Morning journal and courier., 1883-08-24
SournaI aIlO Gourier.
EDITEDsANn puRIdsHED BY
SINGLE COPIES THREE GENTS.
Friday, August 24, 1883.
ADULTERATED TEA,


 The cup that cheers but does not inebriate may, it appears, poison. There has been for long time in this country a good market for poor teas, teas which could not be sold in any other country. Lately there has arisen very decided opposition to the importation of adulterated and poisoned teas, and sev- eral important seizures have been made. Wednesday. for instance, seven hundred half l chests of what Is known as Japan tea dust were seized in New York.
 Professor Battershall and Dr. J. F. Davies, who in behalf of the government look after the purity of tea in New York. have made some interesting, though not very pleasing, discoveries The Japan tea dust, even in the costliest grades, has hardly semblance of the leaf in it. It is generally powder, having in it's unadulterated state the color of the genuine leaf. It is the siftings that fall through the sieve when the tea leaf is being prepared for shipment. When adulterated the powder and the leaf too assume pale green hue and have distinct lustre very like that on a bit of silk or satin. Wishing to find out the nature of the material usee in coloring tea Mir. Davies secuE ed the other day samples of the stuff from one of the largest houses in New York city engaged in the i'm. portation of Japan teas. Three boxes of fine powders in their pure state and two o1 the powders mixed ready for use were given to the chemists for analysis. Two of the un. mixed powders of pure white proved tto be gypsum and soapstone, respectively The third, deep blue powder, twas PrussiaIi blue, which is an active poison, and which the i'm porter before an analysis was made claimed was not Prussian blue. but a blue powder the composition of which was secret with the Japanese, an illusion quickly dispelled when the chemical tests were made. One of the mixed powders contained five per cent. of this active poison and the other ten per cent. These powders, pale blue in color, are the material used in giving to tea the pale green color which so many tea buyers erroneously consider 8 mark of good tea, and without their use that color cannot be obtained. It is interesting to learn that there are five firms in New York oity engaged in the color ing of tea after importation, using the ma teriaIs described. The coloring enhances the value among the ignorant purchasers, who want the tea they buy to be of the pale green shade, always indicative of aduItera- ton.
 Another method of making poor tea sell for good tea is one that is not easy of detec- tien. The leaf in this case has been used once in making decoction. The grounds saved after the 'tdrawing' are dried, subject ed to treatment with the coioring matter re- Ea,.. k, The strength of the leaf is gone, of course, but the tea after treatment presents in bulk an attractive appearance, and it's adulteration can only be discovered by cher scal analysis number of invoices of this fraudulent tea have been rejected after chemical analysis. Another clever trick is practiced in both China and Japan. The exhausted leaf and the good leaf are both used in this trick, the ob- jecs being to increase the weight of the tea solely. Inside each leaf and apparently placed there by hand is minute grain of sand tightly rolled into the leaf In on,s half chest examined in the laboratory there was a sufficient quantity of these bits of gravel rolled into the leaf to add two and one-half pounds to the weight of the half-chest. This means of increasing weight is not often re- sorted to, and then only in the case of high grades of tea. The use of the exhausted leaves, leaves that have once been used, is a feature of 80 per cent. of adulterated teas. The use of leaves of other plants is rare, and the presence of copper and chromate of lead is exceedingly rare, the use of such adulter- ants being apparently almost entirely aban- doned.
 Poisoned and adulterated teas will doubt Jess continue to be sold, but it is possible to largely decrease their sale, and the agents of the government are evidently doing good work in that direction. If they continue to do their duty trading in such teas will not be as popular and profitable as ft has been-