Lesson 45 Beverages—Infused Drinks
Water is the natural drink of man and animals; but man in every part of the world concocts for himself artificial drinks of various kinds. These are nearly all of vegetable origin; they differ in the mode of preparation. Among the commonest artificial drinks are tea, coffee, cocoa, beer, wine, and ardent spirits. We prepare beverages from the first three of these by steeping them in boiling water. We make infusions of them, drawing out their flavors and properties into the water itself. These, therefore, we may call infused beverages, and they are always taken hot. The cup of tea is an infusion of the leaves of the tea-plant; the cup of coffee is an infusion of the coffee-bean or berry; and the cup of cocoa or chocolate is an infusion of the cocoa-nib or seed. In either case leaves, berries, and seeds have to be roasted and specially prepared before they are fit for use.
Beer, wine, and spirits are also prepared as infusions, but these infusions after being made are fermented. Hence they may be called fermented beverages. They are usually taken cold.
To the English people, tea is by far the most important of these beverages; but the consumption of tea is not limited to the people of England. The Russians and the Dutch are large consumers of tea, and so are the people of the United States. Indeed, tea forms the daily drink of more people than all other beverages put together. Probably not less than 500,000,000 of the human race depend upon tea, in some form, as their daily beverage. Under the head of tea we include infusions made from the leaves of many varieties of plants in different parts of the world. The tea with which we are familiar is the leaf of the tea-tree, originally a native of the hilly parts of Bengal and China. It is commonly known as China tea.
In South America a kind of tea, known as mate, or Paraguay tea, made from the leaves of a species of holly, is the universal drink of all classes of the population.
In North America another kind of tea, known as Labrador tea, is made from the dried leaves of a plant that grows wild in those regions. It is the daily beverage of the native population.
The Arab tribes of Northern Africa make a very pleasant drink, possessing many of the qualities of China tea, from the dried leaves of a plant which is grown very extensively in those parts. It is known as Abyssinian tea.
Various other infusions, such as Mexican tea, Tasmanian tea, etc., are made from the dried leaves of plants, all of them resembling in some respects the tea with which we are familiar.
All the tea used in this and other European countries came originally from China. The tea-plant of China has, however, of late years, been introduced for cultivation into India and Ceylon, and now the greater part of our supply comes from these countries. The most striking feature in the tea-market of today is the daily-growing favor in which Indian teas are held, and the gradual falling off of the supply from China and Japan.
Since 1885 Ceylon has given up the cultivation of coffee, and turned its attention to tea; and the Ceylon-grown tea is now making great headway in public estimation. In 1892 the imports of Indian and Ceylon teas were greater than those of any other years by 22,468,000 lbs.; while, at the same time, there was a falling off of the Chinese and Japanese product of 17,840,000 lbs.
During the year 1893 the total amount of tea imported into England from all quarters was 207,055,679 lbs.
In the island of Sumatra the coffee-tree is grown exclusively for its leaves, which are gathered, dried, roasted, and otherwise prepared for the purpose of making tea—coffee-tea—the beverage universally drunk by the native Sumatrans.
The beverage known by the general name of coffee is prepared from the seeds of various plants. Each variety of seed, however, requires the same treatment. They must be roasted and ground before they are fit to be infused in water.
Coffee, in some form or other, is the beverage of more than 100,000,000 of the human race.
Most of the coffee of commerce comes from the Arabian coffee-tree, a tree indigenous to Abyssinia, where it grows like a wild weed. From Abyssinia the tree was first transplanted into Arabia and Persia, and it has, in later times, been successfully introduced for cultivation into several countries in both the Old and New World. Most coffee now comes from Central America, Jamaica, and Brazil. Till 1885 Ceylon supplied nearly all the coffee that came to this country. But in that year the Ceylon coffee plantations were stricken with the ravages of a disease which killed off nearly all the trees, and since then the cultivation of coffee has ceased in that island. The tea-plant has been introduced in its place, and the coffee-tree has found a new home in the Western Hemisphere.
The total imports of coffee into England amounted during the year 1893 to nearly 30,000,000 lbs.
The cocoa-tree is, as we have already learned, a native of America. The Spaniards, when they first settled in Mexico, about the year 1500, found the tree growing there, and a beverage made from its seeds in common use among the natives. It is still grown almost exclusively in America and the adjoining islands. In the island of Demerara there are whole forests of these trees.
The consumption of cocoa in the United Kingdom has nearly tripled itself during the last ten years. In 1893 they imported upwards of 31,000,000 lbs. Part of this is for home consumption; the rest, after undergoing various preparations, is sent out of the country again as a manufactured article.
