Part 3

"'Twas better for each British virgin, When on roast beef, strong beer and sturgeon, Joyous to breakfast they sat round, Nor were ashamed to eat a pound."

The fleshly school of doctors were only too happy to disagree with their brethren respecting the merits and demerits of the new-fangled drink; and it is hard to say which were most bitter, the friends or the foes of tea.

Maria Theresa's physician, Count Belchigen, attributed the discovery of a number of new diseases to the debility born of daily tea-drinking. Dr. Paulli denied that it had either taste or fragrance, owing its reputation entirely to the peculiar vessels and water used by the Chinese, so that it was folly to partake of it, unless tea-drinkers could supply themselves with pure water from the Vassie and the fragrant tea-pots of Gnihing. This sagacious sophist and dogmatizer also discovered that, among other evils, tea-drinking deprived its devotees of the power of expectoration, and entailed sterility; wherefore he hoped Europeans would thereafter keep to their natural beverages-- wine and ale--and reject coffee, chocolate, and tea, which were all equally bad for them.

In spite of the array of old-fashioned doctors, wits, and lovers of the pipe and bottle, who opposed evil effects, sneered at the finely bred men of England being turned into women, and grumbled at the stingy custom of calling for dish-water after dinner, the custom of tea-drinking continued to grow. By 1689 the sale of the leaf had increased sufficiently to make it politic to reduce the duty on it from eight pence on the decoction to five shillings a pound on the leaf. The value of tea at this time may be estimated from a customhouse report of the sale of a quantity of divers sorts and qualities, the worst being equal to that "used in coffee-houses for making single tea," which, being disposed of by "inch of candle," fetched an average of twelve shillings a pound.

During the next three years the consumption of tea was greatly increased; but very little seems to have been known about it by those who drank it--if we may judge from the enlightenment received from a pamphlet, given gratis, "up one flight of stairs, at the sign of the Anodyne Necklace, without Temple Bar." All it tells us about tea is that it is the leaf of a little shoot growing plentifully in the East Indies; that Bohea--called by the French "Bean Tea"--is best of a morning with bread and butter, being of a more nourishing nature than the green which may be used when a meal is not wanted. Three or four cups at a sitting are enough; and a little milk or cream renders the beverage smoother and more powerful in blunting the acid humors of the stomach.

The satirists believed that tea had a contrary effect upon the acid humors of the mind, making the tea-table the arena for the display of the feminine capacity for backbiting and scandal. Listen to Swift describe a lady enjoying her evening cups of tea:

"Surrounded with the noisy clans Of prudes, coquettes and harridans. Now voices over voices rise, While each to be the loudest vies; They contradict, affirm, dispute, No single tongue one moment mute; All mad to speak, and none to hearken, They set the very lapdog barking; Their chattering makes a louder din Than fish-wives o'er a cup of gin; Far less the rabble roar and rail When drunk with sour election ale."

Even gentle Gay associated soft tea with the temper of women when he pictures Doris and Melanthe abusing all their bosom friends, while--

"Through all the room From flowery tea exhales a fragrant fume."

But not all the women were tea-drinkers in those days. There was Madam Drake, the proprietress of one of the three private carriages Manchester could boast. Few men were as courageous as she in declaring against the tea-table when they were but invited guests. Madam Drake did not hesitate to make it known when she paid an afternoon's visit that she expected to be offered her customary solace--a tankard of ale and a pipe of tobacco.

Another female opponent of tea was the Female Spectator, which declared the use of the fluid to be not only expensive, but pernicious; the utter destruction of all economy, the bane of good housewifery, and the source of all idleness. Tradesmen especially suffered from the habit. They could not serve their customers because their apprentices were absent during the busiest hours of the day drumming up gossips for their mistresses' tea-tables.

This same censor says that the most temperate find themselves obliged to drink wine freely after tea, or supplement their Bohea with rum and brandy, the bottle and glass becoming as necessary to the tea-table as the slop-basin.

Although Jonas Hanway, the father of the umbrella, was successful in keeping off water, he was not successful in keeping out tea. All he did accomplish in his essay on the subject was to call forth a reply from Dr. Johnson, who, strange to say, instead of vigorously defending his favorite tipple, rather excuses it as an amiable weakness; confessing that tea is a barren superfluity, fit only to amuse the idle, relax the studious, and dilute the meals of those who cannot take exercise, and will not practise abstinence. His chief argument in tea's favor is that it is drunk in no great quantity even by those who use it most, and as it neither exhilarates the heart nor stimulates the palate, is, after all, but a nominal entertainment, serving as a pretence for assembling people together, for interrupting business, diversifying idleness; admitting that, perhaps, while gratifying the taste, without nourishing the body, it is quite unsuited to the lower classes.

It is a singular fact, too, that at that period there was no other really vigorous defender of the beverage. All the best of the other writers did was to praise its pleasing qualities, associations, and social attributes.

Still, tea grew in popular favor, privately and publicly. The custom had now become so general that every wife looked upon the tea-pot, cups, and caddy to be as much her right by marriage as the wedding-ring itself. Fine ladies enjoyed the crowded public entertainments with tea below stairs and ventilators above. Citizens, fortunate enough to have leaden roofs to their houses, took their tea and their ease thereon. On Sundays, finding the country lanes leading to Kensington, Hampstead, Highgate, Islington, and Stepney, "to be much pleasanter than the paths of the gospel," the people flocked to those suburban resorts with their wives and children, to take tea under the trees. In one of Coleman's plays, a Spitalfield's dame defines the acme of elegance as:

"Drinking tea on summer afternoons At Bagnigge Wells with china and gilt spoons."

London was surrounded with tea-gardens, the most popular being Sadlier's Wells, Merlin's Cave, Cromwell Gardens, Jenny's Whim, Cuper Gardens, London Spa, and the White Conduit House, where they used to take in fifty pounds on a Sunday afternoon for sixpenny tea-tickets.

One D'Archenholz was surprised by the elegance, beauty, and luxury of these resorts, where, Steele said, they swallowed gallons of the juice of tea, while their own dock leaves were trodden under foot.

The ending of the East India Company's monopoly of the trade, coupled with the fact that the legislature recognized that tea had passed out of the catalogue of luxuries into that of necessities, began a new era for the queen of drinks destined to reign over all other beverages.

O TEA!

In the drama of the past Thou art featured in the cast; (O Tea!) And thou hast played thy part With never a change of heart, (O Tea!) For 'mid all the ding and dong Waits a welcome--soothing song, For fragrant Hyson and Oolong. . . . A song of peace, through all the years, Of fireside fancies, devoid of fears, Of mothers' talks and mothers' lays, Of grandmothers' comforts--quiet ways. Of gossip, perhaps--still and yet-- What of Johnson? Would we forget The pictured cup; those merry times, When round the board, with ready rhymes Waller, Dryden, and Addison--Young, Grave Pope to Gay, when Cowper sung? Sydney Smith, too; gentle Lamb brew, Tennyson, Dickens, Doctor Holmes knew. The cup that cheered, those sober souls, And tiny tea-trays, samovars, and bowls. . . . So here's a toast to the queen of plants, The queen of plants--Bohea! Good wife, ring for your maiden aunts, We'll all have cups of tea. --ARTHUR GRAY.

TEA TERMS

JAPANESE

Ori-mono-châ . . . Folded Tea Giy-ôku-ro-châ . . . Dew Drop Tea Usu-châ . . . Light Tea Koi-châ . . . Dark Tea Tô-bi-dashi-châ . . . Sifted Tea Ban-châ . . . Common Tea Yu-Shiyutsu-châ . . . Export Tea Neri-châ . . . Brick Tea Koku-châ . . . Black Tea Ko-châ . . . Tea Dust Broken Leaves Riyoku-châ . . . Green Tea

CHINESE

Bohea . . . "Happy Establishment" So called after two ranges of hills, Fu-Kien or Fo-Kien Congou . . . Labor Named so at Amoy from the labor in preparing it. Sou chong . . . Small Kind Hyson . . . Flourishing Spring Pe-koe . . . White Hair So called because only the youngest leaves are gathered, which still have the delicate down--white hair--on the surface. Pou-chong . . . Folded Tea So called at Canton after the manner of picking it.

Brick Tea--prepared in Central China from the commonest sorts of tea, by soaking the tea refuse, such as broken leaves, twigs, and dust, in boiling water and then pressing them into moulds. Used in Siberia and Mongolia, where it also serves as a medium of exchange. The Mongols place the bricks, when testing the quality, on the head, and try to pull downward over the eyes. They reject the brick as worthless if it breaks or bends.

TEA LEAVES