DR. JOHNSON'S AFFINITY
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON drew his own portrait thus:
"A hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who for twenty years diluted his meals with the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle had scarcely time to cool; who with tea amused the evening, with tea solaced the midnight, and with tea welcomed the morning."
EARLIEST MENTION OF TEA
According to a magazinist, the first mention of tea by an Englishman is to be found in a letter from Mr. Wickham, an agent of the East India Company, written from Japan, on the 27th of June, 1615, to Mr. Eaton, another officer of the company, a resident of Macao, asking him to send "a pot of the best chaw." In Mr. Eaton's accounts of expenditure occurs this item:
"Three silver porringiys to drink chaw in."
AUSTRALIAN TEA
In the interior of Australia all the men drink tea. They drink it all day long, and in quantities and at a strength that would seem to be poisonous. On Sunday morning the tea-maker starts with a clean pot and a clean record. The pot is hung over the fire with a sufficiency of water in it for the day's brew, and when this has boiled he pours into it enough of the fragrant herb to produce a deep, coffee-colored liquid.
On Monday, without removing yesterday's tea-leaves, he repeats the process; on Tuesday da capo and on Wednesday da capo, and so on through the week. Toward the close of it the great pot is filled with an acrid mash of tea-leaves, out of which the liquor is squeezed by the pressure of a tin cup.
By this time the tea is of the color of rusty iron, incredibly bitter and disagreeable to the uneducated palate. The native calls it "real good old post and rails," the simile being obviously drawn from a stiff and dangerous jump, and regards it as having been brought to perfection.
FIVE-O'CLOCK TEA
There is a fallacy among certain tea-fanciers that the origin of five-o'clock tea was due to hygienic demand. These students of the stomach contend that as a tonic and gentle stimulant, when not taken with meat, it is not to be equalled. With meat or any but light food it is considered harmful. Taken between luncheon and dinner it drives away fatigue and acts as a tonic. This is good if true, but it is only a theory, after all. Our theory is that five o'clock in the afternoon is the ladies' leisure hour, and that the taking of tea at that time is an escape from ennui.