The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-06-25
TEA" FROM THE MILD SHRUBS

TEA FROM THE MILD SHRU BS. Picnickers and those who go a-camp- ing these summer days and forget to take their tea caddies along may find in the woods many a substitutue for the fragrant Bohea, wherewith to brew
 steaming cup to add cheer to cold
 luncheon. Indeed. it has not been so very long since Chinese tea was a lux ury not easily afforded in the remoter rural districts of our country, and re-
 course was had habitually to native berbs or shrubs of the forest for make shifts. Then, too. in the stormy days preceding the American Revolution,
 when the colonists were in turmoil over
 the stamp taxes levied by the mother country it was considered unpatriotic to drink tea that had paid tribute to
 the Government, and the so-called
 Liberty Tea was the popular drink. This. no doubt was made from a va riety of herbs, but certainly from that four-leaved loosestrife, a plant that is abundant in almost every woodland. It grows a soot or two high and may be recognized by its simple upright stem, upon which the leaves are set in whorls of four, or somestimes five, the yellow starlike flower being produced in June
 on long slender stalks from near the
 base of the leaves.
 During the Revolution the native leaves most extensively used for tea were probably those of the so-called New Jersey tea-a low bush that grows everywhere in dry woodlands and bears in June and July profusion of delicate white bloom. An infusion of the. leaves boil a clear amber color, and in looks is as attractive as real tea; but the taste, though astringent is by no means lively. Some effort has been made within com-
 paratively recent years to revive the
 use of this plant as substitute for tea l on commercial scale. The leaves are said to contain nearly 10 per cent. of
 tannin. Hemlock leaves and those of
 the arbor vita have also played part in the making of rustic tea. The arbor vita is a tree that grows wild in great abundance in northern woods. and the old-time Maine lumbermen used fre- Quently to resort to it's leaves for tea l when other herbage failed them for the purpose. It was thought to be especial ly invigorating, as witness the ancient couplet:
 "A quart of arbor vitae
 To make him strong and mighty" The little plant whose scarlet berries, about the size of peas, are sold under
 the name of teaberries by fruit vendors
 on our city streets. in another herb which was long ago turned to use for tea, whence the common name by which we know it in Pennsylvania. New Englanders, for some unknown reason,
 call it checkerberry. The foliage is very aromatic and people who are fond of a dash of spiciness in their drink have sometimes employed its flavor in
 real tea. It is near of kin and similar in taste to the creeping snowberry, a small delicate vine, abundant in great
 bogs and messy woods of the North and of the Allegheny region, and which is also approved by mountain palates as
 good stock for tea.
 Thoreau, in "The Maine Woods, tells
 of his Indian guide bringing it into
 camp one night, and recommending it
 as the best of all plants for tea. Tt had
 slight checkerberry flavor," he re-
 cords, and we both agreed that it was
 really better than the black tea We had
 bought. We thought it good discovery
 and that it might we'll be dried and sold
 in the shops" Better known as tea
 plant than the snowberry is the Labra-
 dor tea, or Ledum latifolium of botan-
 ists, which grows in cold bogs and
 mountain woods from Pennsylvania
 northward. The leaves. which emit a
 slight, but not unpleasant fragrance
 when bruised, are tough and leathery,
 and densely clothed underneath with
 rusty brown wool. .Steeped they give
 a wild, gan1y sort of taste to hot water,
 and the resultant drink suggests a
 poor grade of black tea.
 Sweet fern, which is so abundant a
 growth everywhere on sterile hills and by mountain roadsides. is another