The Little Tea Book
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| Publié par | syaz |
| Publié le | 08 décembre 2010 |
| Nombre de lectures | 30 |
| Langue | English |
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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Little Tea Book, by Arthur Gray
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Title: The Little Tea Book
Author: Arthur Gray
Illustrator: George W. Hood
Release Date: September 27, 2006 [EBook #19392]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITTLE TEA BOOK ***
Produced by Transcribed by Ruth Hart ruthhart@twilightoracle.com
THE LITTLE TEA BOOK COMPILED BY ARTHUR GRAY Compiler of Over the Black Coffee ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE W. HOOD
NEW YORK THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY 33-37 EAST 17TH ST., UNION SQ. NORTH
COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY
Published, October, 1903 The Crow Press, N.H.
Thou soft, thou sober, sage, and venerable liquid! Thou innocent pretence for bringing the wicked of both sexes together in the morning! Thou female tongue-running, smile-soothing, heart-opening, wink-tipping cordial to whose glorious insipidity I owe the happiest moments of my life. --COLLEY CIBBER.
INTRODUCING THE LITTLE TEA BOOK After all, tea isthedrink! Domestically and socially it is the beverage of the world. There may be those who will come forward withtheirfigures to prove that other fruits of the soil--agriculturally and commercially--are more important. Perhaps they are right when quoting statistics. But what other product can compare with tea in the high regard in which it has always been held by writers whose standing in literature, and recognized good taste in other walks, cannot be questioned?
A glance through this book will show that the spirit of the tea beverage is one of peace, comfort, and refinement. As these qualities are all associated with the ways of women, it is to them, therefore--the real rulers of the world--that tea owes its prestige and vogue. Further peeps through these pages prove this to be true; for nearly all the allusions and references to the beverage, by male writers, reveal the womanly influence that tea imparts. But this is not all. The side-lights of history, customs, manners, and modes of living which tea plays in the life of all nations will be found entertaining and instructive. Linked with the fine feminine atmosphere which pervades the drinking of the beverage everywhere, a leaf which can combine so much deserves, at least, a little human hearing for its long list of virtues; for its peaceful walks, talks, tales, tattle, frills, and fancies which go to make up this tribute to "the cup that cheers but not inebriates."
THE ORIGIN OF TEA Darma, third son of Koyuwo, King of India, a religions high priest from Siaka (the author of that Eastern paganism about a thousand years before the Christian era), coming to China, to teach the way of happiness, lived a most austere life, passing his days in continual mortification, and retiring by night to solitudes, in which he fed only upon the leaves of trees and other vegetable productions. After several years passed in this manner, in fasting and watching, it happened that, contrary to his vows, the pious Darma fell asleep! When he awoke, he was so much enraged at himself, that, to prevent the offence to his vows for the future, he got rid of his eyelids and placed them on the ground. On the following day, returning to his accustomed devotions, he beheld, with amazement, springing up from his eyelids, two small shrubs of an unusual appearance, such as he had never before seen, and of whose qualities he was, of course, entirely ignorant. The saint, however, not being wholly devoid of curiosity--or, perhaps, being unusually hungry--was prompted to eat of the leaves, and immediately felt within him a wonderful elevation of mind, and a vehement desire of divine contemplation, with which he acquainted his disciples, who were eager to follow the example of their instructor, and they readily received into common use the fragrant plant which has been the theme of so many poetical and literary pens in succeeding ages.
TEA By FRANCIS SALTUS SALTUS From what enchanted Eden came thy leaves That hide such subtle spirits of perfume? Did eyes preadamite first see the bloom, Luscious nepenthe of the soul that grieves? By thee the tired and torpid mind conceives Fairer than roses brightening life's gloom, Thy protean charm can every form assume And turn December ni hts to A ril eves.
Thy amber-tinted drops bring back to me Fantastic shapes of great Mongolian towers, Emblazoned banners, and the booming gong; I hear the sound of feast and revelry, And smell, far sweeter than the sweetest flowers, The kiosks of Pekin, fragrant of Oolong!
LITTLE CUPS OF CHINESE AND JAPANESE TEA Although the legend credits the pious East Indian with the discovery of tea, there is no evidence extant that India is really the birthplace of the plant. Since India has no record of date, or facts, on stone or tablet, or ever handed down a single incident of song or story--apart from the legend--as to the origin of tea, one is loath to accept the claim--if claim they assert--of a people who are not above practising the "black art" at every turn of their fancy. Certain it is that China, first in many things, knew tea as soon as any nation of the world. The early Chinese were not only more progressive than other peoples, but linked with their progress were important researches, and invaluable discoveries, which the civilized world has long ago recognized. Then, why not add tea to the list? At any rate, it is easy to believe that the Chinese were first in the tea fields, and that undoubtedly the plant was a native of both China and Japan when it was slumbering on the slopes of India, unpicked, unsteeped, undrunk, unhonored, and unsung. A celebrated Buddhist, St. Dengyo Daishai, is credited with having introduced tea into Japan from China as early as the fourth century. It is likely that he was the first to teach the Japanese the use of the herb, for it had long been a favorite beverage in the mountains of the Celestial Kingdom. The plant, however, is found in so many parts of Japan that there can be little doubt but what it is indigenous there as well. The word TEA is of Chinese origin, being derived from the Amoy and Swatow reading, "Tay," of the same character, which expresses both the ancient name of tea, "T'su," and the more modern one, "Cha " Japanese . tea, "Chiya"--pronounced Châ. Tea was not known in China before the Tang dynasty, 618-906 A.D. An infusion of some kind of leaf, however, was used as early as the Chow dynasty, 1122-255 B.C., as we learn from the Urh-ya, a glossary of terms used in ancient history and poetry. This work, which is classified by subjects, has been assigned as the beginning of the Chow dynasty, but belongs more properly to the era of Confucius, K'ung Kai, 551-479 B.C. Although known in Japan for more than a thousand years, tea only gradually became the national beverage as late as the fourteenth century. In the first half of the eighth century, 729 A.D., there was a record made of a religious festival, at which the forty-fifth Mikado---"Sublime Gate"--Shommei Tenno, entertained the Buddhist priests with tea, a hitherto unknown beverage from Corea, which country was for many years the high-road of Chinese culture to Japan. After the ninth century, 823 A.D., and for four centuries thereafter, tea fell into disuse, and almost oblivion, among the Japanese. The nobility, and Buddhist priests, however, continued to drink it as a luxury. During the reign of the eighty-third Emperor, 1199-1210 A.D., the cultivation of tea was permanently established in Japan. In 1200, the bonze, Yei-Sei, brought tea seeds from China, which he planted on the mountains in one of the most northern provinces. Yei-Sei is also credited with introducing the Chinese custom of ceremonious tea-drinking. At any rate, he presented tea seeds to Mei-ki, the abbot of the monastery of To-gano (to whom the use of tea had been recommended for its stimulating properties), and instructed him in the mystery of its cultivation, treatment, and preparation. Mei-ki, who laid out plantations near Uzi, was successful as a pupil, and even now the tea-growers of that neighborhood pay tribute to his memory by annually offering at his shrine the first gathered tea-leaves. After that period, the use of tea became more and more in fashion, the monks and their kindred having discovered its property of keeping them awake during long vigils and nocturnal prayers. Prom this time on the development and progress of the plant are interwoven with the histories and customs of these countries.
ON TEA The following short poem by Edmund Waller is believed to be the first one written in praise of the "cup that does not inebriate":
Venus her myrtle, Phoebus has her bays; Tea both excels, which she vouchsafes to praise. The best of Queens, and best of herbs, we owe To that bold nation, which the way did show To the fair region where the sun doth rise, Whose rich productions we so justly prize. The Muse's friend, tea does our fancy aid, Repress those vapors which the head invade, And keep the palace of the soul serene, Tit on her birthday to salute the Queen. Waller was born in 1605, and died in 1687, aged eighty-two.
SOME ENGLISH TEA HISTORY Tea was brought into Europe by the DUTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY, in 1610. It was at least forty, and perhaps forty-seven, years later that England woke up to the fascinations of the new drink. Dr. Johnson puts it at even a later date, for he claims that tea was first introduced into England by Lords Arlington and Ossory, in 1666, and really made its debut into society when the wives of these noblemen gave it its vogue. If Dr. Johnson's statement is intended to mean that nothing is anything until the red seal of the select says, "Thus shall it be," he is right in the year he has selected. If, on the other hand, the Doctor had in mind society at large, he is "mixed in his dates," or leaves, for tea was drawn and drunk in London nine years before that date. Garway, the founder of Garraway's coffee house, claimed the honor of being first to offer tea in leaf and drink for public sale, in 1657. It is pretty safe to fix the entrance of tea into Europe even a few years ahead of his announcement, for merchants in those days did not advertise their wares in advance. However, this date is about the beginning of TEA TIME, for in theMercurius Politiciusof September, 1658, appeared the following advertisement: That excellent and by all Physitians approved China drink, called by the Chineans, Tcha, by other nations, Tay, or Tea, is sold at the Sultana's Head, a Copphee House, in Sweetings Rents, by the Royal Exchange, London. Like all new things, when they have fastened on to the public's favor, tea was on everybody's lips and in everybody's mouth. It was lauded to the skies, and was supposed to be good for all the ills of the flesh. It would cure colds and consumption, clear the sight, remove lassitude, purify the liver, improve digestion, create appetite, strengthen the memory, and cure fever and ague. One panegyrist says, while never putting the patient in mind of his disease, it cheers the heart, without disordering the head; strengthens the feet of the old, and settles the heads of the young; cools the brain of the hard drinker, and warms that of the sober student; relieves the sick, and makes the healthy better. Epicures drink it for want of an appetite;bon vivants, to remove the effects of a surfeit of wine; gluttons, as a remedy for indigestion; politicians, for the vertigo; doctors, for drowsiness; prudes, for the vapors; wits, for the spleen; and beaux to improve their complexions; summing up, by declaring tea to be a treat for the frugal, a regale for the luxurious, a successful agent for the man of business, and a bracer for the idle. Poets and verse-makers joined the chorus in praise of tea, in Greek and Latin. One poet pictures Hebe pouring the delightful cup for the goddesses, who, finding it made their beauty brighter and their wit more brilliant, drank so deeply as to disgust Jupiter, who had forgotten that he, himself, "Drank tea that happy morn, When wise Minerva of his brain was born." Laureant Tate, who wrote a poem on tea in two cantos, described a family jar among the fair deities, because each desired to become the special patroness of the ethereal drink destined to triumph over wine. Another versifier exalts it at the expense of its would-be rival, coffee: "In vain would coffee boast an equal good, The crystal stream transcends the flowing mud, Tea, even the ills from coffee spring repairs, Disclaims its vices and its virtues shares." Another despairing enthusiast exclaims: "Hail, oddess of the ve etable, hail!
To sing thy worth, all words, all numbers, fail!" The new beverage did not have the field all to itself, however, for, while it was generally admitted that Tea was fixed, and come to stay. It could not drive good meat and drink away. Lovers of the old and conservative customs of the table were not anxious to try the novelty. Others shied at it; some flirted with it, in tiny teaspoonfuls; others openly defied and attacked it. Among the latter were a number of robust versifiers and physicians. "'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 theFemale 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 BY JOHN ERNEST MCCANN According to Henry Thomas Buckle, the author of "The History of Civilization in England," who was the master of eighteen languages, and had a library of 22,000 volumes, with an income of $75,000 a year, at the age of twenty-nine, in 1850 (he died in 1860, at the age of thirty-nine), tea making and drinking were, or are, what Wendell Phillips would call lost arts. He thought that, when it came to brewing tea, the Chinese philosophers were not living in his vicinity. He distinctly wrote that, until he showed her how, no woman of his acquaintance could make a decent cup of tea. He insisted upon a warm cup, and even spoon, and saucer. Not that Mr. Buckle ever sipped tea from a saucer. Of course, he was right in insisting upon those above-mentioned things, for tea-things, like a tea-party, should be in sympathy with the tea, not antagonistic to it. Still, not always; for, on one memorable occasion, in the little town of Boston, the greatest tea-party in history was anything but sympathetic. But let that pass. Emperor Kien Lung wrote, 200 years or more ago, for the benefit of his children, just before he left the Flowery Kingdom for a flowerier: "Set a tea-pot over a slow fire; fill it with cold water; boil it long enough to turn a lobster red; pour it on the quantity of tea in a porcelain vessel; allow it to remain on the leaves until the vapor evaporates, then sip it slowly, and all your sorrows will follow the vapor." He says nothing about milk or sugar. But, to me, tea without sugar is poison, as it is with milk. I can drink one cup of tea, or coffee, with sugar, but without milk, and feel no ill effects; but if I put milk in either tea or coffee, I am as sick as a defeated candidate for the Presidency. That little bit of fact is written as a hint to many who are ill without knowing why they are, after drinking tea, or coffee, with milk in it. I don't think that milk was ever intended for coffee or tea. Why should it be? Who was the first to color tea and coffee with milk? It may have been a mad prince, in the presence of his flatterers and imitators, to be odd; or just to see if his flatterers would adopt the act. The Russians sometimes put champagne in their tea; the Germans, beer; the Irish, whiskey; the New Yorker, ice cream; the English, oysters, or clams, if in season; the true Bostonian, rose leaves; and the Italian and Spaniard, onions and garlic. You all know one of the following lines, imperfectly. Scarcely one in one hundred quotes them correctly.Inever have quoted them as written, off-hand--but lines run out of my head like schoolboys out of school, "When the lessons and tasks are all ended, And school for the day is dismissed."
Here are the lines:
"Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast; Let fall the curtains; wheel the sofa round; And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamly column, and the cups That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each, To let us welcome peaceful evening in." Isn't that a picture? Not one superfluous word in it! Who knows its author, or when it was written, or can quote the line before or after
"the cups That cheer, but not inebriate"? or in what poem the lines run down the ages? I tell you? Not I. I don't believe in encouraging laziness. If I tell you, you will let it slip from your memory, like a panic-stricken eel through the fingers of a panic-stricken schoolboy; but if you hunt it up, it will be riveted to your memory, like a ballet, and one never forgets when, where, how, why, and from whom, he receives that. What a pity that, in Shakespeare's time, there was no tea-table! What a delightful comedy he could, and would, have written around it, placing the scene in his native Stratford! What a charming hostess at a tea-table his mother, Mary Arden (loveliest of womanly names), would have made! Any of the ladies of the delightful "Cranford" wouldn't be a circumstance to a tea-table scene in a Warwickshire comedy, with lovely Mary Arden Shakespeare as the protagonist, if the comedy were from the pen of her delightful boy, Will. Had tea been known in Shakespeare's time, how much more closely he would have brought his sexes, under one roof, instead of sending the more animal of the two off to The Boar's Head and The Mermaid, leaving the ladies to their own verbal devices. Shakespeare, being such a delicate, as well as virile, poet, would have taken to tea as naturally as a bee takes to a rose or honeysuckle; for the very word "tea" suggests all that is fragrant, and clean, and spotless: linen, silver, china, toast, butter, a charming room with charming women, charmingly gowned, and peach and plum and apple trees, with the scent of roses, just beyond the open, half-curtained windows, looking down upon, or over, orchard or garden, as the May or June morning breezes suggest eternal youth, as they fill the room with perfume, tenderness, love, optimism, and hope in immortality. Coffee suggests taverns, cafés, sailing vessels, yachts, boarding-houses-by-the-river-side, and pessimism. Tea suggests optimism. Coffee is a tonic; tea, a comfort. Coffee is prose; tea is poetry. Whoever thinks of taking coffee into a sick-room? Who doesn't think of taking in the comforting cup of tea? Can the most vivid imagination picture the angels (above the stars) drinking coffee? No. Yet, if I were to show them to you over the teacups, you would not be surprised or shocked. Would you? Not a bit of it. You would say: "That's a very pretty picture. Pray, what are they talking about, or of whom are they talking?" Why, of their loved ones below, and of the days of their coming above the stars. They know when to look for us, and while the time may seem long to us before the celestial reunion, to them it is short. They do not worry, as we do. We could not match their beautiful serenity if we tried, for they know the folly of wishing to break or change divine laws. What delightful scandals have been born at tea-tables--rose and lavender, and old point lace scandals: surely, no brutal scandals or treasons, as in the tavern. Tea-table gossip surely never seriously hurt a reputation. Well, name one. No? Well, think of the shattered reputations that have fallen around the bottle. Men are the worst gossips unhanged, not women. In 1652, tea sold for as high as £10 in the leaf. Pepys had his first cup of tea in September, 1660. (See his Diary.) The rare recipe for making tea in those days was known only to the elect, and here it is: "To a pint of tea, add the yolks of two fresh eggs; then beat them up with as much fine sugar as is sufficient to sweeten the tea, and stir well together. The water must remain no longer upon the tea than while you can chant the Miserere psalm in a leisurely fashion." But I am not indorsing recipes of 250 odd years ago. The above is from the knowledge box of a Chinese priest, or a priest from China, called Père Couplet (don't print it Quatrain), in 1667. He gave it to the Earl of Clarendon, and I extend it to you, if you wish to try it. John Milton knew the delights of tea. He drank coffee during the composition of "Paradise Lost," and tea during the building of "Paradise Regained." Like all good things, animate and inanimate, tea did not become popular without a struggle. It, like the gradual oak, met with many kinds of opposition, from the timid, the prejudiced, and the selfish. All sorts of herbs were put upon the market to offset its popularity; such as onions, sage, marjoram, the Arctic bramble, the sloe, goat-weed, Mexican goosefoot, speedwell, wild geranium, veronica, wormwood, juniper, saffron, carduus benedictus, trefoil, wood-sorrel, pepper, mace, scurry grass, plantain, and betony. Sir Hans Sloane invented herb tea, and Captain Cook's companion, Dr. Solander, invented another tea, but it
was no use--tea had come to stay, and a blessing it has been to the world, when moderately used. You don't want to become a tea drunkard, like Dr. Johnson, nor a coffee fiend, like Balzac. Be moderate in all things, and you are bound to be happy and live long. Moderation in eating, drinking, loving, hating, smoking, talking, acting, fighting, sleeping, walking, lending, borrowing, reading newspapers--in expressing opinions--even in bathing and praying--means long life and happiness.
WIT, WISDOM, AND HUMOR OF TEA Tea tempers the spirits and harmonizes the mind, dispels lassitude and relieves fatigue, awakens thought and prevents drowsiness, lightens or refreshes the body, and clears the perceptive faculties.--CONFUCIUS. Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea?--how did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.--SYDNEY SMITH. "Sammy," whispered Mr. Weller, "if some o' these here people don't want tappin' to-morrow mornin', I ain't your father, and that's wot it is. Why this here old lady next me is a drown-in' herself in tea " . "Be quiet, can't you?" murmured Sam. "Sam," whispered Mr. Weller, a moment afterward, in a tone of deep agitation, "mark my words, my boy; if that 'ere secretary feller keeps on for five minutes more, he'll blow himself up with toast and water." "Well, let him if he likes," replied Sam; "it ain't no bis'ness of yourn." "If this here lasts much longer, Sammy," said Mr. Weller, in the same low voice, "I shall feel it my duty as a human bein' to rise and address the cheer. There's a young 'ooman on the next form but two, as has drank nine breakfast cups and a half; and she's a swellin' wisibly before my wery eyes."--Pickwick Papers. Books upon books have been published in relation to the evil effects of tea-drinking, but, for all that, no statistics are at hand to show that their arguments have made teetotalers of tea-drinkers. One of the best things, however, said against tea-drinking is distinctly in its favor to a certain extent. It is from one Dr. Paulli, who laments that "tea so dries the bodies of the Chinese that they can hardly spit." This will find few sympathizers among us. We suggest the quotation to some enterprising tea-dealer to be used in a street-car advertisement. Of all methods of making tea, that hit upon by Heine's Italian landlord was perhaps the most economical. Heine lodged in a house at Lucca, the first floor of which was occupied by an English family. The latter complained of the cookery of Italy in general, and their landlord's in particular. Heine declared the landlord brewed the best tea ho had ever tasted in the country, and to convince his doubtful English friends, invited them to take tea with him and his brother. The invitation was accepted. Tea-time came, but no tea. When the poet's patience was exhausted, his brother went to the kitchen to expedite matters. There he found his landlord, who, in blissful ignorance of what company the Heines had invited, cried: "You can get no tea, for the family on the first floor have not taken tea this evening." The tea that had delighted Heine was made from the used leaves of the English party, who found and made their own tea, and thus afforded the landlord an opportunity of obtaining at once praise and profit by this Italian method of serving a pot of tea.--Chambers's Journal.
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