In noticing Dr. Johnston’s work, entitled “The Chemistry of Common Life,” the _Edinburgh Review_ thus emphatically attests the great boon which Tea confers upon the people. It remarks: “By her fireside, in her humble cottage, the lonely widow sits; the kettle simmers over the ruddy embers, and the blackened tea-pot on the hot brick prepares her evening drink. Her crust of bread is scanty, yet as she sips the warm beverage--little sweetened, it may be, with the produce of the sugar-cane--genial thoughts awaken in her mind; her cottage grows less dark and lonely, and comfort seems to enliven the ill-furnished cabin. When our suffering and wounded soldiers were brought down frozen and bleeding from the trenches before Sebastopol to the port of Balaklava, the most welcome relief to their sufferings was a pint of hot Tea, which was happily provided for them. Whence this great solace to the weary and worn? Why out of scanty earnings does the ill-fed and lone one cheerfully pay for the seemingly unnourishing weekly allowance of Tea? From what ever-open fountain does the daily comfort flow which the tea-cup gently brings to the care-worn and the weak?”
[Illustration: PICKING TEA.--Great care is bestowed on the finest chops of tea to sort out all defective leaves; this work requires considerable practice and application.]
Anon, referring to the chemical action of two important agents present in Tea--theine and volatile oil--the same excellent authority gives the following account of their operations on the human organism: “The theine is a substance possessing tonic or strengthening qualities, but distinguished particularly by the property of retarding the natural waste of the animal body. Most people are now aware that the chief necessity for food arises from the gradual and constant wearing away of the tissues and solid parts of the body. To repair and restore the worn and wasted parts, food must be constantly eaten and digested. And the faster the waste, the larger the quantity of food which must daily be consumed, to make up for the loss which this waste occasions. Now, the introduction of a certain quantity of theine into the stomach lessens the amount of waste which in similar circumstances would otherwise naturally take place. It makes the ordinary food consumed along with it, go farther, therefore, or, more correctly, lessens the quantity of food necessary to be eaten in a given time. A similar effect, in a somewhat less degree, is produced by the volatile oil, and, therefore, the infusion of Tea, in which both these ingredients of the leaf are contained, affects the rapidity of the natural waste in the Tea drinker, in a very marked manner.