Intemperance in Tea.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 7926, 6 October 1904, Page 7

Intemperance in Tea.

It will soothe the people who are not Prohibitionists to learn that the Cornmiefcee of Physical Degeneration in the Old Country has " attaoked tea." The Committee's report is being widely quoted on this Bnbject, but the attack is really not upon tea proper, bus upon tea improper. The paragraph need have no terrors for the sensible tea-drinker. It is as follows :—

The question of tea as an article of general consumption requires a little further notice. In a statement furnished to the committee relating to the physical condition of the working-class children in Ancoats, one of the poorest districts in Manchester, these words are used: "Another fruitful and one of the mostunsuspected causes of deterioration lies in the long-ingrained, habit, of teadrinking at breakfast and. other times in the factories and foundries of the city. Tea-drinking,if it really1 were so, might not be harmful, but unfortunately the mixture drunk can hardly be called tea at all. More frequently than not boiling wator ia poured on to .too large an amount of poor tea leaves, and is left to stand until the tea has become almost a stew; and this dark and nasty mixture is drunk, sometimes three or four times a day, by hundreds of young lads, setting up frequently various form 3 of varicocele, and ia responsible for several hundred evils."

Tea intemperance is said to be rampant in the poorer districts of all the great cities. Sometimes the evil is said to be the cause of the weakness and anaemia amongst poor women, but is only one of the causes. Tea is so easily prepared and so " comforting" that in the houses of some families the pot is always on the hob, and the aim of the housewife seems to be always to extract as much. ..substance as possible from the j eaves. There is a growing partiality for a thick brown liquid which is certainly not wholesome, and of late the increased taxation in the Mother Oountry has led to the widespread use of the lowest-class teas. The appreciation of fine tea is said to be declining everywhere, except in Ireland, where even the poorer classes demand a good quality. But a form of tea-idiocy is reported to exist in Ireland as well as in England. There is some deleterious. substance in tea, though the doctors are not agreed quite as to what it is. Tannin is popularly credited with being the poison, but one expert is quoted as saying that "it is one of the commoneafi ingredients in nature and cannot readily, even i£ consumed to' excess, become harmful." Another expert declares that a slight excess of tannin acts as a direct stimulant to the digestion. Cold or iced tea is naid to have none of the harmful qualities of the hot brew.