THE CUP OF TEA.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 27 March 1926, Page 17

THE CUP OF TEA.

WILL IT EVER BE CHEAPER? Gone are the days when a reasonably good tea for family use was obtainable at Is 6d per lb, when a tea hat would “do" might even be had _ ! or less. Tea is easily double the price it used to be, and the rise is one of the results of the world having been at war. Consumption appears to be steadily >vertaking production, and when that is the case, with tea as with any other •ommodity, the price keeps rising, statistically the position of tea is exeedingly strong. Of course, there are :nd will be fluctuations due to various lircumstances, but these will not re•itore to the Dominion the eighteen>enny quality of a few years ago. The price for that article is somewhere about 3s, and may bo more. But no ess tea is being drunk to-day than, say, fen or twelve years ago; probably more, and the same is the case in other parts of the world. Mr L. J. Bardley, of Health and Co., Colombo, is at present travelling through the Dominion and in course of conversation with a representative of the Post gave it as his opinion that there had been and was likely iu continue a steady increase in the price of tea in general. There would be seasonal variations in price, but the move was upwards all the time. The explanation was to be found in the opo rati on of supply and demand: the vni-hi was drinking more tea than was being grown. Ceylon was approaching ■’<> maximum production, if it had not i cached it; India could do more, providing the labour problem could be satisfactorily solved, but of that there •Vi ,-j, little prospect; Java was growing ■ nd disposing of large quantities, and statistically was already a heavy pro•necr; Sumatra was accounting for a l ijge output. Still the demand for tea was increasing beyond production, speaking generally. The Russian demand, which would be a powerful factor in increasing the consumption, had to be taken into account.' America's demand, as the result of the expenditure

of £IOO,OOO on propaganda by Indian am! Ceylon interests was replacing green tea with black as a beverage, so that ihe expenditure of £20,000, a year for five years oil this campaign to create an American demand for Indian and Ceylon teas was bearing fruit. It all added to the consumptive demand, however, so the prospect of growers not. knowing what to do with their tea was rather remote. There was a source of supply of which verv little had as yet been heard. It was Africa. Mr Bradley described how a great acreage of eminently suitable land had been taken up in the Kenya Colony and put down in tea. Experts who had examined the soil and made thorough analyses of its constituents held that if this African soil were in Colombo it would be good for a yield of 8001 b of tea instead of the usual 500 11, per acre. One could not say for certain what the effect of this African tea wculd be on the world’s markets, for the plants took five years to come into commercial maturity, although, the soil bo-ihg so good in Kenya, it might take less. In any case, there was no likelihood of tea being as cheap as it usedto be. Even if the labour trouble in India were satisfactorily settled, there would still be higher costs of production than formerly, and to them the cost of manuring in many plantations would hat" io be taken into consideration.