The Chinese drink it,
sometimes, with acids, seldom with sugar; and this practice our author,
who has no intention to find anything right at home, recommends to his
countrymen.
The history of the rise and progress of tea-drinking is truly curious.
Tea was first imported, from Holland, by the earls of Arlington and
Ossory, in 1666; from their ladies the women of quality learned its use.
Its price was then three pounds a pound, and continued the same to 1707.
In 1715, we began to use green tea, and the practice of drinking it
descended to the lower class of the people. In 1720, the French began to
send it hither by a clandestine commerce. From 1717 to 1726, we
imported, annually, seven hundred thousand pounds. From 1732 to 1742, a
million and two hundred thousand pounds were every year brought to
London; in some years 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 surreptitiously introduced, which, perhaps, is nearly as
much. Such quantities are, indeed, sufficient to alarm us; it is, at
least, worth inquiry, to know what are the qualities of such a plant,
and what the consequences of such a trade.
He then proceeds to enumerate the mischiefs of tea, and seems willing to
charge upon it every mischief that he can find.
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