Expose This Plot!

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28536, 15 March 1958, Page 3

Expose This Plot!

[From the “Manchester Guardian.”]

Englishmen i have long been pouring their hot water or milk on liquid or crystals derived from coffee, and enjoy the drink that results. Coffee, after all, in spite of its' three' centuries of acclimatisation, is still an exotic beverage, and can be tampered with. But tea is sacred. Many of us accepted “compo” tea during the war; then we had Sir Winston Churchill’s calls for sacrifice to inspire us. But in peace-time even tea-bags are not tolerated. Our tea ceremony yields nothing to the Japanese in reverence, although it may in dignity. The pot is almost apotheosised; it must be warmed and cosseted, and demands its own special spoonful. But now, as our Colombo correspondent reports, there is a movement in Ceylon to subvert the cult. Successful attempts have apparently been made to extract the essences of the leaf and crystallise them, so that tea making will be reduced to the status of mixing a dose of salts. To try

i to make Englishmen drink the : result of this inhuman chemistry, i even if it were as fragrant as the : tea drunk a in the courts of the • Chinese heaven, is like asking them to build houses with pipes • that do not freeze, or to share . a warm room with a radiator ; instead of a chilly one with an : open fire. The falling price of i Ceylon’s chief export is indeed i a serious threat to the island’s ; economy, and all her friends will . wish her success in meeting it. ! But Englishmen's patience must , not be tried too far, or they will i look for the most sinister motives. ; Correspondents have been making • our flesh creep with their stories . of growing Marxist influence in • Ceylon; are the Reds behind crystallised tea, too? The suspicion j is all the more plausible because ! both Chairman Mao Tse-tung and : Mr Khrushchev both rule nations • of tea-drinkers. They know what ! strikes, strife, and domestic dis- ’ cord could be 'promoted by under- ; mining the tea routine.