Arizona republican., 1909-02-22
What We Paid For Coffee, Tea
 and CaCaO In Two Decades THE HABIT STRENGTHENING
United States Is the Worlds Champion Consumer of Coffee and Makes a Fairly Good Showing Among the Tea Drinkers.

Washington, Fe 21.-Two billion dol
 lars worth of coffee, tea and cacao have been imported into the United
 States during the past twenty years, | or an annual average of about $100,-
 100000. In some years the total of coffee, tea and cacao is considerably
 more than S100,000,000. Coffee imports
 alone have, on certain occasions, ap- proximated s1OO.OOO,OOO in value, while
 tea has ranged from nine to eighteen
 million dollars per annum, and cacao
 has grown from two million dollars a year to fourteen million dollars a year,
 having in 1907 and 1908 attained prac-
 tically the same rank as tea in import
 value. Roughly speaking, it might be
 said that the annual importations into
 the United States of coffee. tea and
 cacao amount to $100,000,000 a year, iof which three-fourths is coffee and
 the remainder about equally divided
 between cacao and tea.
 America supplies the bulk of the
 coffee and cacao and Asia the tea. Of
 the coffee imports, taking the fiscal
 year 1908 as an example. the figures
 of the bureau of statistics of the de-
 partment of commerce and labor show
 that out of the S9O.0Ol000 pounds i'm
 ported. practically seven hundred mill
 ions came from Brazil, another one
 hundred millions from other South
 American countries, seventy millions
 from Mexico and Central America, and
 seven and half millions from the
 West Indies, the remainder coming
 from parts of the world other than America Of this remainder, nine mill
 ion pounds came direct from the East Indies, two millions from the Neither
 lands, presumably brought from her East Indian possessions, four millions from Asia and Oceania, other than the
 East Indies, and about another million pounds from the United Kingdom, Ger many and other European countries, presumably the product of their tropi- cal colonies. Thus America supplies practically 9S per cent of the coffee imported into the United States.
 Of the cacao imports, America also supplied the very large proportion. The total quantity imported in 1908 was S3,000,000 pounds, of which forty mill ion pounds came from the West Indies, seventeen -millians from Brazil, four teen and a half millions from other South American countries, one and a quarter millions from the East Indies, and nearly ten million pounds from European countries, into which 1t had been imported, presumably, chiefly from their tropical colonies.
 Of the 94,000,000 pounds of tea inn ported in 1908, it may be safely said that practically all of it was produced in the orient, though nine and a half million pounds came from the United Kingdom, presumably the product of her Asiatic possessions, chiefly India and Ceylon; two and a half million pounds entered from British North America, the product of the Orient, reaching Canadian soil either across the Pacific or by way of Europe and the Atlantic; forty-seven million came direct from Japan to the United States; twenty-seven and a quarter millions from China, and seven and a quarter millions from the East Indies.
 The above figures of imports of cof- fee, tea and cacao are only those Of imports from foreign countries. In to this, small quantities, espe- cially of coffee, are now brought into | the United States from our own 1sl- ands From Hawaii, n which the pro- duction of coffee is a comparatively | new industry, the quantity of the cof- fee is a comparatively new industry, the quantity of the coffee brought into l the United States in the fiscal year. | 1908, was 1,S1O,OOO pounds. From Porto Rico, in which the coffee industry is | well established, but which sells it's | coffee chiefly to European countries, | the quantity brought into the United States during the year mentioned was but 129,000 pounds-Porto Rico's ex- oortation of coffee to foreign countries | in the fiscal year 1908 having amounted to about thirty-five million pounds | From the Philippines the quantity | brought to the United States is very | small. in many years none. The coffee industry in those islands, which was | formerly very prosperous, has in re cent years suffered to such an extent | from a blight that expectations from ] the islands have practically ceased. | though the fact that similar condi- | lions which overlook the coffee indus |