Chapter 2

According to Henry Thomas Buckle, the author of "The History of Civilization in England," who was the master of eighteen languages, and had a library of 22,000 volumes, with an income of $75,000 a year, at the age of twenty-nine, in 1850 (he died in 1860, at the age of thirty-nine), tea making and drinking were, or are, what Wendell Phillips would call lost arts. He thought that, when it came to brewing tea, the Chinese philosophers were not living in his vicinity. He distinctly wrote that, until he showed her how, no woman of his acquaintance could make a decent cup of tea. He insisted upon a warm cup, and even spoon, and saucer. Not that Mr. Buckle ever sipped tea from a saucer. Of course, he was right in insisting upon those above-mentioned things, for tea-things, like a tea-party, should be in sympathy with the tea, not antagonistic to it. Still, not always; for, on one memorable occasion, in the little town of Boston, the greatest tea-party in history was anything but sympathetic. But let that pass.

Emperor Kien Lung wrote, 200 years or more ago, for the benefit of his children, just before he left the Flowery Kingdom for a flowerier:

"Set a tea-pot over a slow fire; fill it with cold water; boil it long enough to turn a lobster red; pour it on the quantity of tea in a porcelain vessel; allow it to remain on the leaves until the vapor evaporates, then sip it slowly, and all your sorrows will follow the vapor."

He says nothing about milk or sugar. But, to me, tea without sugar is poison, as it is with milk. I can drink one cup of tea, or coffee, with sugar, but without milk, and feel no ill effects; but if I put milk in either tea or coffee, I am as sick as a defeated candidate for the Presidency. That little bit of fact is written as a hint to many who are ill without knowing why they are, after drinking tea, or coffee, with milk in it. I don't think that milk was ever intended for coffee or tea. Why should it be? Who was the first to color tea and coffee with milk? It may have been a mad prince, in the presence of his flatterers and imitators, to be odd; or just to see if his flatterers would adopt the act.

The Russians sometimes put champagne in their tea; the Germans, beer; the Irish, whiskey; the New Yorker, ice cream; the English, oysters, or clams, if in season; the true Bostonian, rose leaves; and the Italian and Spaniard, onions and garlic.

You all know one of the following lines, imperfectly. Scarcely one in one hundred quotes them correctly. _I_ never have quoted them as written, off-hand--but lines run out of my head like schoolboys out of school,

"When the lessons and tasks are all ended, And school for the day is dismissed."

Here are the lines:

"Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast; Let fall the curtains; wheel the sofa round; And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamly column, and the cups That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each, To let us welcome peaceful evening in."

Isn't that a picture? Not one superfluous word in it! Who knows its author, or when it was written, or can quote the line before or after

"the cups That cheer, but not inebriate"?

&&or in what poem the lines run down the ages? I tell you? Not I. I don't believe in encouraging laziness. If I tell you, you will let it slip from your memory, like a panic-stricken eel through the fingers of a panic-stricken schoolboy; but if you hunt it up, it will be riveted to your memory, like a ballet, and one never forgets when, where, how, why, and from whom, he receives that.

What a pity that, in Shakespeare's time, there was no tea-table! What a delightful comedy he could, and would, have written around it, placing the scene in his native Stratford! What a charming hostess at a tea-table his mother, Mary Arden (loveliest of womanly names), would have made! Any of the ladies of the delightful "Cranford" wouldn't be a circumstance to a tea-table scene in a Warwickshire comedy, with lovely Mary Arden Shakespeare as the protagonist, if the comedy were from the pen of her delightful boy, Will. Had tea been known in Shakespeare's time, how much more closely he would have brought his sexes, under one roof, instead of sending the more animal of the two off to The Boar's Head and The Mermaid, leaving the ladies to their own verbal devices.

Shakespeare, being such a delicate, as well as virile, poet, would have taken to tea as naturally as a bee takes to a rose or honeysuckle; for the very word "tea" suggests all that is fragrant, and clean, and spotless: linen, silver, china, toast, butter, a charming room with charming women, charmingly gowned, and peach and plum and apple trees, with the scent of roses, just beyond the open, half-curtained windows, looking down upon, or over, orchard or garden, as the May or June morning breezes suggest eternal youth, as they fill the room with perfume, tenderness, love, optimism, and hope in immortality. Coffee suggests taverns, cafés, sailing vessels, yachts, boarding-houses-by-the-river-side, and pessimism. Tea suggests optimism. Coffee is a tonic; tea, a comfort. Coffee is prose; tea is poetry. Whoever thinks of taking coffee into a sick-room? Who doesn't think of taking in the comforting cup of tea? Can the most vivid imagination picture the angels (above the stars) drinking coffee? No. Yet, if I were to show them to you over the teacups, you would not be surprised or shocked. Would you? Not a bit of it. You would say:

"That's a very pretty picture. Pray, what are they talking about, or of whom are they talking?"

Why, of their loved ones below, and of the days of their coming above the stars. They know when to look for us, and while the time may seem long to us before the celestial reunion, to them it is short. They do not worry, as we do. We could not match their beautiful serenity if we tried, for they know the folly of wishing to break or change divine laws.

What delightful scandals have been born at tea-tables--rose and lavender, and old point lace scandals: surely, no brutal scandals or treasons, as in the tavern. Tea-table gossip surely never seriously hurt a reputation. Well, name one. No? Well, think of the shattered reputations that have fallen around the bottle. Men are the worst gossips unhanged, not women.

In 1652, tea sold for as high as £10 in the leaf. Pepys had his first cup of tea in September, 1660. (See his Diary.) The rare recipe for making tea in those days was known only to the elect, and here it is:

"To a pint of tea, add the yolks of two fresh eggs; then beat them up with as much fine sugar as is sufficient to sweeten the tea, and stir well together. The water must remain no longer upon the tea than while you can chant the Miserere psalm in a leisurely fashion."

But I am not indorsing recipes of 250 odd years ago. The above is from the knowledge box of a Chinese priest, or a priest from China, called Père Couplet (don't print it Quatrain), in 1667. He gave it to the Earl of Clarendon, and I extend it to you, if you wish to try it.

John Milton knew the delights of tea. He drank coffee during the composition of "Paradise Lost," and tea during the building of "Paradise Regained."

Like all good things, animate and inanimate, tea did not become popular without a struggle. It, like the gradual oak, met with many kinds of opposition, from the timid, the prejudiced, and the selfish. All sorts of herbs were put upon the market to offset its popularity; such as onions, sage, marjoram, the Arctic bramble, the sloe, goat-weed, Mexican goosefoot, speedwell, wild geranium, veronica, wormwood, juniper, saffron, carduus benedictus, trefoil, wood-sorrel, pepper, mace, scurry grass, plantain, and betony.

Sir Hans Sloane invented herb tea, and Captain Cook's companion, Dr. Solander, invented another tea, but it was no use--tea had come to stay, and a blessing it has been to the world, when moderately used. You don't want to become a tea drunkard, like Dr. Johnson, nor a coffee fiend, like Balzac. Be moderate in all things, and you are bound to be happy and live long. Moderation in eating, drinking, loving, hating, smoking, talking, acting, fighting, sleeping, walking, lending, borrowing, reading newspapers--in expressing opinions--even in bathing and praying--means long life and happiness.

_WIT, WISDOM, AND HUMOR OF TEA_

Tea tempers the spirits and harmonizes the mind, dispels lassitude and relieves fatigue, awakens thought and prevents drowsiness, lightens or refreshes the body, and clears the perceptive faculties.--CONFUCIUS.

Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea?--how did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.--SYDNEY SMITH.

"Sammy," whispered Mr. Weller, "if some o' these here people don't want tappin' to-morrow mornin', I ain't your father, and that's wot it is. Why this here old lady next me is a drown-in' herself in tea."

"Be quiet, can't you?" murmured Sam.

"Sam," whispered Mr. Weller, a moment afterward, in a tone of deep agitation, "mark my words, my boy; if that 'ere secretary feller keeps on for five minutes more, he'll blow himself up with toast and water."

"Well, let him if he likes," replied Sam; "it ain't no bis'ness of yourn."

"If this here lasts much longer, Sammy," said Mr. Weller, in the same low voice, "I shall feel it my duty as a human bein' to rise and address the cheer. There's a young 'ooman on the next form but two, as has drank nine breakfast cups and a half; and she's a swellin' wisibly before my wery eyes."--_Pickwick Papers_.

Books upon books have been published in relation to the evil effects of tea-drinking, but, for all that, no statistics are at hand to show that their arguments have made teetotalers of tea-drinkers. One of the best things, however, said against tea-drinking is distinctly in its favor to a certain extent. It is from one Dr. Paulli, who laments that "tea so dries the bodies of the Chinese that they can hardly spit." This will find few sympathizers among us. We suggest the quotation to some enterprising tea-dealer to be used in a street-car advertisement.

Of all methods of making tea, that hit upon by Heine's Italian landlord was perhaps the most economical. Heine lodged in a house at Lucca, the first floor of which was occupied by an English family. The latter complained of the cookery of Italy in general, and their landlord's in particular. Heine declared the landlord brewed the best tea ho had ever tasted in the country, and to convince his doubtful English friends, invited them to take tea with him and his brother. The invitation was accepted. Tea-time came, but no tea. When the poet's patience was exhausted, his brother went to the kitchen to expedite matters. There he found his landlord, who, in blissful ignorance of what company the Heines had invited, cried: "You can get no tea, for the family on the first floor have not taken tea this evening."

The tea that had delighted Heine was made from the used leaves of the English party, who found and made their own tea, and thus afforded the landlord an opportunity of obtaining at once praise and profit by this Italian method of serving a pot of tea. --_Chambers's Journal_.

_FATE_

Matrons who toss the cup, and see The grounds of Fate in grounds of tea. --_Churchill_.

_TEA MAKING AND TAKING IN JAPAN AND CHINA_

The queen of teas in Japan is a fine straw-colored beverage, delicate and subtle in flavor, and as invigorating as a glass of champagne. It is real Japan tea, and seldom leaves its native heath for the reason that, while it is peculiarly adaptable to the Japanese constitution, it is too stimulating for the finely-tuned and over-sensitive Americans, who, by the way, are said to be the largest customers for Japan teas of other grades in the world.

This particular tea, which looks as harmless as our own importations of the leaf, is a very insidious beverage, as an American lady soon found out after taking some of it late at night. She declared, after drinking a small cup before retiring, she did not close her eyes in sleep for a week. We do not know the name of the brand of tea, and are glad of it; for we live in a section where the women are especially curious.

But the drink of the people at large in Japan is green tea, although powdered tea is also used, but reserved for special functions and ceremonial occasions. Tea, over there, is not made by infusing the leaves with boiling water, as is the case with us; but the boiling water is first carefully cooled in another vessel to 176 degrees Fahrenheit. The leaves are also renewed for every infusion. It would be crime against his August Majesty, the Palate, to use the same leaves more than once--in Japan. The preparation of good tea is regarded by the Japs as the height of social art, and for that reason it is an important element in the domestic, diplomatic, political, and general life of the country.

Tea is the beverage--the masterpiece--of every meal, even if it be nothing but boiled rice. Every artisan and laborer, going to work, carries with him his rice-box of lacquered wood, a kettle, a tea-caddy, a tea-pot, a cup, and his chop-sticks. Milk and sugar are generally eschewed. The Japs and the Chinese never indulge in either of these ingredients in tea; the use of which, they claim, spoils the delicate aroma.

From the highest court circles down to the lowliest and poorest of the Emperor's subjects, it is the custom in both Japan and China to offer tea to every visitor upon his arrival. Not to do this would be an unpardonable breach of national manners. Even in the shops, the customer is regaled with a soothing cup before the goods are displayed to him. This does not, however, impose any obligation on the prospective purchaser, but it is, nevertheless, a good stimulant to part with his money. This appears to be a very ancient tradition in China and Japan--so ancient that it is continued by the powers that be in Paradise and Hades, according to a translation called "Strange Stories from My Small Library," a classical Chinese work published in 1679.

The old domestic etiquette of Japan never intrusted to a servant the making of tea for a guest. It was made by the master of the house himself; the custom probably growing out of the innate politeness and courtesy of a people who believe that an honored visitor is entitled to the best entertainment possible to give him.

As soon as a guest is seated upon his mat, a small tray is set before the master of the house. Upon this tray is a tiny tea-pot with a handle at right angles to the spout. Other parts of this outfit include a highly artistic tea-kettle filled with hot water, and a requisite number of small cups, set in metal or bamboo trays. These trays are used for handing the cups around, but the guest is not expected to take one. The cups being without handles, and not easy to hold, the visitor must therefore be careful lest he let one slip through his untutored fingers.

The tea-pot is drenched with hot water before the tea is put in; then more hot water is poured over the leaves, and soon poured off into the cups. This is repeated several times, but the hot water is never allowed to stand on the grounds over a minute.

The Japanese all adhere to the general household custom of the country in keeping the necessary tea apparatus in readiness. In the living-room of every house is contained a brazier with live coals, a kettle to boil water, a tray with tea-pot, cups, and a tea-caddy.

Their neighbors, the Chinese, are just as alert; for no matter what hour of the day it may be, they always keep a kettle of boiling water over the hot coals, ready to make and serve the beverage at a moment's notice. No visitor is allowed to leave without being offered a cup of their tea, and they themselves are glad to share in their own hospitality.

The Chinese use boiling water, and pour it upon the dry tea in each cup. Among the better social element is used a cup shaped like a small bowl, with a saucer a little less in diameter than the top of the bowl. This saucer also serves another purpose, and is often used for a cover when the tea is making. After the boiling water is poured upon the tea, it is covered for a couple of minutes, until the leaves have separated and fallen to the bottom of the cup. This process renders the tea clear, delightfully fragrant, and appetizing.

A variety of other cups are also used; the most prominent being without handles, one or two sizes larger than the Japanese. They are made of the finest china, set in silver trays beautifully wrought, ornate in treatment and design.

A complete tea outfit is a part of the outfitting of every _Ju-bako_--"picnic-box"--with which every Jap is provided when on a journey, making an excursion, or attending a picnic. The Japanese are very much given to these out-of-door affairs, which they call _Hanami_--"Looking at the flowers." No wonder they are fond of these pleasures, for it is a land of lovely landscapes and heaven-sent airs, completely in harmony with the poetic and artistic natures of this splendid people.

Tea-houses--_Châ ya_--which take the place of our cafes and bar rooms, but which, nevertheless, serve a far higher social purpose, are everywhere in evidence, on the high-roads and by-roads, tucked away in templed groves and public resorts of every nature.

Among the Japanese are a number of ceremonial, social, and literary tea-parties which reflect their courtly and chivalrous spirit, and keep alive the traditions of the people more, perhaps, than any other of their functions.

The most important of these tea-parties are exclusively for gentlemen, and their forms and ceremonies rank among the most refined usages of polite society. The customs of these gatherings are so peculiarly characteristic of the Japanese that few foreign observers have an opportunity of attending them. These are the tea-parties of a semi-literary or aesthetic character, and the ceremonious _Châ-no-ya_. In the first prevails the easy and unaffected tone of the well-bred gentleman. In the other are observed the strictest rules of etiquette both in speech and behavior. But the former entertainment is by far the most interesting. The Japanese love and taste for fine scenery is shown in the settings and surroundings. To this picturesque outlook, recitals of romance and impromptu poetry add intellectual charm to the tea-party.

For these occasions the host selects a tea-house located in well-laid-out grounds and commanding a fine view. In this he lays mats equal to the number of guests. By sliding the partition and removing the front wall the place is transformed into an open hall overlooking the landscape. The room is filled with choice flowers, and the art treasures of the host, which at other times are stored away in the fire-proof vault--"go down"--of his private residence, contribute artistic beauty and decoration to the scene. Folding screens and hanging pictures painted by celebrated artists, costly lacquer-ware, bronze, china, and other heirlooms are tastefully distributed about the room.

Stories told at these tea-parties are called by the Japanese names of _Châ-banashi_, meaning tea-stories, or _Hiti-Kuchá_--"one mouth stories," short stories told at one sitting. At times professional story-tellers are employed. Of these there are two kinds: Story-Tellers and "Cross-Road Tradition Narrators," both of whom since olden times have been the faithful custodians and disseminators of native folk-lore and tales.

These professionals are divided into a number of classes, the most important being the _Hanashi-Ka_, members of a celebrated company under a well-known manager, who unites them into troops of never less than five or more than seven in number. Such companies are often advertised weeks before their arrival in a place by hoisting flags or streamers with the names of the performers thereon. Their programme consists of war-stories, traditions, and recitals with musical accompaniment. During the intermission, feats of legerdemain or wrestling fill in the time and give variety to the entertainment.

These are the leading professional performers. The other classes, while not held in as high regard by the select, nevertheless have a definite place in Japanese amusement circles. One of the latter is the _Tsuji-kô-shâku-ji_. This word-swallower does not belong to any company, but is a "free-lance" entertainer. A sort of "has been," he does not, however, rest on his past laurels, but continues to perform whenever he can obtain an audience--on the highways, to passers-by, in public resorts and thoroughfares.

Although the Chinese are not so neat in their public habits as the Japs, still their tea-houses and similar resorts are just as numerous and popular as they are in the neighboring country. Perhaps the most interesting caterers in China, however, are the coolies, who sell hot water in the rural districts. These itinerants have an ingenious way of announcing their coming by a whistling kettle. This vessel contains a compartment for fire with a funnel going through the top. A coin with a hole is placed so that when the water is boiling a regular steam-whistle is heard.

Plentiful as tea is in China, however, the poor people there do not consume as good a quality of the leaf as the same class in our own country.

Especially is this the case in the northern part of China, where most of the inhabitants just live, and that is all. There they are obliged to use the last pickings of tea, commonly known as "brick tea," which is very poor and coarse in quality. It is pressed into bricks about eight by twelve inches in size, and whenever a quantity of it is needed a piece is knocked off and pulverized in a kettle of boiling water. Other ingredients, consisting of suit, milk, butter, a little pepper, and vinegar, are added, and this combination constitutes the entire meal of the family.

Tea in China and Japan is the stand-by of every meal--the never-failing and ever-ready refreshment. Besides being the courteous offering to the visitor, it serves a high purpose in the home life of these peoples; uniting the family and friends in their domestic life and pleasures at all times and seasons. At home round the brazier and the lamp in winter evenings, at picnic parties and excursions to the shady glen during the fine season, tea is the social connecting medium, the intellectual stimulant and the universal drink of these far-and-away peoples.

_TEA-DRINKING IN OTHER LANDS_

While tea-drinking outside of Japan and China is not attended with any "high-days and holidays," still there are countries where it is just as important element of the daily life of its people as it is in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Among the Burmese a newly-married couple, to insure a happy life, exchange a mixture of tea-leaves steeped in oil.