TEA.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2587, 9 February 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

TEA.

It is amazing the. amount of ignorance which is displayed on the subject of tea. Nine people out of ten have no palate for it, and. indeed, a first class tea-taster is so rare ' in the trade," that he commands a better salary than an Under-Secretary of State. A wealthy host will spend liberally on his wine for a very small dinner party, while his wife will calmly ask them to drink tea in his drawingroom which would be dear at half-a-crownapound. Inßussiaitis by no means uncommon to p-»y 15s. a pound for firstclass caravan tea, and there are places in London where it can be bought. In China the native grandees will even pay much more, and in one district of Japan it ia affirmed that tea has been produced which was rated at sixteen dollars the pound. No doubt these are fancy figures Such ' chops' do not appear in the market, and it is well known that the first and consequently finest gro.vth of tea never leaves China, being reserved for the Imperial household. This, at least, is the current legend, though we may safely infer that the real reason is that there is no sale for such expensive brands among the outer barbarians. Actually, two shillings and threepence per pound was the highest price at which any tea was valued for export from China last year. Nor need anyone hanker after such luxuries since very excellent tea can be had at the cost of three or four shillings tho pound. But the complaint of the importer is tint so thoroughly lias public taste been damaged by the retailers, who offer an excellent family Boliea at eighteen pence, that

it pays better to go on pandering to the public ignorance. What is worst of all, it is affirmed that the chief patrons of cheap teas are not the poor. Wealthy customers lust after the stuff at two shillings and less, while the Irish pea-ant ami the Scottisli crofters will often pay double that figure for what experience tells them is really cheaper in the end. The Chinese have for years been steadily satisfying the demand, until they imagine that John Hull will take anything, so that while the finest wines of every country are sent to England, the worst teas are steadily despatched to our porta. The consequence is that the China tea trade is so steadly falling off that in a recent consular report it is mentioned that the general belief among the merchants is that iu time it will have practically ceased to exist. On the other hand, the imports of Assam and Ceylon tea have enormously increased, mainly owing to the fact that the leaf is in thesj countries more carefully grown, "fathered, and prepared by means of machinery, while the Chinese continue to manipulate in a manner not altogether in keeping with modern prejudices against uncleanliness. It would nevertheless, he unfair to the tea trade to compare the pries paid some years ago and those which at present rule and conclude that the article had deteriorated in the same ratio. This is nut re-.lly the case. The three-shilling tea, of to-day is quite as good as that at four sliillingsa few years ago; the difference is that the ruinous competition in the business has abridged the profits of the merchants to the amount given. At the same time, the temptation to try and retrieve themselves by sub stituting an inferior brand is often inevitable, and in the case of the cheaper ones is, we fear not resisted at all. The first tea ever sold in England ranged from £6 to £10 per lb., and in 1658 it was advertised at from los. to OOs the pound. Two years later Mr. Pepys seems to have tried it for the first time, having in September l(s(3osent fora cup of " tea," a Chinese drink of which I never drunk before.' In 1564 the East India Company presented tho King witli two pound two ounces of ' tea' which cost forty shillings the pound, and subsequently with another parcel which was valued at fifty shilling the pound. During the reign of William and Mary a duty of five shillings, was levied on every pound imported, and at the close of this ctntury the average price was sixteen shillings the pound. This was the rate at which I)r Johnson drtiuk his dozen cups a day of the leaf at which Jenas Han ray railed so vigorously. ' Men,'said the old traveller, the courageous man who introduced umbrellas into England, ' seem to have lost their stature and comeliness, and women their beauty. What Shakespeare ascribes to ■ the concealment of love is in this age is ; more frequently occasioned by the use of tea.' It may afford some consolation to 1 those who imagine that this is emphaticL ally the age of roguery to learn that in 1777 an Act was required to prohibit the counterfeiting of tea with sloe, liquorice, ' ash, or elder leaves ; and then in 1784, 1 when Johnson finally bade farewell to 1 the teapot, the East India Company esti--1 mated that over twelve million pounds of the leaf were every year either counterfeited or smuggled into Great Britain. Then the duty was lowered, and the loss to the revenue recouped by the house tax , still in operation. The moral of all this is that there is no more buying Pekoe or Sonchong of worth at eighteenpence a ' pound than there is of purchasing Imj perial Tokay or Johnnesberger at the price of the acrid claret which is popu- | larly known by the name of the late , Prime Minister. But India and Ceylon, f and Java, and Hankow, and Fouchow have still plenty of good leaf for the rea- , sonable man who acts on the principle j that the labourer is worthy of his hire.— j London paper.