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Clutha Leader, Volume XXIV, Issue 1223, 10 December 1897, Page 3

CEYLON AND ITS TEA. In those days, when the Federation of the Empire is so much talked about, and the wisdom of doing our trading with countries over which the Union Jack flics is so much emphasised, it may not he out of place to refer to the leading industry of Ceylon from the aforesaid point of view. Tho tea industry is one of marvellous growth, as far as (Jeylon is concerned. From small beginnings it has grown to immense proportion?, and its progress has been by prodigious strides. As an illustration, it may be stated that the imports of Ceylon tea into the United Spates for the year 1894 totalled 4,700,0001 b, while in 1896 it amounted to ro less than 9,500,0001 b ! An increase of nearly 5,000,000 ib in two years shows that Ceylon tea is most steadily gaining in favor, even in America, where the China tea has so firm a hold. This is largely due to the undoubted purity and higher quality of the British grown product. Mr William Mackenzie, the world's representative of the Ceylon Tea Growers' Association — a society formed by the tea planters of Ceylon, to further their interests throughout the world (which gentleman, by the way, is a brother of the Dunedin manager of the Hondai-Lanka Tea Company)— makes some very forcible statements on this point. Speaking in Pittsburg (U.S. America) he says : — A given quantity of pure Ceylon tea will give twice the quantity of liquid tea of the same strength as that of China or Japan or any other country. Teas of China and Japan arc colored and adulterated by Prussian blue, plumbago, and talcum, but the growth and manufacture of Ceylon tea is conducted under skilled management, and is prepared for the market in the most careful and cleanly manner. Whenever Ceylon tea is introduced it become.? popular. The favor that it has met with in this country is indicated by the very large increase to the amount exported to the United States direct. During the first fifteen clays of January last year the amount" was 10,000 pounds ; during the correrponding period this year it rose to 64,000 pounds. 'The fact is,' said Mr M'Kenzie, ' no person who has become aocustomed to Ceylon tea can be in* duced to return to lea grown in any other country. The leaf that is pure is healthful ; it aids digest ior. instead of impairing it and producing dyspepsia, as is so often the case where inferior tea or coffee is used.' Though the cost of Ceylon tea is greater originally than any ether tea, ifc is sold as cheaply as any other v tea, and as it has twice the strength, if. will be soon that it is twice a<s cheap. One pound will go as far as two pounds of other tea, and one pound will go as far four pounds of cotfee.— Extract from Ceylon Observer. In view of such statements, coming from so eminent an authority, it seems superflons to still further urge the claims of Ceylon tea. The invigorating nature of the rich liquor drawn from the mountaingrown leaf is amply recognised by medical men, while the fact that the whole ptocess of planting, picking, and preparing the tea for the market is carried on by British subjects, under the direction of Scotchmen and Englishmen (the former race largely in the, ascendant), who have made the matter a study for years, ought to convince the most sceptical of the wisdom evinced j in discarding the tea of China and Japan. Enormous sums of money have been sunk by Britishers in Ceylon, and that hard-headed determination which characterises the race has left no stone unturned, which either skill or money could effect, to bring to perfection the staple product of the Moonstone Isle. A great deal is talked of blended teas, but as a matter of fact a really high-class Ceylon tea stands in no need of such treatment, though inferior teas would naturally profit by being fortified by the admixture of a higher grade article. The teas imported by the HondaiLanka Company, of Dunedin, are those of the Ceylon Co-operative Tea Planters' Association, who own large mountain plantations, and whose teas are all shipped in original boxes and packets, guaranteed unblended, under the title of • Maharajah.' To those who have not yet made the acquaintance of this high-class beverage we give a friendly h : nt to make a trial of the pure Ceylon tea, confident that while, their palate is thereby much gratified their pockets are but inconsiderably lightened, the Ceylon being in the long run the cheapest tea going. — [Advt.]

To the deaf and those troubled with Noises in the Head or other Aural troubles. Dr Nicholson of London, the world famed Aural Specialist and Inventor of Artificial Ear Drums, has jusfc issued the lOO^n edition of his illustrated and descriptive book on deafness and aural Troubles. This book may bo had from Mr Colin Campbell, 160 Adelaide Road, Wellington, N.Z. Mr Campbell was cured of his deafness by Dv Nicholson's system, and takes pleasure in spreading the news of the great specialist in New Zealand. A little book on the cure of Rheumatism, Corpulence, Lumbago, and Indigestion by the same author, may be had from Mr Campbell, also free, 340