The process is equally rapid and efficacious in the fabrication of green tea; the leaves being boiled, pressed, and dried in the same manner as I have described, takes place with the black imitation-tea, only that the drying process is performed on plates of copper. The blueish hue or bloom observable on genuine tea is produced by mixing with the leaves Prussian blue or Dutch pink, in fine powder, while the leaves are heating upon the plates, and verdigris is added to complete the operation. The leaves are then sifted, to separate them from the thorns and stalks; and should there not be a “quantum sufficit” of the fine green bloom (the indubitable criterion of genuineness in the estimation of our “fair countrywomen,”—the ancient, as well as “the bewitching;”) the operator kindly and generously adds, more verdigris and Dutch pink or Prussian blue. And again “pure, genuine, exhilarating” green tea is produced as quick as thought, and that even in the darkness of a town cellar, some few feet under ground.
The profits on these transmutations are enormous; Mr. Accum, at p. 205 of his useful book, says that it has been stated to be from £300 to £600 per cent. And the extent to which the nefarious traffic is carried is still more surprising. According to a report of the Committee of the House of Commons in the year 1783, it is stated that “the quantity of fictitious tea which was annually manufactured from sloe and ash-tree leaves, in different parts of England, to be mixed with genuine teas, was computed at more than Four Millions of Pounds.” This computation was made when the genuine teas, sold by the East-India Company, at their sales, amounted to only six millions of pounds annually. What then must be the amount of the illicit traffic now, when the Company’s sales are about thirty millions of pounds annually! This proves that the ingenious author of the following lines, which appeared in the Literary Journal, vol. 1, p. 14, cannot be supposed to be “much out in his reckoning:”
“China and Porto, now farewell;
Let others buy what you’ve to sell,
Your Port and your Bohea;
For we’ve our native sloe divine,
Whose fruit yields all our Porto wine,
Whose leaves make all our Tea.”
But John, “with all his easy gullibility,” will, no doubt say, “this is all stuff; show me proofs.” Well, John, thou art a good creature, thou wilt never believe “aught against thy enemy,” until he hath robbed thee of thy senses, and what is dearer to thee, thy “stuff.” But to prevent a too frequent repetition of thy misfortune, I will open the budget to thy admiring eyes. Look, John, over thy files of the London Newspapers, particularly the “Times” and “Courier,” from March to July, in the year 1818, and there thou mayest entertain thy optics and cerebral nerves with a goodly array of prosecutions and convictions of manufacturers and venders of factitious tea. In one instance, thou wilt read of £840 damages being given against one culprit. Nor is this all of the illicit doings, John. There have been many prosecutions and convictions since the time specified, with which I recommend thee to recreate “thy often infirmity” of incredulity. Mr. Accum, at page 203 of his work, says that, in Scotland and Ireland, the penalties imposed for this offence “amounted, during a few months, to more than fifteen thousand pounds!”
With respect to the medicinal or deleterious effects of tea on the animal economy, it would be misplaced to occupy the pages of a work of this nature with their discussion. To such of my readers as may wish to inform themselves on this subject, I recommended the perusal of “The Oracle of Health and Long Life; or, Plain Rules for the Preservation and Attainment of Sound Health and Vigorous Old Age. By Medicus;” as the intelligent author of that publication has discussed the matter with great ingenuity, and furnished a variety of hints and information calculated to be of essential service to the consumers of this most important article of Asiatic imports. Here it will be more useful to detail the ready tests or methods of detecting its adulteration. For it is an undoubted fact, as “Medicus” observes, that many of the noxious qualities attributed to tea, arise from the two-fold sophistication which it is frequently doomed to undergo both from the Chinese and English adulterator before it reaches the hands of the consumer.