THE VIRTUES OF THE LEAF.
Dr. Lettsom, in a work published over a century since, avers that the
infusion of Tea possesses two peculiarities; the first, a sedative
quality, and the next, considerable stringency, by which the relaxing
power is corrected so that the solids become strengthened and braced.
Indeed, this writer goes so far as to pronounce Tea far preferable to
any other known vegetable infusion, if not drank too hot or in too
copious quantities, asserting that “if we take into consideration its
known enlivening energy, our attachment to it will appear to be owing
to its superiority in taste and effects to most other vegetables.”
Dr. Edward Smith speaks of “the cup that cheers but not inebriates” as
being a potent agent, and as increasing the quantity of carbonic acid
emitted by the lungs and the quantity of air inspired, while at the
same time it gives greater depth and freedom to the respiration. “It is
chiefly in its power,” he remarks, “to increase the respiratory process
that it acts so favourably, and in so doing the transformation of
starchy and fatty food is promoted.” Then he shows its vast advantages
to the poor, by remarking: “In the dietaries of the poor, where the
meal must consist chiefly of bread, a substance not particularly
savoury, nor digested with great rapidity, the warm tea enables the
recipient more readily to masticate and swallow the dry bread, or the
bread with very little fat upon it, and so by its action to assist
digestion.”
The eminent Dr. Parkes avers that Tea possesses a decidedly stimulative
and restorative action on the nervous system, while, at the same time,
it obviates succeeding depression. This writer regards Tea as a most
useful article in cases of fever, when administered in the form of a
cold, weak solution, and as being of great service to gouty subjects,
and to those of a rheumatic tendency (especially such as labour under
lithic acid diathesis) when drunk without sugar and with little milk.
Tea has been known to save life in cases of poisoning by tartar-emetic,
the tannin being the active agent. Dr. Lewis’s testimony also goes to
support the medicinal importance of Tea. He mentions how it strengthens
the stomach and intestines, is good against indigestion, nausea,
and diarrhœa, refreshes the spirit in heaviness and sleepiness, and
counteracts the operation of inebriating liquors.
Some men of mark in their day were notorious for their Tea-drinking
predilections. Dr. Johnson himself may be fairly set down as a
Tea-gourmet. Then returning to more modern times, see how the genial
Leigh Hunt bursts forth into rapture when describing the virtues of the
beneficent plant, free from the cunning transformation practised upon
it by unprincipled traders. Surely this gifted writer must have had
a cup of Messrs. Horniman and Co.’s spécialité served to him when he
could elaborate upon it thus: “It was not green tea; it was not black
tea; neither too young, nor too old; not unpleasing with astringency
on the one hand, nor with the insipid, half-earthy taste of decayed
vegetable matter on the other; it was tea in its most perfect state,
full charged with aroma, which, when it was opened, diffused its
fragrance through the whole apartment, putting all other perfumes to
shame.... Oh heavens! to sip that most exquisite cup of delight, was
bliss almost too great for earth; a thousand years of rapture all
concentrated into the space of a minute, as if the joy of all the
world had been skimmed for my peculiar drinking, I should rather say
imbibing, for to have swallowed that liquid like an ordinary beverage,
without tasting every drop, would have been sacrilege.”
Professor James F. W. Johnston likewise bears testimony to the value
of this tropical beverage. He remarks: “In the life of most persons
a period arrives when the stomach no longer digests enough of the
ordinary elements of food to make up for the natural daily waste of the
bodily substance. The size and weight of the body, therefore, begin
to diminish more or less perceptibly. At this period tea comes in as
a medicine to arrest the waste, to keep the body from falling away so
fast, and thus to enable the less energetic powers of digestion still
to supply as much as is needed to repair the wear and tear of the
solid tissues.”
Of course the chemical value of Tea as a beverage depends upon the
presence of volatile oil, theine, tannin, and gluten--the four
substances forming its most important ingredients--and the proportions
in which these exist. If Tea be not genuine, or if it undergoes the
artificial process of colouring, its character and efficacy become
proportionately impaired. It is unfortunately too true that the
market is glutted with Tea--which is either not Tea at all, or else
is excessively adulterated. On the testimony of the House of Commons,
“millions of pounds of sloe, liquorice, and ash-tree leaves, are every
year mixed with Chinese Teas for England.” It is well known that the
leaves of the Charrapal, a Californian bush, are largely exported to
China, when they return packed under the title of Tea. A startling
exposure was made a few years since, of the tea-rubbish styled “Finest
New Season Kaisow,” and “Fine Oanfa Congou,” sold in bond at 1¼d. to
1¾d. per lb. Upon analysis, the former was found to contain an enormous
amount of mineral matter, chiefly iron filings; while the latter
proved a mixture of redried tea-leaves, straw, fragments of matting,
rice-husks, willow leaves, and the excrement of silkworms. The “Maloo
Mixture,” likewise, once gained an unenviable notoriety, as did the
“Extra Fine Moyune Gunpowder” put up for sale by auction in Mincing
Lane, and in which Dr. Letheby discovered over 40 per cent. of iron
filings and 19 per cent. of silica.
Tea is adulterated in two ways. The foreign dealers first practise
their arts upon it by having recourse to dried leaves, and by
“facing”--a process which necessitates the use of Prussian blue,
silica, gypsum, plumbago, lamp-black, ferruginous earth, and other
abominations. Mr. Fortune, in his interesting work, reveals the whole
secret. Upon reading his graphic account of how Tea is elaborated for
the European market, one almost turns aghast! And with good reason,
as there might be ample cause to suspect “death in the pot.” Indeed,
the people of China are themselves disgusted at the tricks of traders,
who carry on their fraudulent practices without concealment. A Chinese
journal thus gives expression to the public sentiment: “The wonder is
that such stuff (referring to redried and recoloured leaves) should
be suffered to be manufactured, much less to be shipped as a lawful
export, for Chinese law expressly prohibits the re-manipulation of Tea
that has once been used, on the obvious and common-sense principle that
such a trade is necessarily, in its very essence, fraudulent. Yet, in
the face of this well-known maxim, it is one of the thousand proofs
which we have of the utter rottenness of the present administration,
that all round the settlement, in every convenient open space, large
quantities of what is termed, with ominous propriety, the ‘mixture,’
lie exposed to the sun at noon-day; in some cases within a hundred
yards of the mixed court yamen. And not only so, but there are
establishments, well known to the police, where the mixture is fired,
leaded, packed, sold, and dispatched for shipment; and experience has
shown that it is useless to expect conviction, under Chinese law, from
a Chinese magistrate.”
The same journal, referring to a peculiar kind of willow which grows
abundantly in the country, the leaves of which are utilised by Tea
manufacturers, observes: “One needs not the expensive craft of the
cha-sze to know how neatly a little skilful manipulation, and a little
heat applied _secundum artem_, can transform these willow leaves into
genuine and delicate tea leaves. Whether the mercantile result be
intended to astonish the palates of old ladies in London or Glasgow, or
to pass as genuine Souchong with skippers, who have little knowledge of
Tea, we know not; but the fact remains, that the trade thrives well and
pays.
“Nevertheless, there is still good and pure Tea produced in China, and
merchants in London who import it in an unadulterated condition, albeit
a very large per centage of the 188,000,000 lbs. annually consumed
in Great Britain is spurious. One mercantile Firm in particular have
gained a wide and well-deserved reputation for the purity and excellent
character of their importations. I refer with pleasure to Messrs.
Horniman and Co., London, who for nearly forty years have assiduously
laboured to supply the public with both green and black Tea, free from
all mineral facing powder. As what passes through the Wormwood-street
Warehouses to their Agents all over the country is subjected to no
deteriorating and deleterious manipulation in China, its perfect purity
can implicitly be relied upon. The Chinese letter which accompanied
the first shipment, by Messrs. Horniman, of Tea into England, is quite
original and unique.”
The translation reads thus:--
“The Flourishing Farm.--This is truly the very best Tea, prepared with
additional labour and free from colouring matter. The educated (or
experienced) merchant, who is competent to consider it, will please to
take notice of its clear and genuine quality. We are honoured by your
good orders, and shall proceed at once to the packing.”
The testimony afforded by several eminent analytical authorities in
favour of Messrs. Horniman’s importations is so satisfactory that
nothing further can well be desired. The earliest of those documents
is from Dr. Andrew Ure, F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry, who declares
that upon chemical and microscopic examination of the samples taken
from the bonded warehouses, he “found them (both black and green) to
be perfectly free from all extraneous colouring matter, and in every
respect genuine Tea.”
Professor Ure further observes:--“The characteristic appearance of
your green Tea, namely the dull olive hue, is unmistakably different
to the bright blue tint of the ordinary green Teas of commerce,
which is artificially imparted. This particular feature offers a
perfect safeguard for the purity of the Tea, in contrast with such
sophisticated Teas as I have sometimes been called upon to examine
professionally for the Honourable Board of Excise, and which were
coated with various powders that rendered them more or less unwholesome
for use as an alimentary beverage.”
Dr. Arthur Hill Hassall, Analyst of the County Sanitary Commission,
and a well known writer and authority on dietetics, after minutely
describing the tests to which he subjected the Tea submitted to him
for analysis, concludes in the following words:--“These investigations
enable me confidently to assume that the consumers of Tea, now having
fairly the choice of both the sophisticated and the pure, will not be
slow in choosing between the wholesome natural kinds and those which
are ‘got up’ for appearance, and in order to realise higher prices
through their defects being hidden or glazed over, with the powdered
colours employed.” The latest report is from the same authority, and
bears a recent date. The opinion at first pronounced is therein but
more strongly confirmed. The Tea is characterised as being “perfectly
pure, of superior quality, and free from facing.” Moreover, the
packages which the analyst purchased from some of Messrs. Horniman’s
Agents, he affirms, after careful examination, “to correspond as
regards purity and excellence of quality with those Teas obtained from
the Docks and from Messrs. Horniman’s Wholesale Warehouses, in London.”
Nor do authors and publicists of weight refrain from offering willing
testimony in favour of Messrs. Horniman’s special importation. Dr.
Scoffern remarks how “Its delicious flavour fully confirms its entire
freedom from the usual powdered colour;” that he is “very partial to
Tea;” and that, in consequence of having long taken the pure beverage,
his palate had become “the more critical.”
The only certain way to obtain truly cheap and choice Tea is to
purchase the leaf without the usual mineral “facing” powder. That
the public highly appreciate real economy is evident from the large
and increasing trade carried on for the past forty years by Messrs.
Horniman & Co., the original importers of the pure Tea. Further, the
Agents of the Firm throughout the Kingdom, through Messrs. Horniman’s
direct operations, offer great advantages to the public, as they sell
in the most distant neighbourhoods the same reliable article, at the
same fixed price, as their most extensive City or West-end Agents.
In another article on Tea Consumption, appears the following: “Since
the recent Parliamentary Report on Tea appeared, there has been a
more general disinclination to use any that has been covered by the
Chinese with mineral colour, for this report exposed the fact that
it is done to hide the brownness of wintry growths, and enable them,
when so disguised, to be sold mixed off with the best at high rates.
From a lengthened experience I can bear testimony to the excellent and
delicious character of Horniman’s _pure Tea_; while I am convinced that
all who appreciate a strong, rich, full-flavoured beverage, possessing
in addition a delicious flavour and aroma, must arrive at the like
conclusion.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]