"TCHA"-TAY-TEA.

Lake County Press, Issue 2137, 27 September 1906, Page 7

"TCHA"-TAY-TEA.

How many of us can assert offhand when and where tea first appeared in dietetic history ?

It. seems that tea did not originate in China, though the Chines,'; have the credit of discovering and putting it, into regular cultivation. A Chinese legend relates that it was brought to China about 500 A.D. by one Djarma, a native of India. Do Candolle, the famous Swiss botanist, said he had certainly traced its use in China, before the year 519 A.D. Vet. cultivation of tea itself did not begin, says Sir William Hunter, till almost within the memory of living man. if being fust grown in I7B<t at Sibpur, near Calcutta, as a mere garden curiosity, By one Colonel Kyd, who had got some seed from Canton.

No European commerce with China was possible till after 1107, when the explorations of the great Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama opened up the seaway- between Europe and the Orient. The Portuguese began to trade with China abOUt tssl6, and were followed by the Spanish and the Butch, the British putting in no appearance till! more than a century afterwards. It was the Butch who, in 1610, first brought tea to Europe, and during the following four or five decades it was seen in England on rare occasions, but scarcely as a trade commodity, for when sold if realised <£(> and even £lO per lb., money,, too, being "clearer" in thoso days than now. It is strange to realise that Chaucer and Shakespeare and Bacon knew nothing of tea, but, like Queen Elizabeth's maids of honour, breakfasted and otherwise refreshed themselves with small beer, ale ad. and all the other beverages which the good housewives of that period generally brewed at home !

Tea, once tasted, made rapid conquest, By 1600 tin- East India Company hail opened a regular trade in China tea.

In 1728 the cheapest black tea was sold at 13s. per pound, and tho cheapest, "green" at L2s. The 'best' prices, however, still ruled from II to JCI Ids. These must, have been about the prices prevailing when Coilley Cibbcr, the dramatist., thus apostrophized it in one of his plays :

"Tea ! thou soft, thou sober, sage, and venerable liquid ; thou female-tongue-running, smile-smoothing, heart-opening, wink-tipping cordial''' The theologian poet. Dr. Voting, at the same period describing the -'airs and graces" brought in by the new fashion :

How two red lips affected zephyrs blow, To cool the bohea and inflame tho beau, While one white linger and a thumb conspire To lift, the cup and make the world admin,- !

Tea was not seriously cultivated in India till the middle of last century Hundreds of thousands of acres there are now devoted to its cultivation. Cev lon did not really enter into competition til! about ISS.i. when the timely introduction of tea practically saved Ihe island from financial ruin, due to the "leaf disease fungus," which destroyed all hopes ol the coffee crops on which it had hitherto prospered.