This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1847 edition. Excerpt: ...it must be trifling when compared with that which is consumed by the Chinese themselves. It has been Chap. XI. REMARKS OF SIR G. STAUNTON ON TEA. 215 justly remarked by Sir George Staunton, that " such immense quantities of tea are yearly raised in China, that a sudden failure of demand from Europe would not be likely to occasion any material diminution of price in the Chinese markets." The consumption in the country must be very great. A Chinaman rarely drinks cold water: tea is his favourite beverage when thirsty, and it is drunk at all meals. Houses for its sale are as plentiful as our inns and beer-shops are in England. Tea-gardens (properly so called) are numerous in all the cities; every street and lane has its teahouses, which at stated periods of the day are crowded by the Chinese. Nor is it in cities only that this great consumption goes on. On the sides of country roads, on the passes over the mountains, at the Budhists' temples, and even in the most retired parts of the country, numerous public teahouses are met with for the sale of the beverage in a prepared state. A cup of tea in these places is sold for the small sum of one, or at most two " cash;" and when we remember that one hundred cash amount only to four-pence halfpenny, we then learn that the Chinese peasant can have three or four cups of his favourite tea for a sum not greater than one farthing of our money. I have no hesitation in saying that each individual in China consumes three or four times the quantity an Englishman does. Estimating the tea-drinking population of China Chap. XI. QUANTITY OF TEA USED IN CHINA. 217 at 300,000,000, and supposing that each individual f consumes 6 Ibs. of tea per annum, we get the large quantity of 1,800,000,000 Ibs. This quantity, ...