Chapter I: Front Matter

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TEA

—ITS—

HISTORY AND MYSTERY

—BY—

JOSEPH M. WALSH,

AUTHOR OF

“COFFEE, ITS HISTORY, CLASSIFICATION AND
DESCRIPTION.”

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PHILADELPHIA:
HENRY T. COATES & CO.

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COPYRIGHTED, 1892,

BY

JOSEPH M. WALSH.

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_All Rights Reserved._

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PREFATORY.

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Utility, not originality, has been aimed at in the compilation of this work. The obstacles and difficulties its author had met with in his endeavors to learn something of the article he was commissioned to sell when he first entered the Tea trade, the almost total lack of knowledge displayed by the average dealer in the commodity, allied to the numerous inquiries for a work containing “all about tea,” first prompted the undertaking.

The material was collated at intervals, in a fragmentary manner, covering a period of over twenty years, and arranged amid the many interruptions incident to an active business life, subjected to constant revisions, repeated prunings and innumerable corrections, due mainly to the varying statements and conflicting opinions of admitted authorities in every branch of the subject. Still, as careful and judicious an arrangement of the data has been given as possible, a faithful effort being made to omit nothing that may prove useful, instructive or profitable to the expert, the dealer or general reader.

Aware that many facts have been omitted, and many errors committed in its preparation, he still trusts that the pains he has taken to avoid both have not been in vain, that the former may be few, and the latter of no great importance. The work was compiled under impulse, not under inducement, a single line not being intended originally for the market, and is now being published solely for the benefit of those “whom it may concern.”

PHILADELPHIA, December, 1892.

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CONTENTS.

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Chapter Page
I. EARLY HISTORY 9-28

II. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 29-35

III. BOTANICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND FORM 37-49

IV. CULTIVATION AND PREPARATION 51-68

V. CLASSIFICATION AND DESCRIPTION 69-132

VI. ADULTERATION AND DETECTION 133-157

VII. TESTING, BLENDING AND PREPARING 159-204

VIII. CHEMICAL, MEDICAL AND DIETICAL PROPERTIES 205-235

IX. WORLD’S PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION 237-252

X. TEA CULTURE, A PROBABLE AMERICAN INDUSTRY 253-265

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(Branch of Tea Plant.)
]

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