The influence of wholesome drink : no. 4 of deposits in the Savings' Bank of Wisdom, made in behalf of working men and women.

Date:
[between 1850 and 1859?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The influence of wholesome drink : no. 4 of deposits in the Savings' Bank of Wisdom, made in behalf of working men and women. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    crisped foliage is of a green colour. When they are left moist for a longer period, and are dried more slowly, they turn of a dull black hue. In either case, the crisped and curled leaves form the tea, portions of which are sent over the sea for the use of English tea-tables. The ground which is devoted to the growth of the tea plant, in China, would, if all joined together, form a farm nearly as large as Wales! Three millions and a half of acres are there covered with tea-bushes; and the entire produce of these acres in tea, is fifty times as large as the amount which is consumed in England. Eifty monster ships, like the one building at Mill wall, would not hold therefore the tea produce of a single year. Of tea, and of its allies, coffee and cocoa, the earth yields yearly not less than three thousand millions of pounds; a quantity which it would take a grocer a hundred years to weigh out, if he worked at the rate of a pound every second. More than half the inhab- itants of the earth are daily engaged in the occupa- tion of consuming this vast amount. Although these favourite beverages are now so extensively used, this has not been very long the case. In the year 1664 the East India Company made a present to the Queen of England of two pounds of tea, considering it a very rare and choice gift. The Chinese themselves do not seem to have drunk tea generally before the seventh century. Cocoa was brought from Mexico to Spain in the middle of the 16th century for the first time; and cofi*ee was not seen in London until the 17th century. Hence it appears that these drinks are at least not actually necessary to human beings. The forefathers of the present generation did without them for centuries. When articles, which were scarcely known to be in existence three centuries ago, have so rapidly