Danger of Stewed Tea.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11, 17 March 1906, Page 11

Danger of Stewed Tea.

Dr. W. Scott Tebb, public analyst to the borough of Southwark, has been making an inquiry on behalf of the Borough Council into the constituents of tea, to ascertain what injurious ingredients are present, and in his report he contrasts the tea drinking records of Great Britain and other countries. In pounds per head per annum the figures are as follows: Great Britain 6.1 Russia 0.93 Germany 0.12 Holland 1.48 France 006 United States 1.09 The only countries which approach or exceed Great Britain as tea drinkers are her colonies. Western Australia is easily first with 10.17, and all the other divisions of Australia exceed Great Britain. ‘“We drink far too much tea,” concludes Dr. Tebb. He calculates that each person in Great Britain, on an average, takes a daily dose of 3.6 grains of alkaloid and 9.7 grains of tannin. This means that the average tea drinker takes half as much alkaloid and nearly as

much tannin as the maximum allowed by th? British pliarinae<>|>oeiu for an oc casional dose. And of course many tin u sands of people drink a great deal more than the average dose. ‘‘Over infused” tea is the chief danger. Dr. Tebb points out that th.• <|U<‘* ion has been raised in Ireland vlull.er the excessive drinking of strongly infused tea has not had something to do with the increase of insanity in that country. Tiie etr.*ct of drinking tea “stewed” as it is in Ireland and made a staple arti cle of dietary, is to produce dyspeps a. which finds to states of mental depression. The reports of many doctors at. Irish asylums as to the evil effects of excessive tea drinking are most alarming.