These last facts might make it worth the while of planters in the North-West Provinces and in the Punjab to combine to exploit the American markets with half-chests of green Tea, for the manufacture of which those districts are famous, and for which there is so little demand at present in the Central Asian market. We merely throw out the suggestion, knowing that most of the planters in these parts could ill afford to risk much in such an experiment. It is possible that the Syndicate here, which already ships largely to America, might arrange to ship green Tea for such of the planters in Northern India as cared to join the Calcutta body.
The American demand for green Tea is so large, that a quantity representing the entire outturn of Northern India would form but a small percentage of the whole, and if Indian green Tea from the Himalayas were taken up in that market, a demand for the whole quantity produced might easily arise. Whether it would ever be able to compete with China green Tea in the matter of price we do not know, and we should think it would be up-hill work, and attended with some loss—in the first instance at any rate.
The more Tea each individual drinks, the better doubtless for the producers. It is satisfactory therefore to find the consumption per head is increasing in the United Kingdom as follows:—
| 1870. | 1875. | 1880. |
| lbs. | lbs. | lbs. |
| 3.81 | 4.44 | 4.59 |
Nearly 1 lb. per head more in 1880 than 1870!
A few figures as to Indian Teas in Australia and America will finish this Chapter of Statistics.
The consumption of Indian Tea in Australia and the Colonies stands as follows:—
| 1880-81 | Little under | ¾ of a | million lbs. |
| 1881-82 | Nearly | 1 | million „ |
| 1882-83 | Estimated | 2 | million „ |
This is a satisfactory increase, but when we consider how vast is the great Australasian field, it stands to reason two millions is but a small fraction of what it eventually may be.
The outdoor rough life, led more or less in the Colonies, makes its inhabitants the largest Tea drinkers in the world. For instance, each white denizen in New Zealand drinks nearly three times as much Tea as each person in Great Britain!