The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1894-09-13

tea producing nations. As matter OF
fact. there is little for the consumers Of
any but the cheapest grades Of tea to
worry about A few years ago it would
have been different Time has been
when if you could not get tea from
China or Japan you could not get it any
where. Now, thanks to British enter
prise and the fostering care of a strong
government, British planters are raising
tea in India and Ceylon that is quite
equal to the best raised by the little men
with Oblique eyes and yellow skins
Some connoisseurs say better.
1t was in 1881 that the cultivation Of
tea was begun in Ceylon, and it was in
the same year that Indian tea, first Gull
uivated some time previously, began to
be recognized as an important factor in
the worlds tea markets In that year
Great Britain, among whose people only
Indian tea down to that time had been
offered for sale, consumed 112, 900, 600
pounds of Chinese tea and As, 600, 900 of
Indian. In 1898 the figures were more
than turned upside down, the cOnsunp-
ton of Chinese tea in Great Britain
having fallen to SO, 600, 600 and that
planted in Ceylon and India under Brit
ish auspices having increased to 176,-
600, 900 pounds. Not only has the guam
rity of the British article increased ev-
cry year, but due attention has been
paid to quality and price, the former
having continuously risen and the latter
as steadily fallen
Thus IN 1881 Indian tea was sold by
the growers for 1 shilling and pence
a pound, or about 35 cents, while in
1898 its average price was 81 pence,
or about 1879 cents, and the Chinese
teagrowers have had either to reduce
their prices to suit or lose the market
They have done both to some extent. AS
has been shown, the cream of the E~it-
ish sales have slipped away from them,
and they have put the price Of their
cheapest tea raised in the Annoy districts
down so low that it is sold at auction in
New York at from / to 3 cents a
pound This tea will not increase in
price if the war continues long, but it
will disappear from the market, the
effect, of course, being the same to con
sumers, who viii be obliged to buy in
its stead the higher priced Indian and
Cey1onese tea Perhaps, too, there Will
be adulteratiOn, for, although tea cannot
be adulterated as readily as coffee, will
low and other leaves are sometimes
mixed with tea leaves successfully, and
the scarcity of the real thing at low
prices will be a temptation, no doubt,
which some INSCRIPTIONS dealers will
not struggle against very strongly.
1t was not until last year that the In
dian and CeylOnese planters made seri- (
GUS efforts TO capture any market save +
those of Great Britain and her colonies 1
The British market is by long odds the +
richest in the world The English con-
sumo tea with even greater avidity than I
the French consume coffee. Tea is the T
of all Britons. They drink it
in season and out of season-men, vgOm-
en- and children, rich and poor, high f
and low. An American business man
who opened branch Office in London q /
few years ago and set staff of clerks Z
at work told me the other day Of Curl
Gus experience he had shortly after he
opened his doors in the British metrop-
oils For the first two or three days he