CHAPTER IX.
WORLD’S PRODUCTION
AND
CONSUMPTION.
The first direct importation of tea into England was in 1669, and consisted of but “100 pounds of the best tea that could be procured.” In 1678 this order was increased to 4,713 pounds, which appears to have “glutted the market;” the following six years the total importations amounting to only 410 pounds during that entire period. How little was it possible from these figures to have foreseen that tea would one day become one of the most important articles of foreign productions consumed.
Up to 1864 China and Japan were practically the only countries producing teas for commercial purposes. In that year India first entered the list as an exporter of tea, being subsequently followed by Java and Ceylon. In 1864, when India first entered the list of tea-producing countries, China furnished fully 97 per cent. of the world’s supply and India only 3, the latter increasing at such a marvelous rate that it now furnishes 57, China declining to 43 per cent. of the total.
TABLE 1.
ESTIMATED TEA PRODUCTION OF THE WORLD.
| Countries. | Production (Pounds). | Exportation (Pounds). |
| China, | 1,000,000,000 | 300,000,000 |
| Japan, | 100,000,000 | 50,000,000 |
| India, | 100,000,000 | 95,000,000 |
| Ceylon, | 50,000,000 | 40,000,000 |
| Java, | 20,000,000 | 10,000,000 |
| Singapore, | 20,000 | 10,000 |
| Fiji Islands, | 30,000 | 20,000 |
| South Africa, | 50,000 | 20,000 |
| —————— | ————— | |
| Total, | 1,270,100,000 | 495,050,000 |
From these estimates it will be noted that China ranks first in tea-producing countries, followed by Japan, India, Ceylon and Java in the order of their priority; the total product of the other countries having little or no effect as yet on the world’s supply.
This most important food auxiliary is now in daily use as a beverage by probably over one-half the population of the entire world, civilized as well as savage, the following being the principal countries of consumption:—