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of Tea are gathered in dry weather; then dried and curled over the fire in copper pans. The Chinese ufe little Green Tea, imagining that it hinders digeftion and excites fevers. How it fhould have either effect is not eafily discovered; and if we confider the innumerable prejudices which prevail concerning our own plants, we shall very little regard thefe opinions of the Chinefe vulgar, which experience does

not confirm.

When the Chinese drink Tea, they infufe it flightly, and extract only the more volatile parts; but though this feems to require great quantities at a time, yet the author believes, perhaps only because he has an inclination to believe it, that the English and Dutch use more than all the inhabitants of that extenfive empire. The Chinese drink it fometimes with acids, feldom with fugar; and this practice our author, who has no intention to find any thing right at home, recommends to his countrymen.

The hiftory of the rife and progrefs of Tea-drinking is truly curious. Tea was first imported from Holland by the earls of Arlington and Offory, in 1666; from their ladies the women of quality learned its ufe. Its price was then three pounds a pound, and continued the fame to 1707. In 1715, we began to ufe Green Tea, and the practice of drinking it defcended to the lower clafs of the people. In 1720, the French began to fend it hither by a clandeftine commerce. From 1717 to 1726, we imported annually feven hundred thousand pounds. From 1732 to 1742, a million and two hundred thousand pounds were every year brought to London; in fome years afterwards

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afterwards three millions; and in 1755, near four millions of pounds, or two thousand tons, in which we are not to reckon that which is furreptitiously introduced, which perhaps is nearly as much. Such quantities are indeed fufficient to alarm us; it is at least worth inquiry, to know what are the qualities of such a plant, and what the confequences of fuch a trade. He then proceeds to enumerate the mifchiefs of Tea, and feems willing to charge upon it every chief that he can find. He begins, however, by queftioning the virtues afcribed to it, and denies that the crews of the Chinefe fhips are preferved in their voyage homewards from the fcurvy by Tea. About this report I have made fome inquiry, and though I cannot find that thefe crews are wholly exempt from fcorbutick maladies, they feem to fuffer them lefs than other mariners in any courfe of equal length. This I afcribe to the Tea, not as poffeffing any medicinal qualities, but as tempting them to drink more water, to dilute their falt food more copioufly, and perhaps to forbear punch, or other ftrong liquors.

He then proceeds in the pathetick ftrain, to tell the ladies how, by drinking Tea, they injure their health, and, what is yet more dear, their beauty.

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"To what can we afcribe the numerous complaints which prevail? How many sweet crea"tures of your fex languifh with a weak digeftion, "low fpirits, laffitudes, melancholy, and twenty dif "orders, which in fpite of the faculty have yet no "names, except the general one of nervous complaints? Let them change their diet, and among "other articles, leave off drinking Tea, it is more

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"Hot water is alfo very hurtful to the teeth. The

Chinefe do not drink their Tea fo hot as we do, and yet they have bad teeth. This cannot be afcribed

entirely to fugar, for they use very little, as already "obferved: but we all know that hot or cold things "which pain the teeth, destroy them alfo. If we "drank less Tea, and used gentle acids for the gums "and teeth, particularly four oranges, though we had a lefs number of French dentists, I fancy this effential part of beauty would be much better preserved.

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"The women in the United Provinces, who fip "Tea from morning till night, are alfo as remarkable "for bad teeth. They alfo look pallid, and many "are troubled with certain feminine diforders arifing "from a relaxed habit. The Portuguese ladies, on "the other hand, entertain with fweetmeats, and yet

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they have very good teeth: but their food in gene"ral is more of a farinaceous and vegetable kind "than ours. They alfo drink cold water instead of "fipping hot, and never tafte any fermented liquors; "for these reasons the ufe of fugar does not feem to "be at all pernicious to them."

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"Men feem to have loft their ftature and comelinefs, and women their beauty. I am not young, "but methinks there is not quite fo much beauty "in this land as there was. Your very chamber"maids have loft their bloom, I fuppofe by fipping "Tea. Even the agitations of the paffions at cards "are not fo great enemies to female charms. What Shakespeare afcribes to the concealment of love, is VOL. II.

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"in this age more frequently occafioned by the ufe of "Tea."

To raife the fright ftill higher, he quotes an account of a pig's tail fcalded with Tea, on which however he does not much infift.

Of thefe dreadful effects, fome are perhaps imaginary, and fome may have another caufe. That there is lefs beauty in the prefent race of females, than in thofe who entered the world with us, all of us are inclined to think on whom beauty has ceafed to fmile; but our fathers and grandfathers made the fame complaint before us; and our pofterity will ftill find beauties irrefiftibly powerful.

That the difeafes commonly called nervous, tremors, fits, habitual depreffion, and all the maladies which proceed from laxity and debility, are more frequent than in any former time, is, I believe, true, however deplorable. But this new race of evils will not be expelled by the prohibition of Tea. This general langour is the effect of general luxury, of general idleness. If it be moft to be found among Tea-drinkers, the reason is, that Tea is one of the ftated amufements of the idle and luxurious. The whole mode of life is changed; every kind of voluntary labour, every exercife that ftrengthened the nerves, and hardened the mufcles, is fallen into difufe. The inhabitants are crowded together in populous cities, fo that no occafion of life requires much motion; every one is near to all that he wants; and the rich and delicate feldom pafs from one ftreet to another, but in carriages of pleasure. Yet we eat and drink, or strive to eat and drink, like the hunters and huntreffes, the 4

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farmers and the housewives of the former generation 3 and they that pafs ten hours in bed, and eight at cards, and the greater part of the other fix at the table, are taught to impute to Tea all the difeafes which a life unnatural in all its parts may chance to bring upon them.

Tea, among the greater part of those who use it moft, is drunk in no great quantity. As it neither exhilarates the heart, nor ftimulates the palate, it is commonly an entertainment merely nominal, a pretence for affembling to prattle, for interrupting bufinefs, or diverfifying idleness. They who drink one cup, and who drink twenty, are equally punctual in preparing or partaking it; and indeed there are few but discover by their indifference about it, that they are brought together not by the Tea, but the Teatable. Three cups make the common quantity, fo flightly impregnated, that perhaps they might be tinged with the Athenian cicuta, and produce lefs effects than thefe Letters charge upon Tea.

Our author proceeds to fhew yet other bad qualities of this hated leaf.

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"Green Tea, when made ftrong even by infufion, "is an emetick; nay, I am told it is used as fuch in China; a decoction of it certainly performs this operation yet by long ufe it is drank by many "without fuch an effect. The infufion also, when "it is made ftrong, and ftands long to draw the grof"fer particles, will convulfe the bowels: even in the manner commonly used, it has this effect on fome conftitutions, as I have already remarked to you from my own experience.

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