Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1855-05-09
From the New York Journal of Commerce
TEA AND COFFEE,

Now that it is proposed to discard fermen.
ted liquors, it may be presumed that in pro-
portion as their consumption is actually d.
minished, the beverages made by simple in
fusion will be used more generally and in
larger quantities than ever before. Prof.
Johnston estimates the quantity of raw ma
terials consumed annually in the various
preparations of Tea, Coffee, Chicory and
Cocoa, to amount to nearly three thousand
millions of pounds, in the following proper.
tions, viz:-Chinese tea, twenty-five hundred
and forty millions; Mate, or Paraguay Tea,
twenty millions; Coffee, six hundred mil.
lions; Chicory, thirty millions; and Cocoa,
one hundred millions. The number OF peo-
pie to whom these warm beverages have be.
come necessaries Of life, he eslin ates at more
than seven hundred millions; or about three
6fths of the human race, who, he says, are
dependent upon these four for one of their
most useful and most harmless forms OF in.
diligence" A commentator so unqualified
from the author of the " Chemistry of Com.
mon Life" gives the highest sanction OF
matured scientific opinion to the common
practice of mankind, in opposition to those
extreme views which class tea and coffee
with liquors whose use should be prescribed
because of their deleterious operation upon
the human system. The properties and ef-
fects of coffee and tea are in most respects
similar. The exhilarate and produce wake.
fulness they stimulate the brain and soothe
the body; they retard the waste of the ami.
NAL system which is in constant progress,
and which it is the Office Of food to repair.
In those who labor much with the head,
they produce g. condition of the system ia
vorable for mental application; and in all,
they tend to counteract the sluggishness
which prompts to shrink from difficulties,
and to infuse the spirit which impels to en-
counter and overcome them. They increase
the enjoyment of life, while they make no
sacrifice of its duration. On the contrary,
in the old and infrm. whose powers Of dges.
ton begin to fail, they doubtless operate to
prolong it, by retarding the natural waste of
the bodily substance. This fact is capable
of being demonstrated by direct experiment.
The substance wasted by the action of life,
is rejected from the body through various
channels. A part Of it passes of through
the kidneys. To illustrate the influence OF
coffee in retarding the waste of the tissues,
Prof. Johnston exhibits the results OF an an
alysis Of the fluid ...a '',''. o. nj. IL. s@a'e
person, in the san rev
ing that, while the
ged in the twent, lis
more than one.if
coffee, the absolute qu-.....a H' -
.phosphoric acid contained in it were dn'''"-
ished one.third and the quantity of these
two substances discharged, he represents to
be a correct measure of the comparative
waste of the tissues at those different periods.
The inference he draws is, that the occupa.
ton of the individual being the same, the
necessary demand for ordinary food would
be lessened in q somewhat corresponding
degree.
As to the relative value Of coffee and tea
as articles of diet, there is some diversity OF
sentiment The infredients of unroasted
coffee and of the tea leaf in the condition in
which it comes to u.s. are compared by Prol'
Johnston in the following table: