The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 1894. TEA THE INTOXICANT.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 223, 21 March 1895, Page 2

The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 1894. TEA THE INTOXICANT.

The London correspondent of the Canterbury Times writes that the Spectator has fallen foul of the English method of brewing tea. Objection is' made to the fact that we stew the leaf. The Russians are greater tea-drinkers than the English people, but they would never touch the horrible black draught which is our delight. They copy the Chinaman's method in that they never allow the leaves to stew but by constantly replenishing a tiny pot from the same samovar derive nothing but a slight infusion. The English Qiethods are brewing, stewing, and disti2Jing. Into capacious pots < are put enough tea and boiling water for unlimited cups, and allow it to stew for an unlimited space of time enveloped in an abominable quilt called a " tea-cosy," consequently all the deleterious elements that may exist in the leaf are brought out into the tea cup. " But after all," says the Spectator, "the question of temperance in teadrinking is a purely relative one. Even with regard to ' tea drunkenness,' as the Americans call it, though it may seem that ignorance of the properties of tea and the right method of preparing it are responsible for much of the suffering that excess involves, it does not follow that a better way would mean a cessation of the evil.

Tea-drunkards — people who drink tea to excess, and suffer while they drink — are not to be deterred by knowledge of their danger. Like other confirmed inebriates, they drink for the sake of the after intoxication, and not the pve- ! sent pleasure." The Spectator's warning is indeed quite useless, for, like the medical papers which have cried out on the subject for years past, it is nonexistent so far as nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand housewives are concerned. And the odd ones will surely take no heed of the Spectator's babble. Their mothers made tea in such and such a way, and their way must be right. You may buy " infusers " ; they will be put aside in a few days, in favour of the " cosy " and hob. All this is very dreadful, but we would like to say one little word in excuse for the tea-drinkers in New Zealand. They consume an infusion made from a better leaf than the people do in England, and, although they may not follow the admirable plan of the Russians with thtir samovar, which is nothing more than the common hotwater urn, yet they do not go to the extremes of the people in the Old Country, because it is not necessary in their case to " stew or distil " the last agonising flavour from the leaves for the sake of economy. We are free to admit that tea drinking in excess is a vice, and a serious one, but still — people will drink tea and — we do not blame them. Of course it is disgusting to be disillusionised, and taught to believe that " the cup which cheers — but not inebriates" is an abominable intoxicant, but in a scientific age like the present, we must put up with these sort of things.