INCREASED CONSUMPTION OF BRITISH-COLONIAL TEAS.
In a paper read by Mr L. J. Shand of the Ceylon Court at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, the present position of the Indian tea-trade was reviewed. British-colonial teas, which in 1865 formed but three per cent. of the total quantity consumed in the United Kingdom, amounted to sixteen per cent. in 1875, and to thirty-three per cent. in 1885. India had two hundred and fifty thousand acres under tea-cultivation, and produced seventy million pounds of tea; the capital invested in the industry was sixteen million pounds; and a quarter of a million of Her Majesty’s subjects, who indirectly contributed to the income tax of Great Britain, were engaged in it. The tea-plant was introduced to Ceylon from China about the year 1842; but it was not till coffee was stricken by disease that attention was generally directed to the cultivation of tea in Ceylon. In 1873, a small parcel of twenty-three pounds of tea was exported from Ceylon; this year, nine million pounds would be exported, and, estimating the acreage now planted with tea, the exports in 1890 would be forty million pounds. Proceeding to consider why British people should drink British-colonial teas, Mr Shand said that these teas came into the London market pure; there was no recorded evidence of adulteration having been discovered. The adulteration of China tea, on the other hand, had been the subject of several volumes and of special legislation. The purity of Indian and Ceylon teas made them more sensitive than the ordinary China mixture. It was not necessary to put such large quantities into the teapot, but it was all the more necessary that the water should be boiling and that the tea should not be allowed to stand too long. Disappointment should not be felt because the liquor was not black; that was in consequence of the tea being quite pure and unmixed with blacklead or indigo. If Indian and Ceylon teas were fairly tried and carefully treated, they would be found more economical than China teas.