which we shall never solve. For it is a remarkable fact that neither the green leaf of the tea plant, nor the tea leaf dried without mans agency, conveys to human senses any hint of the agreeable or valuable qualities for which tea is esteemed, and which have been developed by the art of man. A leaf of any one of the mints, or of the sassafras tree, or of the wintergreen vine, after being bruised in the hand and applied to the nose or the mouth, makes instant impression upon the senses of taste and small, and at once informs us of its distinctive qualities. Not so with the tea leaf; a hundred valueless plants impress those senses more vividly than the leaf which is worth them all. Infuse the green leaf of the Tea plant and the prized properties of "Tea" are still wanting, but in their stead, positively deleterious qualities are said to appear in the infusion. Commercial Tea must be regarded as an artificial production. A certain degree of artificial heat, of manipulation, and induced chemical changes, are the agents which develop the flavor and aroma of the tea leaf. And the nature of man's treatment and manipulation determines in large measure not only the desired flavor, but the distinguishing character of the tea, its rank as a green, a black, or an "English Breakfast Tea," all three of which may be evolved by skilful manipulation from the same tea bush, at the same time.

Much has been said and written in contention upon this latter assertion, and books may be quoted upon either side of the question, but we make the statement without qualification and upon unquestionable authority.

As Chinese teas became known to the inhabitants of other parts of Asia, and to Europeans, curiosity and commercial interests impelled other races to seek information concerning the origin and treatment of different Chinese teas. The prices obtained by the Chinese from foreigners for teas two and three centuries ago were most exorbitant, and paid the Chinese Government and Chinese merchants an enormous profit. Quite naturally that sagacious nation saw the danger of letting the truth concerning the origin, manufacture and cost of their most precious commodity pass into the possession of other people, and they strove to prevent foreigners from penetrating to their inland tea gardens, while they plied inquisitive enquirers with fairy tales which were eagerly swallowed. They said that every different kind of tea was the product of a different species of plant, which bore a different name, and that the manufacture was a most intricate process depending upon secrets confined to a very few; that the leaves could safely be plucked only at certain phases of the moon, and at certain hours of the day, and that some delicate varieties of tea leaves were plucked only by young maidens, etc. They even allowed Europeans to believe that green tea was colored by salts of copper, on copper plates, having doubtless learned that their were European merchants who would not be deterred from vending poisonous foods provided a good fat profit attended the transaction. In short, they practiced some of the dissimulation and tricks of trade to which many merchants were addicted.

To particularize further, and yet generalize at the same time, we will say here that the Tea plant or tree is greatly modified in hardiness, in height, in size of leaf, and in the quality of the leaf for a beverage, by soil, by moisture, tillage, and climate. Some soils and some climates develop a tea plant decidedly more suitable for a green tea than for a black tea, and vice-versa. The Formosa Oolong, with its natural flowery fragrance is a product of a peculiar soil, said to be a clay topped with rich humus. Analysis would probably disclose peculiarities in that soil not yet found in other tea districts. In removal to other soils and other localities, the Formosa Tea plant loses its most precious characteristic, its sweet flowery aroma and taste. The total product of this tea is but 18,000,000 lbs. per annum, an insignificant quantity compared with the aggregate crops of Chinese or of Indian tea gardens. If the exceptional characteristics of Formosa Oolong accompanied the plant when removed to other localities, its cultivation would quickly become greatly extended.

What is known or believed concerning the remote history of Tea and of its dissemination among other nations than the Chinese and Japanese, has been told so often that its recapitulation becomes tedious to those who are familiar with the story. But this book is intended for the general reader, and for the purpose of collecting and welding together disconnected and floating facts and scraps of tea literature gathered from many sources.

CHAPTER II.

HISTORICAL.

Until a quite recent period botanists believed that the tea plant was a native of China, and that its growth was confined to China and Japan. But it is now definitely known that the tea plant is a native of India, where the wild plant attains a size and perfection which concealed its true character from botanical experts, as well as from ordinary observers, for many years after it had become familiar to them as a native of Indian forests.

How early in the history of the Chinese that people discovered and developed the inestimable qualities of the tea plant is not known. That Chinese scholar, S. Wells Williams, in his Middle Kingdom places the date about 350 A.D. But somewhere between 500 A.D. and 700 A.D. Tea had become a favorite beverage in Chinese families. Some of the written records of that ancient people push the epoch of tea-drinking back as far as 2700 B.C., appealing to ambiguous utterances of Confucius for corroboration. Tea in China had obtained sufficient importance in political economy in 783 or 793 A.D. to become an object of taxation by the Chinese Government.

Gibbon, in his great work, tells us that as early as the sixth century, caravans conveyed the silks and spices and sandal wood of China by land from the Chinese Sea westward to Roman markets on the Mediterranean, a distance of nearly 6,000 miles. But we hear no mention of the introduction of tea into Europe or western Asia until a thousand years later.

According to Mr. John McEwan (International Geog. Congress,
Berlin, 1899,) tea soon found its way from China into Japan and
Formosa, but was not cultivated in Japan on a commercial scale
until the 12th century.

John Sumner, in a Treatise on Tea (Birmingham, 1863), states that the Portuguese claim to have first introduced tea into Europe, about 1557. Disraeli (Curiosities of Literature) offers evidence that tea was unknown in Russian Court circles as late as 1639.

But Russia and Persia seem to have naturalized tea as a beverage about the same time that it became known in England. Little is said about Persian tea-drinking in modern writing upon tea, but the testimony of many travelers bears witness to the national love of tea by Persians.

The Encyclopedia Britannica concedes to the Dutch, the honor of being the first European tea-drinkers, and states that early English supplies of tea were obtained from Dutch sources. It is related by Dr. Thomas Short, (A Dissertation on Tea, London, 1730), that on the second voyage of a ship of the Dutch East India Co. to China, the Dutch offered to trade Sage, as a very precious herb, then unknown to the Chinese, at the rate of three pounds of tea for one pound of Sage. The new demand for sage at one time exhausted the supply, but after a while the Orientals had a surfeit of sage-tea, and concluded that Chinese tea was quite good enough for Chinamen. If the European traders had known the virtue of sage-tea for stimulating the growth of human hair, and had given the Orientals the cue, sage leaves might have retained their high value with the Chinese until now.

In these days, it may be remarked, the