Tea trade

“ But above and beyond all other efforts to increase his Tea trade, he should handle only high-grade Teas, endeavoring at all times to prove that the finer Teas are the most economical and satisfactory to purchase in the end, as the finer grades yield a larger margin of profit to the dealer and better satisfaction to the consumer, while it has a tendency to create favorable comment and win an increasing Tea trade. ”

“ The aggregate exports of tea by India and Ceylon is about 310,000,000 lbs., a complete reversal of conditions of tea trade within twenty years, and due entirely to British enterprise and the fine quality of British grown teas.
A liberal estimate for the total exports of Chinese and Japanese teas for 1899 would be 340,000,000 lbs.; so that it is fair to say that the world's consumption of tea, outside of China and Japan, is now equally divided between teas of the latter two countries and those of English growth. ”

“ While on the other hand, if the dealer makes a small but necessary sacrifice for the sake of future gain and reputation by selling only Tea that is Tea, and content himself with a fair but legitimate profit, satisfaction will be given to his customers, his Tea trade fostered and extended, and the consumption of this most important food auxiliary increased throughout the country. ”

“ If man cannot live by bread alone, many foreign residents live by tea alone, and live luxuriously. Great fortunes are made quickly in the tea trade no longer, as in earlier days. Romance departed with the clipper ships, and the cable and freight steamers reduced the tea trade to prosaic lines. Only the best and most experienced men now succeed in this trade, but the tea-merchant toils in his counting-room and godown only from April to October. Then he closes and locks it all behind him, and usually goes over to the United States to look after his interests and orders there. ”

“ If there were a retail Tea trade worthy of the name, in the proper sense of the term, in Calcutta, it would probably not be to the interest of planters to enter into competition with it. But though we have many retail establishments who deal in Tea, its sale is, in the great majority of cases, only one item of a very multifarious business, the profit on which, as a whole, is probably not excessive under all the circumstances of the case. ”

“ The Indian tea-traders have shown very commendable enterprise in attempting to push their teas by the overland route, and trying to exploit the new markets which the Nushki-Meshed route has thrown open to them, but their beginning has been made too suddenly and on too large a scale, which I fear will cause a temporary loss to some of them. A gradual, steady development of the tea trade is wanted in Persia, not a rush and violent competition flooding the market with tea that has to be sold at a loss. ”

“ The operations in countries other than Great Britain during the last few years show what important developments in the Tea trade of this country are now taking place, and every exertion is necessary to maintain these successful results—for which the industry is so much indebted to the Syndicate. ”

“ The tea we export is of average quality, and is so abundantly to be had that there is no necessity for us to take recourse to the disgusting expedients suggested. I may add that the export trade is almost entirely in the hands of European business houses. Besides, all our old tea-leaves are used in China as sea-weed is used in France for stuffing mattresses, cushions, and so on. Thus tea, after having fortified our bodies during the day, affords us a bed at night. ”

“ The truth is, all nations have grown so wicked as to have some of these filthy customs." In 1678, the year in which the above letter is dated, the East India Company began the importation of tea as a branch of trade; the quantity received at that time amounting to 4,713 lbs. The importation gradually enlarged, and the government, in consequence, augmented the duties upon tea. By the year 1700, the importation of tea had arrived at the quantity of 20,000 lbs. ”

“ It is no secret that for some years past the losses of merchants have been serious, and that while most of the wealthy firms so long known as connected with China have either entirely ceased to import Tea, or have reduced their operations to a very small compass, the trade has been carried on by new houses possessing but little capital, who are enabled, by the competition of the banks, to do a large business by drawing bills on China, not only for the whole cost of the Teas purchased, but also for their commissions on these purchases—that is to say, for an unrivalled profit of 3 per cent. ”

“ The so-called great favor with which India and Ceylon teas are said to be regarded by British consumers being due in a great measure to the energy and persistency with which the trade has been pushed, the teas being literally forced on the public by the Government as well as by the English growers and dealers, in addition to the strong ties of relationship connecting the planters with the mother country. There is not the slightest doubt but that the check which the consumption of China teas appears to have sustained in England is entirely due to these causes. ”

“ If tea drinking in the family is to remain general in most portions of the world, and especially if it shall increase in proportion to population, there is great industrial and commercial promise for China, Korea and Japan in their tea industry if they will develop tea culture still further over the extensive and still unused flanks of the hill lands; improve their cultural methods; their manufacture; and develop their export trade. They have the best of climatic and soil conditions and people sufficiently capable of enormously expanding the industry. ”

“ The remarks we are about to make are based on experiments and enquiries extending over some years in this country and in England, and we leave those engaged in the enterprise to estimate their value. All Teas grown in the plains of India are known to the trade in London under the general name of Assam, and are chiefly used for mixing, seldom reaching the consumer in a pure state. When they do, the objections raised are that the leaf is too pungent and rough for most palates; and purchasers are in the habit of mixing it with Chinese to tone down those astringent qualities. ”

“ It is evident from the above that merchants as a rule do not realize the immense change that has been brought about in the conditions of the trade by the enormous increase in the use of Indian Tea, which now forms about one-third of the entire home consumption, and competes mostly with the finer qualities of China congou ”

“ And why? simply because we will not supply it in the form the teeming crowd of natives willing, nay anxious, to buy can avail themselves of it!
Since I advocated in your paper the formation of a company to sell Tea to natives in small packets, and showed, I thought conclusively: 1—That the capital required was not large (say one and a-half lakhs) . 2—That the shareholders might expect very fair dividends. 3—That there was no assignable limit to the trade which might be developed. 4—That if such a company was started and worked well, all fear for the future of Indian Tea would be at an end. ”

“ There is nothing in the history of commerce so marvellous as the growth and development of the trade in Tea. In 1675, the importation of this commodity rose to 4,713 lbs. But this enormous quantity manifestly overstocked the market for seven years afterwards. ”

“ There is no article handled by the grocer which demands greater attention, engages more of his time, or has a more important bearing upon the success of his business than Tea, as it stands in many respects far ahead of all the other commodities in commanding and maintaining patronage, as well as in attracting and retaining trade for numerous other articles, and at the same time yielding a larger margin of profit to the dealer. ”

“ And in due time from across the seas comes the effort to sell, with the result that such fluctuations in prices occur as are unknown and impossible in any other article of produce in the known world. It is this absolute inability to control prices in any degree which has driven the genuine old exporter from the field, and is one of the causes of the decline of the China tea trade. ”

“ It is difficult to get at any reliable returns for the entire traffic in this commodity, the production being carried on in such a crude and desultory manner, extending, as it does, over a vast area of wild country, the official returns furnishing only an approximate estimate of its trade and consumption. The total production may, however, be computed at 1,500,000 arobas, equivalent to about 40,000,000 pounds per annum, the total consumption averaging thirteen pounds per capita to the population, as against two pounds of coffee and one-fourth pound of China tea. ”

“ Unlike wines, tea is best when fresh and much of the romance of the sea centers around the China clippers which made remarkably swift passages between China and England around the Cape of Good Hope. With the opening of the Suez Canal competition for increased speed became still more keen, but steam vessels took the romance out of the trade. Much of the tea used in the United States comes from Japan and does not go through London, which for over two hundred years was the tea market of the world. ”

“ The trade in tea now gives employment to upwards of 60,000 tons of British shipping, and about ten millions sterling of English capital, producing a revenue to this country of nearly six millions sterling.
Every reflecting man will admit that articles of such vast consumption as tea and coffee (amounting together to more than 343,500 tons annually) , forming the chief liquid food of whole nations, must exercise a great influence upon the health of the people. ”

“ 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 delicate85 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. ”

“ These 2,000,000 square miles of territory possess vast resources. They produce in small quantities now the cotton, the silk, the tobacco, the coffee, the tea, the cocoa, the sugar, the rice, the gums, the oils, the dyes, the drugs, the spices, the minerals, and other materials of commerce and manufacture which are needed for the maintenance and the expansion of our trade. There is little doubt that the production of raw material could be indefinitely multiplied till it should render British manufactures of these and similar articles substantially independent of foreign supplies. ”

“ If only Indian Tea was once taken up, and became popular, its future would be secured. The teeming masses of people in the States would consume more Tea we should imagine than all the English public, provided Indian Tea took the place of China. Australia so far has done well, but the market there would be easily glutted, whereas, if its use became general, it would be almost impossible to glut the American market. The millions of settlers in America and in Canada all use Tea at their meals very much as an Englishman takes his beer, so that the inland consumption must be very large. ”

“ But while the question of making its production a commercial success is conceded by many authorities, some contend that while we can undoubtedly cultivate tea of fair quality in many sections of the country, we cannot supply the cheap and skilled labor necessary to prepare it for market, advancing the argument that from the time the leaves are picked until they are packed for export they are subjected to a continued series of manipulations, demanding an immense amount of such labor without which it is next to impossible to produce a merchantable article. ”

“ Every pound bought had to be paid for in a very short time, and this fact, coupled with the fear of a falling market, has continuously forced the pace and driven the tea into the consumer's teapot. The demand from the masses for strong tea was met by the extra strength from the British-grown varieties. This demand exists mainly from English tea drinkers of middle and lower classes, who have always insisted that all their beverages should be pungent, strong and stimulating, whether it be porter, ale, coffee or other liquor, regardless of the effect upon the nervous system. ”

“ These Teas have the character of good Ceylon growths, and are in every respect suitable Teas for general consumption, and such samples are sure to meet with ready sale in Australasia or Great Britain.”
Here again, I am told, the labour question is the doubtful point. Tea cannot be made to pay without cheap labour, and the sooner all these new Tea countries learn the lesson [193] the better for the pockets of the projectors. I may add, the better for the Indian planter’s pocket too, for any increase in the supply is hurtful. ”

“ Every year this preference for the leaf that has been longer known is wearing away, and our buyers will soon have to reckon with its disappearance. As yet, Indian Tea is hardly taken on the continent of Europe at all; but here, too, it will penetrate sooner or later, as it is doing into America and Australia, and then there will be no corner of the earth where the sway of China Tea will be undisputed. Until foreigners can supervise the packing of the leaf in China as they do in India, the produce of the latter country will continue to have an unfair advantage. ”