Picking Tea.—Great care is bestowed on the finest chops of tea to sort out all defective leaves; this work requires considerable practice and application.
Anon, referring to the chemical action of two important agents present in Tea—theine and volatile oil—the same excellent authority gives the following account of their operations on the human organism: “The theine is a substance possessing tonic or strengthening qualities, but distinguished particularly by the property of retarding the natural waste of the animal body. Most people are now aware that the chief necessity for food arises from the gradual and constant wearing away of the tissues and solid parts of the body. To repair and restore the worn and wasted parts, food must be constantly eaten and digested. And the faster the waste, the larger the quantity of food which must daily be consumed, to make up for the loss which this waste occasions. Now, the introduction of a certain quantity of theine into the stomach lessens the amount of waste which in similar circumstances would otherwise naturally take place. It makes the ordinary food consumed along with it, go farther, therefore, or, more correctly, lessens the quantity of food necessary to be eaten in a given time. A similar effect, in a somewhat less degree, is produced by the volatile oil, and, therefore, the infusion of Tea, in which both these ingredients of the leaf are contained, affects the rapidity of the natural waste in the Tea drinker, in a very marked manner.
“As age creeps on, the powers of digestion diminish with the failing of the general vigour, till the stomach is no longer able to digest and appropriate new food as fast as the body wears away. When such is the case, to lessen the waste is to aid the digestive powers in maintaining the strength and bulk of the weakening frame. ‘It is no longer wonderful, therefore,’ says our author, ‘that Tea should be the favourite on the one hand, with the poor whose supplies of substantial food are scanty; and, on the other, with the aged and infirm, especially of the feebler sex, whose powers of digestion, and whose bodily substance have together begun to fail.’ Nor is it surprising that the aged female whose earnings are barely sufficient to buy what are called the common necessaries of life, should yet spare a portion of her small gains in procuring this grateful indulgence. She can sustain her strength with less common food when she takes her Tea along with it: while she, at the same time, feels lighter in spirits, more cheerful, and fitter for this dull work of life, because of this little indulgence.”[C]
[C] Edinburgh Review, Vol. CI., No. 206, April, 1855.
Such an indispensable article as Tea has now become, ought to be trebly guarded against all adulteration. While the Government is unable to protect the public against the machinations of unscrupulous Chinese merchants, let the public at least endeavour to protect itself. And this it can readily accomplish. Let it but bestow its custom on a trader upon whose integrity and technical knowledge it can implicitly rely. Let it insist upon having both its black and green Teas of the natural hue, without the addition of “face,” “glaze,” or artificial colour, which but detract from its character and value. How such a discreet selection can be effected has already been pointed out. Houses of repute—such, for example, as that of Messrs. Horniman and Co.—do not conceal their names behind a retailer, but boldly give their own, coupled with a guarantee to every purchaser, however modest his purchase. Hence, consumers may feel assured that in buying indirectly from them, the commodity they obtain will not only be free from adulteration and artificial colour, but will be so carefully selected from the choicest growths, commensurate with the price demanded, as to be “always good alike.”
