Joseph M. Walsh

“ As a nation, the American people want the best of everything, or, as they characteristically express it, “the best is good enough for them,” and they intend to have it if money can purchase it. But of what avail is the best—tea for instance—if it be not prepared properly or in such a manner as to develop and secure its more delicate, subtle, volatile, refreshing and exhilarating properties. ”

“ Briefly it may be summed up that tea is best suited to persons in health, the plethoric and sanguine, and upon which principle it is the proper diet at the beginning of fevers and all inflammatory complaints. Besides the more obvious effects with which all who use it are familiar, tea saves food by lessening the waste of the body, thus nourishing the muscular system while it excites the nervous to increased activity, for which reason old and infirm persons derive more benefit and personal comfort from its use than from any corresponding beverage. To the question “does tea produce nervousness?” ”

“ A grocer cannot manufacture spices or sugar, grow wine, distil whisky or brew beer, but he can, as generations of grocers have done before him, sell good tea out of an honest tea-chest,—or caddy—and make a respectable living, if not money, out of it for himself and not for others, while serving the public well at the same time. ”

“ It is a serious mistake to imagine that the successful or profitable blending of tea consists solely of an indiscriminate or injudicious heaping together carelessly and indifferently of two or more varieties of tea in one homogeneous mass without the least regard to quantities, qualities, affinities, affiliations or assimilations of leaf, liquor, character or flavor of the component parts. ”

“ The tea-market fluctuating considerably in the course of the year, it will be necessary for the dealer to understand something of the law of supply and demand, which affects the fluctuation to a considerable extent, before he can make profitable purchases. The dealer who is best “posted” in his business makes the best business man, so that the tea-dealer who not only understands the article he is dealing in, but whose knowledge and discrimination enable him “to buy the right tea at the right time” possesses advantages over his competitors, the value of which can hardly be overestimated. ”

“ The gaucho of the plains will travel for weeks asking no better fare than a little dried beef, washed down with copious drafts of Maté, the Indian carriers subsisting for days together on it alone, in short, being to them what the tea of China is to its inhabitants, essential and indispensable. The Government has a monopoly of its sale, a heavy duty being imposed on its exportation, forming the principal source of its revenue. ”

“ Father de Rhodes, a Jesuit missionary, who entered China in 1633, states that “the use of Tea is common throughout the East, and begins, I perceive, to be known in Europe. It is in all the world to be found only in two provinces of China, where the gathering of it occupies the people as the vintage does us.” ”

“ To sum up, India and Ceylon may produce stronger 123and more powerful teas if that can be called a recommendation, but for smoothness of liquor, richness and delicacy of flavor, such as are essential to every-day, universal consumption, the China tea-leaf and French grape stand and will continue to stand unrivalled. India and Ceylon may claim to be the teas of to-day, but it remains to be seen whether that day be long or short, as in my humble opinion, without laying any claim to the prophetic, the teas of the future as in the past will be China and Japan teas. ”

“ On the contrary, the art consists in combining the two or more different varieties or grades of tea forming the combination in an intelligent, judicious and scientific manner so as to yield an unique and particular tea of uniform quality, strength, flavor and pungency at a given price, pleasing and satisfactory to the greatest number and maintaining its standard at all times and under all circumstances. ”

“ The taste for tea being an acquired and not a natural one, it necessarily follows that persons who have been accustomed to a certain variety or flavor in tea, want that particular kind and will be dissatisfied if any other is given them. Consumers of wine have their fancies, so have users of ale or beer—one prefers a dry, another a sweet wine—one a mild and another a bitter beer. This being the case, it becomes essential to the success of the tea-dealer to study and learn what variety of tea or what particular flavor his customers have been accustomed to before attempting to cater to it. ”

“ So that the practice of blending teas, if properly understood and skillfully performed, would prove a more satisfactory and profitable one to both consumer and dealer. The object is not, as the public may imagine, to lower the quality or reduce the cost to the dealer, but simply to produce better tea and obtain a finer and more desirable flavor than that yielded by any single variety, one giving better satisfaction to the consumer at a more moderate price and at the same time allowing a larger margin of profit to the dealer. ”

“ The quality of the tea largely depends on the exact time of picking, as the choicest leaves may be changed into an inferior grade of tea on a single night if the exact proper time to pick them be neglected. The practice of picking the young leaf-buds just as they are beginning to unfold would also prove greatly injurious to the plants, were it not for the copious rains that fall during the season of picking, causing fresh leaves to sprout out and elaborate the sap necessary to constitute the further growth of the shrub. ”

“ But, admitting it to be near the mark, we may then take in round numbers 1,000,000,000 pounds of leaf, or say 6,000,000,000 gallons, as the world’s annual consumption of tea. But it is confidently predicted that if peace be preserved and wealth and civilization continues to advance that much greater increase during the closing years of the present century and the whole of the twentieth century—for large portions of mankind are at length discovering that alcohol with its “borrowed fire” is a deceiver and a curse. ”

“ A breakdown is liable to ensue in more than one way, as not infrequently the stimulus which tea in time fails to give is sought in alcoholic or other liquors, and the atonic dyspepsia which the astringent decoction produced, by overdrawing induces, helps to drive the victim to seek temporary relief in spirits chloral or the morphine habit, which is established with extraordinary rapidity. For it is a truth that as long as a person uses stimulants simply for their taste he is comparatively safe, but as soon as he begins to drink them for effect he is running into great danger. ”

“ The public generally are ignorant in such matters, and the legitimate dealer might look with amused surprise on the apparent demand for packet teas if it were not that an increasing number of dealers are adopting the new system. Engaged as most of the grocers are in trying to stop the plague of all sorts of proprietary goods which yield them so little profit and make them the servants only of the manufacturers and proprietors, it is astonishing, to say the least, that other dealers should be found who are adopting the same system with tea. ”

“ The character of the liquor after the infusion is so entirely foreign in body, color, flavor and aroma from that of the China and Japan sorts to which the people have been accustomed, and which appears to be an inherited taste, so deeply is it set, that little or no progress can be made in these attempts. The great strength, pungency and pronounced flavor of the choicer grades rendering them valuable only for blending purposes. Still it is difficult to overestimate the importance of India as a source of tea supply. ”

“ Tea being an extremely delicate and sensitive article, it should be protected from all foul and foreign flavors, its susceptibility to the odors of other articles being a source of danger and deterioration, as it readily absorbs the smell of coffee, cocoa, spices, meats, fish and other commodities of pronounced flavor. Even when securely packed in the lead-lined chests in which it is received from the producing countries, the change from the glowing heat of Eastern skies to our atmosphere deprives it of much of its pleasing fragrance. ”

“ As an illustration, a dealer may be selling a tea possessing a suitable flavor, but be lacking in body or light in liquor, whereas, by adding to it one or two other teas possessing these qualities the defect is rectified and a full-flavored heavy-bodied tea is produced and the two latter also improved. It follows then that by the judicious blending or mixing of three to five teas, differing in variety and grade, a more uniform and pleasing tea, heavier in body, richer in liquor and flavor can be obtained by this principle at a more moderate cost. ”

“ The weather also exerts a great influence upon the character of the tea, as, for instance, when the rains fall equably and a bright sun appears after heavy showers, the plants become thick and flourishing, the leaves bright green in color, elastic in texture and much richer in flavor. Whereas, when too much falls at one time, they become mildewed, broken and less flexible and limited, stunted and sapless when too little falls during the season of growth. ”

“ The dried leaf of the finer grades is bold in make, yielding a dark, heavy liquor, lacking in fragrance, but proving a desirable sort where body and strength is required. The medium grades are rough and open, the liquor, though mostly strong, is often “tarry,” and frequently sour when kept too long, while the lower grades are thin in body and coarse in flavor, having nothing to recommend them but their leaf, which is generally free from dust. ”

“ Other recent authorities agreeing that the direct effect of tea upon the human system is to increase the assimilation of food, both of the heat-giving and flesh-forming kinds, and that with an abundance of food it promotes nutrition, while in the absence of sufficient food it increases the waste of the tissues and body generally. An infusion of cold tea has been known to check violent retching and vomiting, while a very hot one will prove beneficial in severe attacks of colic and diarrhœa, having a specific action on the kidneys and urine. ”

“ There are many serious objections to the general use of India teas, one of which is the great excess of tannin (tannic acid) which they contain, ranging from 13 to 18 per cent. in this variety, and to which property tea owes its astringency, constipating effect on the bowels and the ink-black color which it imparts to water containing salts of iron. In England a crusade is being preached against their use by medical authorities on this account, the marked increase in dyspeptic and nervous diseases in that country being attributed to their general consumption there. ”

“ It has also been proven that theine and quinine are similar in nature, and that on analysis these substances are shown to contain the same proportions of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen, and, as is well known, quinine is about the only remedy used in intermittent and malarial fevers and ague. These facts being settled beyond dispute, it can be readily understood why it is that tea is so soothing and beneficial to those who may feel feverish, tired or debilitated. And while it is not claimed that tea alone will cure fever and ague, it certainly acts as a preventative. ”

“ And not only is China the original home of tea, but in addition, China Tea is the only true tea, surpassing that of all other countries in every property and quality constituting and distinguishing tea, and possessing certain distinctive characteristics peculiar to and contained in no other variety grown or known. ”