CONCERNING TEA.

North Otago Times, 22 May 1909, Page 1 (Supplement)

CONCERNING TEA.

^ — ITS RISE AND PROGRESS

The first Known tea came from China, and, though the plant was subsequently found growing in Assam, it io probable that it was brought thither by traders from China. Tea was used as a beverage in China as far back as the year 510 A.D., but it did not appear in England until the seventeenth century, when small quantities were brought by merchantmen, and when , it fetched from £5 to £lO a pound. i That inimitablo chronicler, Lcpys, says, in an entry in his diary for the I year 1662—"H0m0; there find my wife making of tea, a drink which J Mr. Felling, the Tothcrcnry, tells her is good for her cold and her defluxions," so that in the early days it would seem that tea was regarded hero as a medicine ralhcr than as a luxury. About 1740, o\v- . ing to the increased consignments I brought by the ships of the East I India Company. j THE PRICE OF TEA

I had fallen from 245. to 7s, per . j pound, according to quality. : Tea was planted in Ceylon as re- . ccntly as the early forties, and in - India about the same time, and the success of these plantations dealt a great blow,to the trade in China tea, Ccjlon, like .Southern India, knows no winter, and tea can be cultivated there all the year round. In China it was grown in small fields and on the hillsides, and the growers sold if green in the local markets, where it was bought up by the agents .of the Chinese capitalists. In India i and Ceylon it was grown i'n large ■ gardens by English planters, and the shrubs wcro taller. The Ceylon and : Indian teas were so much cheaper than tho China that TEA-DRINKING, from being a luxury for tho wealthy, gradually became, when in course of time the heavy duties on tea were lightened, a pleasure possible for the poor, . Tho consumption of wines in mid-dle-class households was lessened by j tho substitution of tea for port and j Madiera on the occasion of afternoon ! calls, and this was a great innova- 1 tion, for the prevalence of afternoon i wine-drinking half-a-century ago made casual hospitality needlessly expensive. Whether the cheapening of tea and the consequent ovcr-indul- , gence in it at all hours of the day, ;is for tho good of the community 'at large, may be doubted, but it

will not affect ': THE CONSUMPTION OF TEA", which has become, within the last fifty or sixty years, a national habit. Women have always been regarded as the greatest tea-drinkers, but tho steady growth of the male teadrinker is a phenomenon of fairly recent appearance. Formerly nicn disliked a forced attendance at the tea-table, where their presence was chiefly desired for purposes of porterage, but now things are changed, and, from getting rid of the contents of a small cup in a perfunctory way, the husband, son, or brother asserts his Interest in tho tea equipage by insisting on a large cup being pro* vldtd for Wm,—'-'Telegraph."