Tea Its History And Mystery

eign leaves, and?Sanding or adulterating with a variety of mineral matter, chiefly iron or steel filings, to add to the weight. Each trade has its own special form of adulteration, and as in the milk business the most prevalent sophistications are watering and skimming, so in the Tea- trade the besetting malpractice is coloring and mixing with or substitution of partially-exhausted tea leaves, so that the main efforts of experts and tea-analysts should be directed more to this form of adulteration. The other forms have received some attention from chemists and others interested in the article, but not to the extent which the importance of the subject merits. But it is against the two former most common and dangerous forms of adulteration that the principal efforts of tea-analysts and inspectors should more particularly be directed ; and, while considerable of this nefarious and positively injurious work is done in the countries of importation, by far the greater portion is perpetrated in the countries of production. For consummate skill in the " tricks of trade,"the Chinese as a people have long been proverbial. " They are a self-ended people," says an old writer, " having the same reputation in Asia that the Jews have in Europe." Yet there are strong reasons for stating that many dealers in our own and other tea-drinking countries have become expert imitators of their methods, especially in the minor forms of coloring, mixing, repacking and refacing. The sophisticat...