Tea, Its Mystery and History

by Samuel Phillips Day

Dr. Lettsom, in a work published over a century since, avers that the infusion of Tea possesses two peculiarities; the first, a sedative quality, and the next, considerable stringency, by which the relaxing power is corrected so that the solids become strengthened and braced. Indeed, this writer goes so far as to pronounce Tea far preferable to any other known vegetable infusion, if not drank too hot or in too copious quantities, asserting that “if we take into consideration its known enlivening energy, our attachment to it will appear to be owing to its superiority in taste and effects to most other vegetables.”

Dr. Edward Smith speaks of “the cup that cheers but not inebriates” as being a potent agent, and as increasing the quantity of carbonic acid emitted by the lungs and the quantity of air inspired, while at the same time it gives greater depth and freedom to the respiration. “It is chiefly in its power,” he remarks, “to increase the respiratory process that it acts so favourably, and in so doing the transformation of starchy and fatty food is promoted.” Then he shows its vast advantages to the poor, by remarking: “In the dietaries of the poor, where the meal must consist chiefly of bread, a substance not particularly savoury, nor digested with great rapidity, the warm tea enables the recipient more readily to masticate and swallow the dry bread, or the bread with very little fat upon it, and so by its action to assist digestion.”

The eminent Dr. Parkes avers that Tea possesses a decidedly stimulative and restorative action on the nervous system, while, at the same time, it obviates succeeding depression. This writer regards Tea as a most useful article in cases of fever, when administered in the form of a cold, weak solution, and as being of great service to gouty subjects, and to those of a rheumatic tendency (especially such as labour under lithic acid diathesis) when drunk without sugar and with little milk. Tea has been known to save life in cases of poisoning by tartar-emetic, the tannin being the active agent. Dr. Lewis’s testimony also goes to support the medicinal importance of Tea. He mentions how it strengthens the stomach and intestines, is good against indigestion, nausea, and diarrhœa, refreshes the spirit in heaviness and sleepiness, and counteracts the operation of inebriating liquors.

Some men of mark in their day were notorious for their Tea-drinking predilections. Dr. Johnson himself may be fairly set down as a Tea-gourmet. Then returning to more modern times, see how the genial Leigh Hunt bursts forth into rapture when describing the virtues of the beneficent plant, free from the cunning transformation practised upon it by unprincipled traders. Surely this gifted writer must have had a cup of Messrs. Horniman and Co.’s spécialité served to him when he could elaborate upon it thus: “It was not green tea; it was not black tea; neither too young, nor too old; not unpleasing with astringency on the one hand, nor with the insipid, half-earthy taste of decayed vegetable matter on the other; it was tea in its most perfect state, full charged with aroma, which, when it was opened, diffused its fragrance through the whole apartment, putting all other perfumes to shame.... Oh heavens! to sip that most exquisite cup of delight, was bliss almost too great for earth; a thousand years of rapture all concentrated into the space of a minute, as if the joy of all the world had been skimmed for my peculiar drinking, I should rather say imbibing, for to have swallowed that liquid like an ordinary beverage, without tasting every drop, would have been sacrilege.”

Professor James F. W. Johnston likewise bears testimony to the value of this tropical beverage. He remarks: “In the life of most persons a period arrives when the stomach no longer digests enough of the ordinary elements of food to make up for the natural daily waste of the bodily substance. The size and weight of the body, therefore, begin to diminish more or less perceptibly. At this period tea comes in as a medicine to arrest the waste, to keep the body from falling away so fast, and thus to enable the less energetic powers of digestion still to supply as much as is needed to repair the wear and tear of the solid tissues.”

Of course the chemical value of Tea as a beverage depends upon the presence of volatile oil, theine, tannin, and gluten—the four substances forming its most important ingredients—and the proportions in which these exist. If Tea be not genuine, or if it undergoes the artificial process of colouring, its character and efficacy become proportionately impaired. It is unfortunately too true that the market is glutted with Tea—which is either not Tea at all, or else is excessively adulterated. On the testimony of the House of Commons, “millions of pounds of sloe, liquorice, and ash-tree leaves, are every year mixed with Chinese Teas for England.” It is well known that the leaves of the Charrapal, a Californian bush, are largely exported to China, when they return packed under the title of Tea. A startling exposure was made a few years since, of the tea-rubbish styled “Finest New Season Kaisow,” and “Fine Oanfa Congou,” sold in bond at 1¼d. to 1¾d. per lb. Upon analysis, the former was found to contain an enormous amount of mineral matter, chiefly iron filings; while the latter proved a mixture of redried tea-leaves, straw, fragments of matting, rice-husks, willow leaves, and the excrement of silkworms. The “Maloo Mixture,” likewise, once gained an unenviable notoriety, as did the “Extra Fine Moyune Gunpowder” put up for sale by auction in Mincing Lane, and in which Dr. Letheby discovered over 40 per cent. of iron filings and 19 per cent. of silica.

Tea is adulterated in two ways. The foreign dealers first practise their arts upon it by having recourse to dried leaves, and by “facing”—a process which necessitates the use of Prussian blue, silica, gypsum, plumbago, lamp-black, ferruginous earth, and other abominations. Mr. Fortune, in his interesting work, reveals the whole secret. Upon reading his graphic account of how Tea is elaborated for the European market, one almost turns aghast! And with good reason, as there might be ample cause to suspect “death in the pot.” Indeed, the people of China are themselves disgusted at the tricks of traders, who carry on their fraudulent practices without concealment. A Chinese journal thus gives expression to the public sentiment: “The wonder is that such stuff (referring to redried and recoloured leaves) should be suffered to be manufactured, much less to be shipped as a lawful export, for Chinese law expressly prohibits the re-manipulation of Tea that has once been used, on the obvious and common-sense principle that such a trade is necessarily, in its very essence, fraudulent. Yet, in the face of this well-known maxim, it is one of the thousand proofs which we have of the utter rottenness of the present administration, that all round the settlement, in every convenient open space, large quantities of what is termed, with ominous propriety, the ‘mixture,’ lie exposed to the sun at noon-day; in some cases within a hundred yards of the mixed court yamen. And not only so, but there are establishments, well known to the police, where the mixture is fired, leaded, packed, sold, and dispatched for shipment; and experience has shown that it is useless to expect conviction, under Chinese law, from a Chinese magistrate.”

The same journal, referring to a peculiar kind of willow which grows abundantly in the country, the leaves of which are utilised by Tea manufacturers, observes: “One needs not the expensive craft of the cha-sze to know how neatly a little skilful manipulation, and a little heat applied secundum artem, can transform these willow leaves into genuine and delicate tea leaves. Whether the mercantile result be intended to astonish the palates of old ladies in London or Glasgow, or to pass as genuine Souchong with skippers, who have little knowledge of Tea, we know not; but the fact remains, that the trade thrives well and pays.

“Nevertheless, there is still good and pure Tea produced in China, and merchants in London who import it in an unadulterated condition, albeit a very large per centage of the 188,000,000 lbs. annually consumed in Great Britain is spurious. One mercantile Firm in particular have gained a wide and well-deserved reputation for the purity and excellent character of their importations. I refer with pleasure to Messrs. Horniman and Co., London, who for nearly forty years have assiduously laboured to supply the public with both green and black Tea, free from all mineral facing powder. As what passes through the Wormwood-street Warehouses to their Agents all over the country is subjected to no deteriorating and deleterious manipulation in China, its perfect purity can implicitly be relied upon. The Chinese letter which accompanied the first shipment, by Messrs. Horniman, of Tea into England, is quite original and unique.”