The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1878-11-27
!. BLACK" AND . GREENE

II you choose to pay for it, says the Chinese
Ambassador, you can have your tea mixed
with many substances, that the native China
men does not take in his. It is new way of
drawing tea, " certainly, to put magnet to
1t to find out what percentage of iron filings
constitutes its fine power, and as the doctors
prescribe iron for us all occasionally, perhaps
the ingredient in " doctored teas is least
harmful of them all. There may be more OBJ
lection to graphite, which is used vigorously
in making leadpencils in polishing stoves and
in coloring tea, giving it the same glossy black
that it does the kitchen range and that fine
glistening appearance which promises to the
deluded buyer both strength and freshness
There is only, as the Chinese Ambassador,
Chin Lau Pin, remarks, one kind of tea plant
after all, and when the native asks for green
tea he gets the young leaves that have been
fire dried and rolled Immediately after they
have been gathered, which process retains
most of the essential oil Of the leaf, and gives
it the color from which it takes it's name.
When the Chinaman calls for black tea he
gets leaf that has been longer exposed to the
air, and has yielded up some of the qualities
of the green, and that has been exposed to
longer process of firing. What he does not
get in tea is the Prussian blue, indigo, turner
ic, kaolin, chalk, extra tanniD, gum, starch,
Or other choice additions, which give the dis
tinct flavor and appearance to the numerous
brands of imported teas 1t is not proved that
there is any hurtful amount of these ingredi-
ents in the tea that cheers the American, but
it is very certain that if his taste has been
"cultivated to like and demand these ad-
ditions, he will continue to pay for them and
to get them and that the tea of commerce,
which is one thing, and the tea OF China,
which is another, will continue to be separate
articles. II Chin Ian Pin fulfilled no other
mission in this country than to point ont, as
he has done, that the pure teas are the cheap
est, not in the end but in the beginning, he
ought to be toasted wherever the kettle boils.
If, instead of forbidding the importation of
the Chinese themselves, the Californans will
undertake to furnish us with unauthorized
and cheap Chinese tea direct from the Flow
cry Kingdom, and pure as the Chnaman
drinks it, they might raise the standard of
American taste to the fine point of the 0rien-
tai, and bring down prices tot Chinese stand
ard. 1t has been long known to knowing trav-
elers that the Russians get excellent tea, for
which the overland journey, instead of the
sea voyage, has received it's due share of cred
it. But it seems that the Russian connoisseurs
in tea are careful also to secure the genuine
article, especially as they have their own
tastes to crafty in mixing it for themselves.
The brick y or Russian tea, which the sol
der takes with him as his rations, is a coarse
leaf mixed with tallow and flour and the blood
of beeves and sheep, SO that more than Lie
big extract is made from it, a kind of soup, In
fact. But the Russian knows what he takes,
both when to the family tea he adds slice of
lemon, or when the bricks are put up for the
commissary department The trouble with
the American is, that he does not know that
the delicate shades of oolong, young byson,
souchong gunpowder, imperial, or by what
ever Lame he buys it, are--or ought to be-
due to the different dryings and rollings of the
leaf itself, and are not SO many distinct
plants. But he expects a flavor that shall
strike his palate with sharp and recognizable
tang in eacb and it is needless to say that he
gets it--and it now appears, pays for 1t, too
though the Chinese Ambassador has to come
over here to make bin believe it.