Britain consumes 17,500 tons; France, 21,500; Germany, (Zollverein),
58,000; and the United States, about 90,000 tons. It is worth remarking
how small is the comparative consumption of tea in France. The
importation of tea for 1840 was only 264,000 kilogrammes (less than
600,000 pounds).

In Asia, coffee is drunk in a thick farinaceous mixture. With us the
cup of coffee is valued by its clearness. We generally drink it with
sugar and milk. The French with their meals use it as we do,--but after
dinner, invariably without milk (_café noir_). And we would suggest to
the nervous and the dyspeptic, who do not want to resign the luxury of
coffee, or to whom its effects as an arrester of metamorphosis are
beneficial, that when drunk on a full stomach its effects upon the
nerves are much less felt than when taken fasting or with the meals.

In the consumption of tea the United States rank next to Great Britain.
Tea is the chief import from China into this country. The tea-plant
flourishes from the equator to the forty-fifth parallel of latitude;
though it grows best between the twenty-third and the twenty-fifth
parallels. Probably it can be successfully cultivated in our Southern
States. Mr. Fortune considers that all varieties of tea are derived
from the same plant. Other authorities say that there are two species,
the green and the black,--_Thea viridis_ and _Thea Bohea_. This point
is yet unsettled. Tea is grown in small, shrub-like plantations,
resembling vineyards. As it is a national beverage, certain localities
are as much valued for choice varieties as are the famous vintage-hills
and slopes of Southern France. The buds and the leaves are used; and
there are three harvestings,--in February, April, and June. The young,
unfolded buds of February furnish the "Youi" and "Soumlo," or "Imperial
Teas." These are the delicate "Young Hysons" which we are supposed to