviver. After long-continued
exertion, as in the great pedestrian journeys that I formerly made,
tea would always, in a manner almost miraculous, banish all my fatigue
and diffuse through my whole frame comfort and exhilaration, without
any subsequent evil effect. I am quite well aware that this is not the
experience of many others--my wife among the number--on whose nervous
system tea acts mischievously, producing inordinate wakefulness, and,
its continuous use, indigestion. Yet," he wisely adds, "this is one of
the things that people should learn and act upon, namely, to take such
things as suit them, and avoid such as do not." This is, as a rule, the
safest course to pursue, and it is adopted by all sensible persons.
To that brilliant historian, Mr. Justin McCarthy, M.P., tea is not only
the most useful stimulant, but the best defence against headache. "I
have," he writes, "always been a liberal drinker of tea. I have found
it of immense benefit in keeping off headache, my only malady. Probably
tea-drinking, even if not immoderate, does some hurt to the nerves; but
I have never been able to satisfy myself that this is so in my case.
Certainly, few men have worked harder and suffered less from ill-health
than myself." Another famous man of letters testifies to the value of
tea: "The only sure brain-stimulants with me," writes Professor Dowden,
"are plenty of fresh air and tea; but each of these in large quantities
produces a kind of intoxication; the intoxication of a great amount
of air causing wakefulness, with a delightful confusion of spirits,
without the capacity of steady thought; tea intoxication unsettles and
enfeebles my will; but then a great dose of tea often does get good
work out of me (though I may pay for it afterwards), while alcohol
renders all mental work impossible." "Tea is my favourite tonic when I
am tired or languid," confesses Mr. George R. Sims, "and always has a
stimulating effect." And the Rev. John Clifford, an able and scholarly
Baptist minister, testifies that tea has enabled him to accomplish some
very hard work. He says,--
"For at least a quarter of a century I have attempted to solve the
problem how to get the maximum of power out of a somewhat feeble
body, and retain the maximum of health; but having been a total
abstainer for nearly twenty-eight years, I have no experience of the
relation of alcoholics and narcotics to the solution of the problem.
In preparing for a succession of examinations (B.A., M.A., LL.D., and
B.Sc.) at the London University, whilst I had to discharge the duties
of a London pastorate, I drank tea somewhat copiously, on an average
thrice a day. I worked twelve and sometimes fourteen hours a day over
extended periods, preached regularly to the same congregation thrice a
week, directed the affairs of an aggressive church, conducted several
classes for young men, and at the same time matriculated in the First
Class, took a First Class B.A., was bracketed first at the M.A., took
honours at the LL.B. and at the B.Sc. in three subjects; and I found
that on tea I could work longer, with a clearer head, and with more
sustained intensity, than on any other beverage. But I am convinced
that good as tea-drinking is for prolonged mental strain, it was very
prejudicial to me, and has permanently lowered the digestive force.
Raisins (as suggested by Sir W. Gull) and grapes I have found in more
recent years a most convenient and effective method of reinforcing
mental strength whilst at work; but the wisest course is to keep as
robust health as possible, by horse exercise, or daily walks in the
early morning, and before retiring to rest, by the use of dumb-bells
and the gymnastic bat."
Harriet Martineau strongly condemned the use of alcohol by
brain-workers, and said that her stimulants were fresh air and cold
water; but this remarkable old maid dearly loved a cup of tea. Maclise
sketched her sitting by the fireside, her feet on the fender, steadying
with one hand a pan on the fire, teapot, cup and saucer and milk-jug on
the table by her side, and her cat nestling on her shoulder. Miss Ellen
Terry also finds tea the best stimulant. In reply to the question,
"What do you drink?" put to her by a Chicago reporter, she stated that
her favourite beverage was tea. She takes tea after every meal, and
also the first thing in the morning.
Professor Everett, of Belfast, on the other hand, says that he has
frequently suffered more from nervous excitability due to tea or
coffee, than from any other kind of stimulant. Mr. Philip Gilbert
Hamerton, the artist, confesses that at one time he did himself harm
by drinking tea, but has given up coffee as well as tea. The Rev.
Henry Solly, who has laboured for many years among workingmen, has
abstained from tea and coffee during the last fifteen years, as they
caused nervous excitement, prostration, sleeplessness, and great
inequality of spirits. He hardly likes, however, denouncing the use of
tea, as it seems to him the only refuge (except coffee, which to some
constitutions is more injurious) for those persons who, though of a
nervous and excitable temperament, cannot persuade themselves to give
up all stimulants, and yet desire to discountenance the use of alcohol.
But he is quite sure that it causes or promotes many nervous diseases,
particularly neuralgia, and not seldom leads to that "sinking" and
depression which is so frequent a cause of resort being had to "nips"
in the shape of glasses of wine or spirits.
Mr. Solly is not alone in his unwillingness to denounce the use of tea,
because, whatever maybe said against tea-drinking, its objectors cannot
but admit that it is the least harmful of stimulants.[3] What is there
to take its place? "Once," remarks Dr. Inman, of Liverpool, "I was an
unbeliever in tea, and during the many days of solitary misery which
I had to endure in consequence of the delicacy of children and their
absence with mamma at the seaside, I tried to do without it. Hot water
and cold, milk and cream, soda water and brandy, water and nothing at
all, were tried in succession to sweep those cobwebs from the brain,
which a dinner and a consequent snooze left behind them. It was all in
vain--I was good for nothing, and the evenings intended to be devoted
to work were passed in smoking, gossip, or novel-reading. I took to
tea, and all was changed; and now I fully believe that a good dinner,
'forty winks,' and a cup of strong tea afterwards will enable a man to
'get through' no end of work, especially of a mental kind."
Replying to the argument that as the lower animals do without tea
and coffee, so ought we, Dr. Poore emphasizes the fact that we are
_not_ lower animals; that we have _minds_, as well as _bodies_; and
that since these substances have the property in common of enabling
us to forget our worries and fatigues, to make light of misfortunes,
and generally to bear "the stings and arrows of outrageous fortune,"
let us accept them, make rational use of them, and be thankful. The
super-dietetic-purists, who caution us against "those poisonous
liquids, milk, water, and tea," have furnished Mr. George R. Sims with
a congenial topic for his facile pen. From "The Drinker's Dirge" we
quote the following lines:--
"In trying from all things our lips to debar,
Hasn't Science just gallop'd his hobby too far?
Let the nervous go thirsting, they shan't frighten me
With this nonsense concerning milk, water, and tea."
Turning from literature to politics, we find that Lord Palmerston
resorted to tea to refresh him during the midnight hours he spent at
St. Stephen's. Mr. Gladstone confessed a short time ago at Cannes, that
he drank more tea between midnight and four in the morning than any
other member of the House of Commons; and strange to say, the strongest
tea, although taken immediately before going to bed, never interferes
with his sleep. M. Clemenceau, the leader of the French Radicals, is
also reported to have owned himself an intemperate bibber of tea. Both
wondered how, before tea was imported into Europe, our forefathers got
on without it.[4] It was remarked that manners had become more polite
and nations more humane since the introduction of the Chinese beverage,
on hearing which Mr. Gladstone exclaimed, "Oh! there were great and
admirable characters in the Middle Ages."
Although Sir Charles Dilke grows wine, he never drinks it, finding
in tea a better stimulant. At one time Cobden was an abstainer from
intoxicating drinks, which he declared useless for sustaining strength;
"for the more work I have had to do, the more I have resorted to the
pump and the teapot." The hero of the Anti-Corn-Law League felt more
at home drinking tea than dining with great people. The formalities of
dinner parties were extremely irksome to him. "I have been obliged," he
says, "to mount a white cravat at these dinner-parties much against my
will, but I found a black stock was quite out of character." In another
letter he writes, "I assure you I would rather find myself taking tea
with you than dining with lords and ladies." But as the leader of a
great movement, he found it necessary to sacrifice personal tastes and
to endure the afflictions of dinner-parties, for the sake of securing
the support of the aristocracy.
Turning to the literature of the subject, it is interesting to learn
that Hartley Coleridge was in his youth fond of tea. In _Blackwood's
Magazine_ (vol. 55, 1857) appears "An Unpublished Poem," by Hartley
Coleridge, with the following note by the editor: "This early
production of the late Hartley Coleridge may not be without interest,
as it describes a state of social manners which is already passing
away, in a style of composition which belongs in some measure to the
past." The poem commences thus:--
"Though all unknown to Greek and Roman song,
The paler Hyson and the dark Souchong,
Though black, not green, the warbled praises share
Of knightly troubadour or gay _trouvère_.
Yet deem not thou, an alien quite to numbers,
That friend to prattle, and that foe to slumbers,
Which Kian-Long, imperial poet praised
So high that cent. per cent. its price was raised;
Which Pope himself would sometimes condescend
To plead commodious at a couplet's end;
Which the sweet bard of Olney did not spurn,
Who loved the music of the 'hissing urn,'
Let her who bade me write, exact the Muse,
Inspire my genius and my tea infuse,
So shall my verse the hovering sylphs delight,
And critic gnomes relinquish half their spite,
Clear, warm and flowing as my liquid theme,
As sweet as sugar and as smooth as cream."
Happy would it have been for the young poet if he had remained a
tea-drinker, and had never known the taste of alcohol.
But Cowper is the poet of the tea-table. He it is whom the amateur
reporters love to quote, or, rather, misquote, when they describe the
friends at a tea-party, "partaking of the cup that cheers, but not
inebriates." What the poet really said is found in Book the Fourth of
the "Task."
"Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in."
FOOTNOTES:
[2] "Bowles was in the habit of daily riding through a country
turnpike-gate, and one day he presented his twopence to the gatekeeper
as usual. 'What is that for, sir?' he asked. 'For my horse, of course.'
'But, sir, you have no horse.' 'Dear me!' exclaimed the astonished
poet; 'am I walking?' Mrs. Moore also told me that Bowles gave her a
Bible as a birthday present. She asked him to write her name in it; he
did so, inscribing it to her as a gift--_From the Author_. 'I never,'
said he, 'had but one watch, and I lost it the very first day I wore
it.' Mrs. Bowles whispered to me, 'And if he got another to-day, he
would lose it as quickly.' I met not long ago, near Salisbury, a
gentleman farmer who had been one of his parishioners, and cherished an
affectionate remembrance of the good parson. He told me one story of
him that is worth recording: one day he had a dinner-party; the guests
were kept waiting for the host; his wife went upstairs to see by what
mischance he was delayed. She found him in a sad 'taking,' hunting
everywhere for a silk stocking. After a minute search Mrs. Bowles found
that he had put _the two stockings on one leg_! Once when his own house
was pointed out to him, he could not by any possibility call to mind
who lived there."--_Hall_, "_Book of Memories of Great Men and Women of
the Age_."
[3] "With reference to the tea-drinking, of course there was such
a thing as excess and indigestion--but nobody ever heard of a man
kicking his wife to death because he had drunk tea; and no wife ever
complained of her home being made unhappy through her husband drinking
tea. There was not a judge on the bench who had not borne witness to
the fact that drunkenness was an incentive to crime. When the judges
began to admit that tea-drinking was increasing the criminal statistics
of the country, then Mr. Ford could come forward with his amusing
statement."--_Rev. Dr. Chadwick_, speech at the Diocesan Synod at
Armagh, October 24, 1883.
[4] "As tea did not come into England until 1610, and coffee until
1652, beer or wine was taken at all meals. The queen would only take
beer regularly. Her maids of honour breakfasted, or rather dined, off
meat and beer. Single and double beers were on all tables. In the year
1570 the scholars of Trinity College, Cambridge, consumed 2250 barrels
of beer, as appears from the State Papers of the time. Two tuns of wine
a month were accredited to the suite of Mary Queen of Scots during her
confinement in England."--"_The England of Shakespeare_," by E. Goadby.
CHAPTER VII.
THE FRIENDS AND THE FOES OF TEA.
A learned Dutchman's opinion of tea--Two hundred cups a day
recommended--Tea the universal panacea--Tea-merchants greedy as
hell--Degeneracy of the race through tea-drinking--Appeal to
women--Tea a slow poison--Experiment upon a dog--John Wesley's attack
upon tea--Why he preached against it--Dr. Lettsom's thesis--Accuses
tea of leading to intemperance--The essential principle of tea--The
value of experiments upon animals--Tea-drinking among women--The
Anti-Teapot Society--The benefits of tea-drinking--Dr. Richardson's
condemnation--The Dean of Bangor as a joker--Life without
stimulants--Dr. Poore's description of the good and bad effects of
tea-drinking--Injurious to children--A properly controlled appetite
the safest guide.
Like tobacco, tea received on its introduction very different
treatment by different people. It was extravagantly praised by some,
and extravagantly denounced by others. "Some ascribe such sovereign
virtues to this exotic," remarks one author, "as if 'twas able to
eradicate or prevent the spring of all diseases.... Others, on the
contrary, are equally severe in their censures, and impute the most
pernicious consequences to it, accounting it no better than a slow but
efficacious poison, and a seminary of diseases." A learned Dutchman
pronounced it the infallible cure for bad health, and declared that
"if mankind could be induced to drink a sufficient quantity of it, the
innumerable ills to which man is subject would not only be diminished,
but entirely unknown." He went so far as to express his conviction
that 200 cups daily would not be too much. It is scarcely surprising,
therefore, to find the Dutch East India Company liberally rewarding
this eloquent apostle of the new drink. Scarcely less enthusiastic
was the professor of physic in a German University, who declared tea
"the defence against the enemies of health; the universal panacea
which has long been sought for." This opinion, indeed, prevailed
very extensively in the East. The following notice is copied from the
"Relation of the Voyage to Siam by Six Jesuits, in 1685:"--"It is a
civility amongst them to present betel and tea to all that visit them.
Their own country supplies them with betel and areca, but they have
their tea from China and Japan. All the Orientals have a particular
esteem for it, because of the great virtues they find to be in it.
Their physicians say that it is a sovereign medicine against the stone
and pains of the head, that it allays vapours, that it cheers the
mind, and strengthens the stomach. In all kinds of fevers they take it
stronger than commonly, when they begin to feel the heat of the fit,
and then the patient covers himself up to sweat, and it hath been very
often found that this sweat wholly drives away the fever." A similar
belief in the virtues of opium existed until very recently in the minds
of the people of the Fen counties.
[Illustration: DRYING THE TEA-LEAVES.]
The enemies of tea appear to have been quite as active as its friends.
A German physician declared it a cause of dropsy and diabetes, and
the introducer of foreign diseases, and he charged the merchants with
"inexpressible frauds, calling them greedy as hell, the vilest of
usurers, who lie in wait for men's purses and lives." According to
Mr. Mattieu Williams, drunkenness serves one useful purpose; for it
helps to get rid of the surplus population. A French physician held
similar views of the use of tea and coffee; for, writing at the close
of the seventeenth century, he expressed his belief, "that they are
permitted by God's providence for the lessening the number of mankind
by shortening life, as a kind of silent plague." Coming down to more
recent times, the most remarkable production against tea appeared in
1722. The mind of the author seems to have been seriously disturbed at
the prospect of the deterioration of the race, which would inevitably
follow indulgence in tea. His treatise, which is addressed to ladies,
is entitled "An Essay on the Nature, Use, and Abuse of Tea, in a Letter
to a Lady; with an Account of its Mechanical Operation. London: printed
by J. Bettenham for James Lacy at the Ship, between the Two Temple
Gates, Fleet Street, 1722. Price 1_s._" This book contains some curious
information about the diseases liable to follow the use of tea. The
author begins:--
"Madam,--an earnest desire, which all ages have shown, to serve
your sex will, I hope, be sufficient warrant for my troubling you
with these papers. To be assisting towards the preservation of that
form and beauty with which God has adorned you, is certainly a work
not less pious than pleasant; for while we indulge ourselves in our
greatest pleasure (which is to serve your sex), would also show our
love and gratitude to the Almighty Being, whose form you so nearly
represent, and to whom we are so much indebted for the blessing we
received when He gave man so agreeable an helpmate. Though the value
which we ought to set on this blessing is a sufficient motive to us
to endeavour by all means to dissuade you from anything which may be
to your detriment, yet there are other motives which oblige us to have
a more particular regard to the health of your sex. For when by any
means you ignore your constitutions and impair your healths, though
you yourselves suffer too severely for it, yet the tragedy does not
end here, for the calamity is entailed on succeeding ages, perhaps to
the third and fourth generations."
The author then notes the fact that Lycurgus thought the Spartan women
not in the least unworthy of his care and direction, and proceeds to
remark:--
"If this lawgiver lived in these our days, what a mean opinion, what
a little hope, would he have of the next age, when the women of this
age fell so very short of that regularity and healthy way of living,
which he looked on as necessary for the preservation of a state! With
what an uneasiness would he have seen the many errors which we daily
commit!--errors which are introduced by luxury, suffered through
ignorance, and supported by being fashionable. He would soon have
condemned the exorbitant use of tea, and upon the first observing its
ill effects would certainly have prohibited the importation of it. But
the present age has other considerations: tea pays too great a duty,
and supports too many coaches, not to be preferred to the health of
the public. Tea has too great interest to be prohibited, and I wish
reason itself may be sufficient to dissuade the world from the use
of it. I must confess I have so little hope from these papers, that
though (to me and some others, who have had the perusal of them) they
seem just and satisfactory, yet I should never have presented them to
the public, had not I thought it an indispensable duty to acquaint the
world with the many disorders which may possibly arise from its too
frequent use."
This worthy benefactor of his species contends that tea is a slow but
sure poison, and that it is "not less destructive to the animal economy
than opium, or some other drugs which we have at present learned to
avoid with more caution." He does not deny that tea is "useful as
physic," but lays down the following propositions, which he endeavours
to prove. First, that tea may attenuate the blood to any degree
necessary to the production of any disease, which may arise from too
thin a state of the blood. Secondly, that tea may depauper the blood,
or waste the spirits, to any degree necessary to produce any disease,
which may arise from too poor a blood. Third, that tea may bring on
any degree whatsoever of a plethora necessary to the production of
any disease, which may arise from a plethoric state of body. From an
experiment upon a dog the author concludes that "tea abounds with
a lixiviate salt, by whose assistance it attenuates the blood." The
author draws some terrible pictures of the evils of tea-drinking, but
does not presume to dictate how his readers should act. "Whether or not
we ought to abandon the use of what may possibly be of so vast injury
to us, I leave to every reasonable man to judge, having myself done the
duty of a man and Christian in warning them of what dangers they may
fall into."
On the other hand, Thomas Frost, M.D., wrote a "Discourse on Tea, with
Plain and Useful Rules for Gouty People," in 1750. In this he contended
that,--
"A moderate use of tea of a due strength seems better adapted to
the fair sex than men, for they, naturally being of a more lax and
delicate make, are more liable to a fulness of blood and juices; as
also because they have less exercise or head-labours, than which
nothing braces better, or gives the fibres a greater springiness; and
because they are less accustomed to drink wine, whose astringency
corrugates the fibres, and enables the vessels to act with greater
briskness and force, so in some measure answers the end of the labour."
He holds that tea in a dietetic point of view seems in general not
only harmless, but very useful, but considers it impossible to say
"beforehand with what healthy persons tea will disagree, till they
have used it; where it disagrees, it should immediately be left off,
for there is no altering or compelling a constitution. However, where
it agrees, it excels all other vegetables, foreign or domestic, for
preventing sleepiness, drowsiness, or dulness, and taking off weariness
or fatigue, raising the spirits safely, corroborating the memory,
strengthening the judgment, quickening the invention, &c.; but then it
should be drank moderately, and in the afternoon chiefly, and not made
too habitual."
John Wesley, a few years later, attacked the use of tea. In 1748 he
published a small tract, "Letter to a Friend concerning Tea," in
which he accused tea of impairing digestion, unstringing the nerves,
involving great and useless expense, and in his own case, and that of
others, inducing symptoms of paralysis. But, in the first instance, he
preached against tea, not because he thought it injurious, but because
he wanted money. The whole of the London Methodists were at that time
very poor. The Rev. L. Tyerman, in his "Life and Times of the Rev. John
Wesley," says,--
"The number of members in the London Society on the 12th of April,
1746, was 1939, and the amount of their quarterly contributions
113_l._ 9_s._, upon an average fourteenpence per member. Considering
the high price of money, and that nearly the whole of the London
Methodists were extremely poor, the amount subscribed was highly
creditable. Wesley also believed its use to be injurious. He
tells us that when he first went to Oxford, with an exceedingly
good constitution, and being otherwise in health, he was somewhat
surprised at certain symptoms of a paralytic disorder. His hand
shook, especially after breakfast; but he soon observed that if for
two or three days he intermitted drinking tea, the shaking ceased.
Upon inquiry, he found tea had the same effect upon others, and
particularly on persons whose nerves were weak. This led him to lessen
the quantity he took, and to drink it weaker; but still for above six
and twenty years he was more or less subject to the same disorder. In
July, 1746, he began to observe that abundance of the people of London
were similarly affected; some of them having their nerves unstrung,
and their bodily strength decayed. He asked them if they were hard
drinkers; they replied, 'No, indeed, we drink scarce anything but
a little tea morning and night!' ... Having set the example (of
abstinence from tea) Wesley recommended the same abstinence to a few
of his preachers; and a week later to above a hundred of his people,
whom he believed to be strong in faith, all of whom, with two or three
exceptions, resolved by the grace of God to make the trial without
delay. In a short time he proposed it to the whole society. Objections
rose in abundance. Some said, 'Tea is not unwholesome at all.' To
these he replied that many eminent physicians had declared it was, and
that, if frequently used by those of weak nerves, it is no other than
a slow poison. Others said, 'Tea is not unwholesome to me; why then
should I leave it off?' Wesley answered, 'To give an example to those
to whom it is undeniably prejudicial, and to have the more wherewith
to feed the hungry, and to clothe the naked.' Others said, 'It helps
my health, nothing else will agree with me.' To such Wesley's caustic
reply was, 'I suppose your body is much of the same kind with that of
your grandmother, and do you think nothing else agreed with her, or
with any of her progenitors? What poor, puling, sickly things must all
the English then have been till within these hundred years! Besides,
if, in fact, nothing else will agree with you--if tea has already
weakened your stomach, and impaired your digestion to such a degree,
it has hurt you more than you are aware. You have need to abhor it
as deadly poison, and to renounce it from this very hour.' What was
the result of Wesley's attempt to form a _tea_-total society? We can
hardly tell, except that he himself abstained from tea for the next
twelve years, until Dr. Fothergill ordered him to resume its use.
Charles Wesley began to abstain, but how long his abstinence lasted
we are not informed. About 100 of the London Methodists followed the
example of their leader; and, besides these, a large number of others
began to be _temperate_ and to use less than they had previously."
"This was, to say the least," adds Mr. Tyerman, "an amusing episode in
Wesley's laborious life. All must give him credit for the best and
most benevolent intentions, and it is right to add that, ten days after
his proposal was submitted to the London Society, he had collected
among his friends thirty pounds for a lending stock, and that this was
soon made up to fifty, by means of which, before the year was ended,
above 250 destitute persons had received acceptable relief."
The most noteworthy opponent after Wesley was Jonas Hanway, who, in
1756, wrote a bulky volume under the title of "A Journal of Eight
Days' Journey from Portsmouth to Kingston-upon-Thames, to which is
added an Essay on Tea, considered as Pernicious to Health, obstructing
Industry, and impoverishing the Nation." The effects of tea-drinking
formed the subject of Dr. Lettsom's inaugural thesis, when he sought
the medical doctorate of the University of Leyden in 1767. He accused
tea of inducing "excess in spirituous liquors, by reason of the
weakness and debility of the system brought on by the daily habit of
drinking tea, seeking a temporary relief in some cordial; of producing
in some excruciating pains about the stomach, involuntary trembling
and fluttering of the nerves, destruction of half your teeth at the
age of twenty, without any hopes of getting new ones, depression, loss
of memory, tremblings and symptoms of paralysis; and of bringing on a
gradual debility and impoverished condition of the entire system."
Tea contains an active principle called _theine_, which, according to
Dr. Sinclair, was discovered so recently as 1827. Adopting one of the
methods of the opponents of tobacco, the enemies of tea conclude it to
be a deadly poison from its effect upon animals. A New York dentist is
reported to have boiled down a pound of young Hyson tea from a quart
to half a pint, ten drops of which killed a rabbit three months old;
and when boiled down to one gill, eight drops killed a cat of the same
age in a few minutes. "Think of it!" exclaims an opponent of tea, "most
persons who drink tea use not less than a pound in three months, and
yet a pound of Hyson tea contains poison enough to kill, according to
the above experiment, more than 17,000 rabbits, or nearly 200 a day!
and if boiled down to a gill, it contains poison enough to kill 10,860
cats in the same space of time! How can any one in his senses believe
that any human being can take poison enough into the stomach in one day
to kill 185 rabbits and not suffer from it?--or that the uses of this
poison can be continued from day to day without injury to health and
life?"[5]
The Americans appear the most energetic in their opposition to tea. An
organization called the "American Health and Temperance Association"
was formed in 1879 against tobacco, tea, and coffee; and, according
to one of its publications, has a membership of more than 10,000. It
believes that more harm is done at the present time by tobacco, tea,
and coffee, than by all forms of alcoholic drinks combined, and "the
tee-total pledge of the association requires abstinence from alcohol,
tobacco, tea, coffee, opium, and all other narcotics and stimulants."
The "Good Health Publishing Company," at Battle Creek, also issues
tracts on the "Evil Effects of the Use of Tea and Coffee," in which
it is contended that these beverages waste vital force, and injure
digestion and the nervous system; and that they irritate the temper,
and encourage gossip and scandal.[6]
A New York magazine, the _Herald of Health_, is equally unsparing in
its attacks on tea-drinking:--"The habit of tea-drinking among women
is one of the worst with which the hygienic physician has to contend.
Very few women, comparatively, among civilized peoples are free from
this vice--for vice it is--and as pronounced in its effects as either
whisky or tobacco.... It is a common custom among women who do hard
manual labour to depend upon their cup of tea, when they are tired, to
rest them, as they say, and thus the wearied nerves are lulled to sleep
and the warning voice of nature hushed, that the work may be done and
the system taxed to the utmost that it is able to bear without complete
exhaustion. Is it any wonder that women once broken down are so hard
to restore to health again?
"On women and children its worst consequences fall. To the use of tea
may be traced directly most of the prostrating nervous headaches with
which so many women are afflicted; also most of the neuralgic and
nervous affections. Of course children inherit the tendency to these
and similar conditions, and many a puny, emaciated nervous little one
is so because its mother was a tea-drunkard, and its whole system has
been narcotized from the time its being began."
In England the opposition against tea has never taken an organized
form, but a good deal has been said and written on the question.
In 1863 or 1864 an Anti-Teapot Society was formed, but not against
tea-drinking. It published a quarterly magazine called the
_Anti-Teapot Review_. A correspondent of _Notes and Queries_ stated
that it was no enthusiastic wish to convert tea-topers into anything
else that called this body into existence; it was rather a desire to
oppose and to cast scorn on the narrowness of mind that seems to be
encouraged in circles which, by no very violent figure of speech, may
be described around a teapot. In other words, he says, the A. T. S. was
a combination against modern Pharisaism, and he quotes the following
extract from No. 1 of the _Review_, May, 1864, as proving his point:--
"Many persons either do not, or pretend not to, know what teapotism
is. In consequence of this ignorance or affectation we shall, in
a few words, try to describe the leading features of the male and
female teapot. Teapotism is a magnificent profession, but a very
sorry practice! It professes a large-hearted liberality, unbounded
piety, and the enunciation of true principles; but its practice is
that of a narrow-minded clique, who condemn all who go not with them.
Its piety consists in hero-worship and the circulation of illiterate
tracts, calculated to attract the strong and to confound the weak; it
is bounded on the north by the platform and meeting-house, and on the
south by scandal, hassocks and tea, whence the name of teapots, &c."
The article ends with the assurance that "The society will go on as it
began: it will remain strictly private, enforce the same rules, and
show that it is the enemy, not of tea, but of teapots." The _Review_
professed to be edited by members of the universities, and written only
by members of the Anti-Teapot Society of Europe. The qualifications for
membership were, to read the rules, to fill up the form of admission
to be had in English, French, German, Dutch, and other languages; to
be nominated and seconded by any two officers; "the latter (_sic_)
wholesome rule was introduced so that inquisitive people might be
prevented from joining the society out of sheer curiosity." The society
appears to have made no converts, and had but a very short existence.
Tea-parties have always been popular institutions among Dissenting
bodies, and it is therefore not surprising to find ministers taking
part in meetings advocating a reduction of the tea duties. In 1848
the Rev. Dr. Hume, attending a meeting in Liverpool for this purpose,
warmly defended tea, on the ground of health, and quoted with great
satisfaction the evidence of Dr. Sigmond, given before the Committee
of the House of Commons. Asked what had been the result of the medical
inquiries into the effect of tea upon the human frame, Doctor Sigmond
replied, "I think it is of great importance in the prevention of skin
disease, in comparison with any fluid we have been in the habit of
drinking in former years, and also in removing glandular affections.
I think scrofula has very much diminished in this country since tea
has been so largely used. To those classes of society who are not of
labouring habits, but who are of sedentary habits, and exercise the
mind a good deal, tea is of great importance."
On the other hand, a famous physician of our time takes an entirely
opposite view of the question. At the Sanitary Congress last year Dr.
Richardson delivered an address on "Felicity as a Sanitary Research,"
and charged tea with being a promoter of infelicity. "As a rule," he
says, "all agents which stimulate--that is to say, relax--the arterial
tension, and so allow the blood a freer course through the organs,
promote for a time felicity, but in the reaction leave depression.
The alkaloid in tea, theine, has this effect. It causes a short and
slight felicity. It causes in a large number of persons a long and
severe and even painful sadness. There are many who never knew a day of
felicity, owing to this one destroying cause. In our poorer districts,
amongst the poor women of our industrial populations, our spinning,
our stocking-weaving women, the misery incident to their lot is often
doubled by this one agent."
The Dean of Bangor is the latest clerical opponent of tea-drinking.
Speaking at a meeting held to further the establishment of courses
of instruction in practical cookery in the elementary schools, he
said that if he had his own way there would be much less tea-drinking
among people of all classes. Oatmeal and milk produced strong, hearty,
good-tempered men and women; whereas excessive tea-drinking created
a generation of nervous, discontented people, who were for ever
complaining of the existing order of the universe, scolding their
neighbours, and sighing after the impossible. Good cooking would,
he firmly believed, enable them to take far higher and more correct
views of existence. In fact, he suspected that too much tea-drinking,
by destroying the calmness of the nerves, was acting as a dangerous
revolutionary force among us. Tea-drinking, renewed three or four
times a day, made men and women feel weak, and the result was that the
tea-kettle went before the gin-bottle, and the physical and nervous
weakness, that had its origin in the bad cookery of an ignorant wife,
ended in ruin, intemperance, and disease.
[Illustration: SIFTING TEA.]
The worthy Dean's denunciation of tea-drinking formed the subject
of numerous leading articles in the press, followed by letters from
correspondents, several of whom referred to the difficulty of finding
any satisfactory substitute for the fragrant and refreshing beverage
which, during the present century; has come to be regarded almost as a
necessary of life in English homes, both rich and poor. One gentleman
pathetically describes his feelings on being presented one afternoon
in a drawing-room, where he had been in the habit of being served
with "at least three cups of supernatural tea," with "a glass brimful
of a dim, opaque, greyish-white liquid," which turned out to be cold
barley-water.
Admitting that tea-drinking leads to indigestion, the _St. James's
Gazette_ points out that "tea-drinking is still, in itself, better than
drunkenness; and there is always a chance that the first factor in the
fatal series may not lead to the second, nor the second to the third.
What numbers of persons of both sexes every one must know who drink
tea three times a day--morning, afternoon, and evening--without ever
getting drunk at all! Every one, again, must have met with cases in
which men have brought themselves to utter grief through the abuse of
spirituous liquors; but who ever heard of a man ruining himself or his
family through excessive indulgence in tea? The confirmed tea-drinker
never commits murder in his cups--never even goes home in a frantic
condition to beat his wife. It is certain, on the other hand, that tea
drunk in immoderate quantities does not good, but harm; and it is
very desirable that, both in drinking and eating, people should on
all occasions be temperate. It is difficult, however, to get through
existence without stimulants of some kind; and tea is probably as
little injurious as any yet discovered. 'Life without stimulants,' as a
modern philosopher has remarked, 'would be a dreary waste.'"
Reviewing the discussion, the _Lancet_ doubted whether the abuse
of tea-drinking is prevalent in the country, and maintained that
hard-worked minds and fatigued bodies are the better for some gentle
stimulant that rouses into activity the nerves, and which ministers to
animal life and comfort. The editor concluded that the worthy dean's
"conclusions are drawn from insufficient premises, which in their turn
can scarcely be regarded as scientific truths."
The latest medical contribution to the literature of the question is
a lecture on "Coffee and Tea," by Dr. Poore, Vice-Chairman of the
Council of the Parkes Museum, given at the Parkes Museum on the 6th of
December, 1883. He thus describes the good and bad effects of these
luxuries:--
"The peculiar effects of tea and coffee are due to the alkaloid.
These effects are of a _refreshing_ character. The circulation of
the blood is increased; the elimination of CO_{2} by the lungs
is heightened. The reflex excitability of the nerve centres is
roused, thereby increasing the impressionability of the consumer,
and great wakefulness results; it also excites the peristalsis of
the intestines. Tea and coffee, then, are stimulants; they rouse
the tissues to increased action, make us insensible to fatigue, and
enable us to do more work than we otherwise could. The differences
between these stimulants and alcoholic stimulants are worth noticing.
Tea and coffee keep us awake and attentive; and those who have taken
either for the purposes of midnight study, will know how under their
influence the receptive powers of the brain seem to be at its maximum.
They cause no mental 'elevation,' and do not rouse the imaginative
faculties as a glass of wine seems to do. They enable a man to work,
and often rob him of sleep, and do not, like a glass of wine, tend
to increase the power of sleep after the work has been accomplished.
The tannic acid in tea is doubtless one of the causes why it is as
a drink so attractive. It is slightly astringent, and clean in the
mouth, and does not 'cloy the palate,' an expression for which I can
find no scientific equivalent; tannic acid is also one of the dangers
and drawbacks of tea. It is largely present in the common teas used
by the poor.... Excessive tea-drinkers are more common than excessive
coffee-drinkers, because the heavier coffee more easily produces
satiety than the lighter tea; and it is not possible for ordinary
stomachs to tolerate more than a certain amount of coffee, even when
pure, and only a very small amount of the thick, sweet, adulterated
stuff which too often passes for coffee in this country.... Tea is
more of a pure beverage than coffee, has less dietetic value, and is
less stimulating; it is more capable of being used as a pure luxury
(it is indeed the tobacco of women), but its great astringency is one
reason which makes its excessive use highly undesirable."
The question of the action of tea, as well as of tobacco and other
stimulants, has occupied the attention of Professor Mantegazza, an
Italian physiologist of high repute. This eminent scholar places tea
amongst the nervous foods; and his enthusiasm for it is unbounded. He
credits it with the power of dispelling weariness and lessening the
annoyances of life. He considers it the greatest friend to the man of
letters, enabling him to work without fatigue; an aid to conversation,
rendering it pleasant and easy. His own experience of tea is, that
it revives drooping intellectual activity; and he regards it the
best stimulus to exertion. "Without its aid," he says, "I should be
idle." His general conclusions are that it is beneficial to adults,
but injurious to children; and he pronounces it one of the greatest
blessings of Providence.
Whatever may be urged in favour of tea, it is undeniable that excess
is injurious, and that children would be better without it. It contains
no strength, and therefore ought to be forbidden to the young. In an
inquiry into the sickly condition of the children in many of the cotton
factories of Lancashire, Dr. Ferguson, of Bolton, found that children
between thirteen and sixteen years of age, who had been brought up on
tea or coffee, increased in weight only about four pounds a year, while
those fed on milk increased at the rate of about fifteen pounds a year.
For this evil the blame rests entirely upon the mothers, who exceed the
bounds of moderation in the use of tea. Though doctors differ widely in
their views of the action of tea, they all agree that few things are
more certain to produce "flatulence in the overworked female" than this
beverage. Their views are shared by other authorities. Miss Barnett,
speaking at the National Health Society's Exhibition last year, said,
"I am constantly preaching against tea, as it is taken by the vast
majority of the working women of England. They drink it at every meal,
and suffer from indigestion before they come to middle age. They try
to get the blackest fluid out of the tea, and in doing so draw out the
tannin, which, though it has its virtues, acts upon the coats of the
stomach and produces indigestion by middle life."
But the argument that tea shortens the life of every man who drinks
it is absurd. "It is said," remarked Wm. Howitt, "that Mithridates
could live and flourish on poisons, and, if it is true that tea or
coffee is a poison, so do most of us. Wm. Hutton, the shrewd and
humorous author of the histories of Birmingham and Derby, and also of
a life of himself, scarcely inferior to that of Franklin in lessons of
life-wisdom, said that he had been told that coffee was a slow poison,
and he added that he had found it very slow, for he had drunk it more
than sixty years without any ill effect. My experience of tea, as well
as coffee," added Howitt, "has been the same." Howitt's experience is
the experience of tens of thousands of people. The moral in this, as
in other matters, is that people must judge for themselves whether tea
is injurious or beneficial. As Dr. Poore candidly admits, "a properly
controlled appetite, or instinct, is as safe a guide in the matters of
diet as a physiologist or a moralist."
FOOTNOTES:
[5] "It is not safe, in regard to the action of a drug on animals,
to conclude that its effect will be the same on men. For instance,
belladonna, which is a deadly poison for men, does not hurt
rabbits."--_Professor Rolleston._
[6] There may be some truth in this statement. "I do not remember
any mention of tea in Wycherley, but in Congreve's 'Double Dealer'
(Act 1, Scene 1, p. 175 a), the scene is laid at Lord Touchwood's
house; and when Careless inquires what has become of the ladies,
just after dinner, Mellefont replies, "Why, they are at the end of
the gallery, retired to tea and scandal, according to their ancient
custom.""--_Buckle, Common-Place Book._
CHAPTER VIII.
TEA AS A SOURCE OF REVENUE.
Tea heavily taxed--How it was adulterated in the "Good Old
Times"--Efforts to secure a reduction in the duty--Why crime and
ignorance prevail--Mr. Disraeli's proposal to reduce the duty on tea,
opposed by Mr. Gladstone--Mr. Gladstone's legislation--The Chancellor
of the Exchequer memorialized to reduce the duty on Indian tea--The
annual expenditure on tea--Professor Leoni Levi's estimate of its
consumption by the working classes.
Tea had not been in use many years before the government discovered in
it a valuable means of replenishing the national exchequer. Accordingly
they passed a law, in 1660, imposing a duty of eightpence per
gallon on all tea made and sold in coffee-houses, which were visited
twice daily by officers. It would occupy too much space to describe
subsequent legislation, but the subject appears at times to have been
almost as perplexing as the liquor traffic to the various governments.
The tea duties have, however, always been excessively heavy, and it is
therefore not surprising that a great deal of smuggling was carried
on in the "Good Old Times," and that deceptions were practised to a
very large extent by unscrupulous tea-dealers. Parliament at last
interfered. In the reign of George II. an Act of Parliament recites
that "several ill-disposed persons do frequently fabricate, dye, or
manufacture very great quantities of sloe-leaves, liquorice-leaves, and
the leaves of tea that have before been used, or the leaves of other
trees, shrubs, or plants, in imitation of tea, and do likewise mix,
colour, stain and dye such leaves with terra japonica, sugar, molasses,
clay, logwood and with other ingredients, and do sell and vend the same
as real tea, to the prejudice of the health of his Majesty's subjects,
the diminution of his revenue, and to the ruin of the fair trader." The
Act then declares, "that the dealer in and seller of such sophisticated
teas shall forfeit the sum of ten pounds for every pound-weight." In
a report of the Committee of the House of Commons, in 1783, it is
stated that "the quantity of fictitious tea annually manufactured
from sloe, liquorice, and ash-tree leaves, in different parts of
England, to be mixed with genuine teas, is computed at four millions
of pounds, and that at a time when the whole quantity of genuine tea
sold by the East India Company did not exceed more than six millions
of pounds annually." The Act does not seem, however, to have done much
to check the evil, for in the year 1828 the existence of several tea
manufactories was disclosed, the penalties for defrauding the revenue
amounting in one case to 840_l._ It is impossible to estimate the
amount of smuggled tea consumed, but the official accounts indicate a
large consumption.
[Illustration: TEA-TASTING IN CHINA.]
It appears that from 1710 to 1810 not fewer than 750,219,016 lbs.
of tea were sold at the East India Company's sales, the value of which
was 129,804,595_l._ The duty alone amounted to 104,856,858_l._ In 1828
the revenue amounted to 3,302,252_l._ The exclusive right of trading in
tea, so long enjoyed by the East India Company, terminated on the 22nd
of April, 1834, when an alteration was made in the method of collecting
the dues. Under the old system a tax was levied on the value of the
tea; but under the new it was levied upon the weight and quality, the
duties ranging from 1_s._ 6_d._ on Bohea, and 3_s._ on Pekoe and other
kinds.[7]
The transfer did not, however, secure the approval of the tea-dealers,
who continued to petition Parliament for a reduction of the duty.
A society was formed at Liverpool with this object in view, and in
1846 its officers published a letter addressed to Sir Robert Peel,
contending that, as tea was an object of the first importance to
the labouring classes, "the duty on it should be such in amount and
principle as to induce the greatest consumption." The memorialists
argued:--
"That the duties have been imposed without any reference to the
encouragement of its consumption; that the quantity required by
the public for their wants and comforts has never entered into the
consideration of the legislature; that all they have looked to has
been to get a certain amount of revenue from tea, treating it,
important as it is to the people's sustenance and well-being, as a
subject unworthy of consideration, _per se_, and for their benefit;
that it has been taxed from time to time, heavier and heavier, as its
consumption increased; so that, looking at the changes which have
taken place in these duties, it would appear as if their object had
been to check, if not altogether destroy, the use of tea amongst us,
as though it were a poisonous or noxious thing, a species of opium,
which, on moral and political grounds, ought to be prohibited. The
memorialists found, by a return to an order of the House of Commons,
dated the 11th of February, 1845, that in 1784 the tax was 12-1/2 per
cent.; in 1795 it was raised to 20 per cent.; in 1797 to 20 per cent.
under 2_s._ 6_d._ per lb., and 30 per cent. at and above that price;
in 1798 to 20 and 35 per cent. respectively; in 1800 to 20 and 40
per cent.; in 1801 to 20 and 50 per cent.; in 1803 to 65 and 95 per
cent.; in 1806 to 96 per cent. on all prices; and in 1819 to 96 per
cent. under 2_s._ per lb., and 100 per cent. at and above that price,
continuing to the termination of the company's charter. In 1834, the
trade being thrown open, the duty was attempted to be levied according
to a scale which was supposed to mark quality, being 1_s._ 6_d._ per
lb. on the lowest tea, 2_s._ 2_d._ per lb. on the middle, and 3_s._
per lb. on the finest kinds. This scale was also constructed on the
principle of taxing as near as may be the article with an average
duty of 100 per cent., but was abandoned in 1836, and succeeded by a
uniform duty of 2_s._ 1_d._ per lb. until 1840, when the additional
5 per cent. imposed on all Customs duties brought it up to 2_s._
2-1/4_d._ per lb."
In the following year, 1846, a towns' meeting was held at Liverpool for
the purpose of "taking into consideration the measures which should
be adopted to procure as speedily as possible a material reduction of
the present duty on tea." A resolution was passed declaring the duty
of 2_s._ 2_d._ exorbitant, impolitic, and oppressive. In supporting
a resolution that a reduction of duty would remove inducements to
intemperance and thereby diminish crime, an employer of labour felt
assured that if the legislature would cheapen tea, coffee, sugar, and
soap, it would give the means of prolonging lives instead of shortening
them, and keep a man at his own fireside instead of his going to the
tavern, with the ten thousand evils in its train. The speaker, however,
caused considerable amusement when he expressed the opinion that if
the Irish population could get tea at a cheap rate, they would, to a
considerable extent, abandon whisky. Put a cup of tea and a glass of
whisky side by side, we venture to say that ninety-nine out of every
hundred Irishmen would prefer the whisky. "An Irishman," says Dr. Pope,
"was requested by a lady to do some work for her, which he performed to
her complete satisfaction. 'Pat,' she said, 'I'll treat you.' 'Heaven
bless your honour, ma'am,' says Pat. 'What would you prefer? A pint of
porter or a tumbler of grog?' 'Well, ma'am,' says Pat, 'I don't wish
to be troublesome, but I'll take the one awhilst you're making the
other.'" This is, we fear, a type of the average Irishman, whose love
of whisky is the greatest blot upon his character.
Notwithstanding the great outcries against the Government duty, the
consumption of tea steadily increased, and in 1844 the duty alone
amounted to 4,524,193_l._ There were, it must be admitted, some
inequalities in the system of taxation. The question attracted the
notice of Mr. Leitch Ritchie (then editor of _Chambers's Journal_), who
suggested that the moral reform and social improvement for which the
present age is remarkable have had their basis in--tea. But if Great
Britain is so large a consumer of tea, why, he asks, "do crime and
ignorance still prevail amongst the body of the people? Because," he
answers, "the poorer classes still drink bad tea, imitation tea, or no
tea at all. The tea that is now in bond at tenpence pays a duty of two
shillings and a penny, while the tea that is sold in bond at several
shillings pays no more. Thus the poor are charged at least three times
more, according to value, than the rich." An illustration of this
anomaly was given by a speaker at a second meeting held at Liverpool
in 1848, for the purpose of securing a reduction in the duties. "Tea,"
says the speaker, "must be considered in a two-fold light, not merely
as an article of luxury to some, but as an article of necessity to
all classes of her Majesty's subjects. But do all classes procure this
necessity on equal terms? No; for though it is in general use with the
peer as well as the peasant, we yet find the same duties levied on teas
of the lowest as on teas of the highest description."
It was urged by those who defended the policy of the Government that
tea was a stimulant, and that therefore it was injurious. "We admit
the fact," said the Rev. Dr. Hume, "but we strenuously deny the
inference. A stimulant is not necessarily injurious, though the more
violent always are. Heat is a stimulant, and so is water in particular
circumstances; food is a stimulant; the light of heaven is a stimulant,
whether in animal or in vegetable nature, and so is the beaming
countenance and kindling heart of a sympathetic friend."
Neither meetings nor memorials, however, seemed to have any influence
with the Government; but in 1852 Mr. Disraeli proposed to reduce the
duty on tea to 1_s._ 10_d._, and ultimately to 1_s._, the reduction
to be spread over six years. This reduction, with other reductions
of the dues on shipping and the malt tax, would have involved a loss
of more than 3,000,000_l._, to supply which, he proposed, among other
things, to impose the income tax on industrial incomes over 100_l._
His proposals were, however, strongly opposed by Mr. Gladstone, and
rejected by a large majority. When, however, Mr. Gladstone returned to
power, in 1853, he proposed the very same reductions which he had when
out of office rejected. He proposed to reduce the duty to 1_s._ 10_d._
during the following year, and by 3_d._ a year until the limit of
1_s._ was reached. Including reduction of other taxes, the loss to the
revenue would have amounted to 5,315,000_l._, which he proposed to meet
by renewing the income tax for seven years, extending the stamp duties,
and increasing the duty on spirits; but owing to the Crimean War the
proposed reduction was not effected. The expenses of this war were so
heavy, amounting to 70,000,000_l._, that the duty on tea was increased
3_d._ a pound.
When the war was over, Mr. Gladstone desired that the added duties
on tea, sugar, and other necessaries of life, should be taken off;
but on the 6th of March, 1857, "the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir
George Lewis, announced a modification of the Budget resolutions so
far as the tea duties were concerned, and proposed that the amount of
the tax, which he had arranged for three years, should be applicable
for one year only. Mr. Gladstone moved an amendment to the effect
that after April 5, 1857, the duty should be 1_s._ 3_d._, and after
the 5th of April, 1858, 1_s._ The amendment was negatived by 187 to
125, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer's resolution, fixing the duty
at 1_s._ 5_d._ was carried." In 1865 the duty was reduced to 6_d._
under Mr. Gladstone's Government, and at this figure it remains. But
the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer has recently been
called to the disadvantage under which the Indian tea-industry is
placed by the imposition of the English Customs duty of 6_d._ per
lb. on all tea imports, and the object of the memorialists was to
induce him to consider the expediency of abolishing or modifying this
duty when framing his financial budget. It was pointed out that the
Indian tea-industry is greatly in want of such relief, as evidenced by
recent Calcutta reports showing the market value of the shares of the
joint-stock tea companies.
Out of a total of 116 companies forty-six only gave any dividend on
the crop of 1882, and of these forty-six only twenty paid over five
per cent. Of the seventy which gave no dividend not a few have paid
nothing for several years, and many are struggling on under the incubus
of borrowed capital, with the hope of improvement in the markets, the
cause of this depression being directly traceable to the heavy fall in
prices during the last few years. The opinion was expressed that if the
trade could be relieved of the present heavy tax of from 50 to 100 per
cent. on the value, it might be fairly assumed that a reduction of,
say, 4_d._ per lb. to the consumer would lead to a large increase in
the consumption, and leave a return of the remaining 2_d._ per lb. more
to the producer, which would in many cases prove a working profit to
gardens now being carried on at a loss.
Reference was also made to the argument, of which doubtless the
Chancellor of the Exchequer is aware, that inasmuch as the average
value of Indian teas is higher than that of China teas, the present
duty weighs more heavily on the latter, and consequently that its
abolition would deprive the Indian importer of a certain amount of
protection; but at the same time the opinion was expressed that a
general reduction of prices to the consumer all round would induce
on the part of the public a more general preference for the superior
quality of the Indian produce, and that the increased demand for
it thereby engendered would more than counterbalance any loss of
protection which might be sustained.
As will be seen from the following table of the duties, the consumers
of tea contribute very largely to the revenue of the country:--
£.
1874 3,248,446
1875 3,568,634
1876 3,706,831
1877 3,723,147
1878 4,002,211
1879 4,162,221
1880 3,698,338
1881 3,865,720
1882 3,974,481
1883 4,230,341
----------
38,180,376
The annual expenditure on tea amounts to about 11,000,000_l._ Large
as this amount appears, it sinks into insignificance when compared
with the expenditure upon intoxicating drinks. During the last year
it amounted to no less than 125,477,275_l._ There are few who would
regret to see this formidable amount reduced to a fourth of its present
dimensions; and no one surely will deny that if everybody drank tea,
instead of alcoholic drinks, a great reform in the habits of the people
would take place. Drunkenness, and its attendant evil, pauperism, would
cease; plenty would take the place of poverty, joy for sadness, health
for sickness; and happiness would reign throughout the land.
Reference has already been made to the fact that England stands next
to China as the greatest tea-drinking nation; and it appears that
the working classes consume the largest proportion of tea imported.
Professor Leoni Levi compiled in 1873 an elaborate estimate of the
amount of taxation falling on the working classes of the United
Kingdom; and in his report he shows that from consumption of tea alone
they contributed 2,200,000_l._ to the revenue, as against 900,000_l._
by the middle and upper classes. At the present time, however, the
working classes contribute over 3,000,000_l._ as their proportion of
the duty upon tea. A clearer light is thrown upon their contributions
to the national exchequer by the following table showing the proportion
for every pound of taxes paid from each item:--
+---------------------------------++----------------------------------+
| As falling on the Working || As falling on the Middle and |
| Classes. || Upper Classes. |
+---------------------------------++----------------------------------+
| _s._ _d._ || _s._ _d._ |
| Spirits 7 5 || Local taxes, land, |
| Malt 3 0 || houses, &c. 7 0 |
| Tobacco 3 0 || Stamps 3 3 |
| Local taxes and houses 2 9 || Income-tax 3 0 |
| Tea 1 5 || Spirits 1 10 |
| Sugar 1 0 || Malt 0 9 |
| Licences 0 9 || Tobacco 0 9 |
| Other taxes 0 8 || Sugar and tea 1 0 |
| || Land and houses 0 10 |
| || Wine 0 7 |
| || Other taxes 1 0 |
| -------- || -------- |
| Total £1 0 0 || Total £1 0 0 |
+---------------------------------++----------------------------------+
The Professor classes tea as a necessary, but confesses that it
is difficult to define whether certain articles in daily use are
necessaries or luxuries. Many articles, he points out, such as white
bread, tea, sugar, which not long ago were considered luxuries, are
now, with the improved condition of the people, regarded as absolute
necessaries. He refers, in particular, to the effect of indirect taxes
in greatly enhancing the cost of the taxed article to the consumer.
"The wholesale import price of tea, for example, may be 1_s._ a pound,
and upon this there is 6_d._ duty. But immediately as it passes from
the importer to the dealer, and from the dealer to the retailer, the
whole price, duty paid, is charged first with ten, and then with thirty
per cent. to meet expenses and profits of trade, whereby the retail
price is increased probably from 2_s._ to 3_s._ 6_d._ or 4_s._ per lb.
This trading, therefore, constitutes so much extra tax, and it is a
tax which the working classes pay to the middle and higher classes,
through whose hands such articles pass." Whether we shall ever have a
free breakfast-table, it is impossible to say; but if the tax on tea
were abolished, it is obvious that it would be necessary to impose some
other tax, probably even more objectionable.
FOOTNOTE:
[7] _Hyson_ means before rain, or flourishing spring; therefore it is
often called "young Hyson." "Hyson Skin" is composed of the refuse
of other kinds, the native term being "tea-skins." Refuse of still
coarser descriptions is called "tea-bones." _Bohea_ is the name of the
hills in the region where it is gathered. _Pekoe_, or _Poco_, means
"white hair," or the down of tender leaves; _Powchong_, "folded plant;"
_Souchong_, "small plant." _Twankay_ is the name of a river in the
region where it is bought. _Congo_, from a term signifying "labour,"
for the care required in its preparation.--"_Notes and Queries_,"
_Third Series_, vi. p. 264.
INDEX.
Abernethy, Dr., 51.
Ackworth School, 13.
Aikin, Dr., 12.
Alcohol and endurance, 72, 75.
Alcohol and genius, 80, 91, 94.
Ale, use of, 12, 73, 101.
American Health and Temperance Association, 118.
Animals, experiments upon, 111, 117.
Anti-Corn-Law League, 40, 102.
Anti-Teapot Society, 120.
Apprentices, 13.
Arctic weather, 67.
Artists and temperance, 42.
Assam tea, 19, 20, 22.
_Band of Hope Chronicle_, 39.
Banks, Collingwood, 42.
Barnett, Miss, 132.
Beer-gardens, 10.
Beer, use of, 12, 73, 101.
Betel, 107.
Beverley, Dr., 74.
_Blackwood's Magazine_, 102.
Blue Ribbon meetings, 35.
Blyth, Dr. Wynter, 72.
Boswell, 81, 82.
Botanical Gardens, 19.
Bowles, 84.
Bright, John, 13.
Brotherton, Joseph, 39.
Bryant, William Cullen, 93.
Buckle, 66, 93, 119.
Burns, 80.
Byrom, John, 13.
Cakes and tea, 9.
Camellia, the, 18.
Capel, Hon. Reginald, 60.
Carlyle, Dr. Alexander, 8.
Carlyon, Dr., 52.
Catherine, Princess, 6.
Centlivre, Mrs., 5.
Ceylon tea, 21.
Chadwick, Rev. Dr., 99.
Chambers, Dr. King, 18, 60, 63.
_Chambers's Journal_, 143.
Chapel-debts, 44.
Charles II., 6.
China, use of tea in, 17, 50, 58, 59, 63.
Chinese ballads, 27.
Chocolate, 5.
Christmas tea-parties, 36, 45.
Clarendon, Lord, 7.
Clemenceau, M., 101.
Clifford, Rev. Dr., 95.
Cobden, 101.
Coffee, 5, 97, 98, 133.
Coffee taverns, 55.
Coleridge, Hartley, 102.
Converted drunkards as water-carriers, 35.
Cornwall, Barry, 84.
Couplet, Le Père, 7.
Cowper, 53, 103.
Crimean War, 145.
Curing tea, 28.
Curtis, Dr. J. H., 38.
Cycling, 72.
_Daily News_, 69.
_Daily Telegraph_, 55.
Dean of Bangor, 124.
Defoe, 5.
De Quincey, 91, 92.
"Dictionary of Statistics," 17.
Dilke, Sir Charles, 101.
Dinner-parties, 102.
Disraeli, Mr., 144.
Diurnal of Thomas Rugge, 4.
"Doctors differ," 132.
Dowden, Professor, 95.
Drunkards, converted, 35.
Drunkenness, uses of, 108.
Dutch physician, advice of a, 106.
Dyer, George, 84.
Dyspepsia, cause of, 61.
East India Company, 2, 19, 106, 136.
Epping butter, 9.
Everett, Professor, 97.
Favy's, Mr., tea, 7.
Ferguson, Dr., 132.
Fortune, Mr., 63.
Francis, James, 71.
Garland, T. Bland, 75.
Garway, Thomas, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Genius, 80.
Gladstone, Mr., 100, 145, 146.
Goadby, E., 101.
Good Health Publishing Company, 118.
Gout, 112.
Great Northern Railway, 60.
"Grecian," the, 11.
Gregson, Gelson, 70.
Gunter's, 11.
Habit, force of, 12.
Hamerton, Philip Gilbert, 83, 97.
Hanway, Jonas, 82, 116.
Harrowgate, mode of living at, 8.
Hartley, Rev. J. G., 43.
Harvest-field, tea in, 1, 75.
Hawkins, Sir John, 83.
Hazlitt, 86.
Headache, 94.
Healths, drinking, 71.
_Herald of Health_, 119.
Hogarth, 15.
Hogg, James, 79.
_Hong-Kong Telegraph_, 71.
Hop-pickers, 27.
Howitt, William, 93, 133.
Hume, Rev. Dr., 144.
Hutton, William, 133.
Hymns, tea-meeting, 41, 42, 43.
Indian tea, 19, 24, 147.
Inglefield, Dr., 67.
Inman, Dr., 66, 99.
Intoxicating drink, 149.
Invalids' tea, 63.
Isle of Man, tea-drinking in, 1, 39.
_Isle of Man Temperance Guardian_, 36.
Jackson, Dr., 66.
Jameson, Dr., 22.
Johnson, Dr., 80, 83.
Jonathan's coffee-house, 5.
Journalist, the, 80.
Kant, 91.
Kettle, the national, 53.
Knight, Charles, 2.
Ladies, extravagance of, 33.
Lamb, Charles, 88.
_Lancet_, the, 129.
Lansdell, Rev. Dr., 57, 58, 63.
_Leeds Mercury_, 40.
Lettsom, Dr., 116.
Levi, Leoni, 149.
Lewis, Sir George, 145.
Linnæus, 18.
Liquor traffic, 135.
Literary composition, 92.
Livesey, Joseph, 34.
London Athletic Club, 74.
Lung, Kien, 50.
Lytton, Bulwer, 91.
Maclise, 97.
Malaria, 67.
Manchester, use of tea in, 12.
Mantegazza, 131.
Martin, Montgomery, 6.
Martineau, Harriet, 97.
Mary-le-Bon Gardens, 9.
McCarthy, Justin, M.P., 94.
Michôd, C. J., 74.
Midland Railway, 60.
Mitford, Miss, 88.
_Moral Reformer_, 41.
Motley, 91.
Mountain-climbing, 74.
Mulhall, 17.
National Health Society, 132.
Nervous excitability, 97.
Newbury Chamber of Agriculture, 75.
Nightingale, Miss, 64.
_Notes and Queries_, 120, 139.
Palmerston, Lord, 100.
Parkes, Professor, 67.
Parliament petitioned, 139.
Patmore, 86.
Pedestrianism, 72, 94.
Peel, Sir Robert, 139.
Pepys, 1, 2.
Percival's "Account of Ceylon," 21.
Poets, fare of, 88.
Poets, licence of, 51.
Poore, Dr., 61, 100, 129, 133.
Poorson, Dr., 80.
Pope, Dr. Joseph, 51, 142.
Prentice, Archibald, 40.
_Preston Temperance Advocate_, 37, 39.
Preston Temperance Society, 34.
Priests as tea-gatherers, 25.
Public-houses, 10.
Quaker School, 13.
Queen, the, 71.
Race, deterioration of the, 109.
Railway stations, tea at, 56, 60.
Read's _Weekly Journal_, 8.
"Recreative Science," 50.
Rhind, Dr., 22.
Ritchie, Leitch, 143.
Rolleston, Professor, 118.
Rose, Sir Philip, 78.
Royalty, influence of, 6.
Rugge, Thomas, 4.
Rum-punch, 80.
Russia, tea in, 19, 56, 57, 59.
Scandal, 119.
Scotland, 84.
Servants, use of tea by, 8.
Sheldrick, R. N., 46.
Sherlock, F., 81.
Siam, tea in, 50.
Sigmond, Dr., 47, 53, 59.
Sims, G. R., 80, 95, 100.
Sinclair, Dr., 117.
Smith, Dr. Edward, 15, 18, 30, 61.
Soldiers, tea for, 67, 68, 69, 70.
Solly, Rev. Henry, 97.
South Sea Bubblers, 6.
Southey, 79.
Spirits, value of, 68.
_St. James's Gazette_, 128.
Stables, Dr. Gordon, 83.
Stimulants, necessity of, 129.
Swift, Dean, 6.
Tea a cause of intemperance, 116.
Tea a poison, 111, 117.
Tea adulterated, 135.
Tea and cake, 9.
Tea as a revolutionary agent, 47.
Tea as a stimulant, 79.
Tea, benefits of, 3, 16, 47, 70, 99, 102, 106, 130, 131.
Tea, cold, 78.
Tea, consumption of, 16.
Tea, cultivation of, 18, 19, 22.
Tea, evils of, 61, 82, 98, 107, 111, 114.
Tea-farms, 22, 25.
Tea-fights, 45.
Tea for invalids, 64.
Tea-gardens, 9.
Tea in the harvest-field, 75.
Tea-meeting fare, 45, 46.
Tea-meeting hymns, 41, 42, 43.
Tea-meetings, 33.
Tea, methods of curing, 28.
Tea, methods of making, 37, 49, 58.
Teapots, 33, 53.
Tea, price of, 4, 11, 58.
Tea-tasting, 31.
Tea, taxation of, 135, 142, 148, 151.
Tea unnecessary, 99.
Tea _versus_ beer, 74, 128.
Tel-el-Kebir, 69.
Terry, Miss Ellen, 97.
Thompson, Henry, 14.
Toasts, 7.
"Tom's Coffee-house," 11.
Trusler's, Mr., daughter, 9.
Twining, Thomas, 10.
Tyerman, Rev. L., 113.
Urn, tea, condemned, 53.
Vegetarian Society, 46.
Walford, E., 10.
Waller, Edmund, 6.
Wesley, John, 83, 113.
Weston, Edward Payson, 74.
Weston, Miss, 71.
Whisky, 142.
Whitby, 11.
Willes, Admiral, 71.
Williams, Dr. Wells, 25.
Williams, Mattieu, 108.
Williams, Mrs., 81.
Wolseley, Sir Garnet, 69.
Women, employment of, 23, 26, 27.
Women, tea injurious to, 61, 109, 119, 120, 132.
Wordsworth, 88.
BROWN AND POLSON'S CORN FLOUR
_FOR THE NURSERY_.
In ordinary cases the only suitable food for young infants is milk.
So soon, however, as some solid addition to the liquid food becomes
desirable, there is nothing better for the purpose than BROWN AND
POLSON'S CORN FLOUR. Its principal function is to supply heat. It
also contributes to the formation of fat, so essential to life at all
stages, but especially to the earlier.
* * * * *
BROWN AND POLSON'S CORN FLOUR
_FOR THE FAMILY TABLE_.
In the hands of an accomplished cook there is no known limit to the
variety of delicate and palatable dishes which may be produced from
BROWN AND POLSON'S CORN FLOUR.
It is equally susceptible of plain and simple treatment for ordinary
domestic purposes, and one of its chief recommendations is the facility
with which it may be prepared.
Boiled with milk, and with or without the addition of sugar and
flavouring, it may be ready for the table within fifteen minutes; or,
poured into a mould and cooled, it becomes in the course of an hour
a Blanc-mange, which, served with fresh or preserved fruit, will be
acceptable at any meal.
Add sultanas, raisins, marmalade, or jam of any kind, and in about the
same time it is made into an excellent Baked Pudding. To which may be
added:--Take care to boil with milk, when so required, for _not less
than eight minutes_.
* * * * *
BROWN AND POLSON'S CORN FLOUR
_FOR THE SICK ROOM_.
The properties of BROWN AND POLSON'S CORN FLOUR are identical with
those of arrowroot, and it is in every respect equal to the costliest
qualities of that article.
The uses of arrowroot in the sick-room are not only matter of
tradition, but of every-day experience, and there can be but few
persons who are not acquainted with its uses as an important ally to
medical treatment.
BROWN AND POLSON'S CORN FLOUR claims to serve the same purposes, with
at least equal acceptance and at considerably less cost, and therefore
offers the facility of freer use to a larger public.
It has received from medical and scientific authorities the highest
testimonials to its purity and serviceableness; it is largely used in
Hydropathic and other Institutions throughout the Kingdom, and its
export to all foreign parts has long given it a world-wide reputation.
GEO. LAMPARD,
OF
44, BISHOPSGATE STREET,
AND
_13, KING WILLIAM STREET, E.C._,
SENDS FREE BY POST
SAMPLES AND PRICE LIST
OF VERY CHOICE
TEAS AND COFFEES.
ESTABLISHED 160 YEARS.
* * * * *
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
Minor punctuation errors repaired.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_
p37 where those cannot be bad. replaced with
where those cannot be had.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Tea and Tea Drinking" ***
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