For some years past a new development of the tea trade has, to the surprise of the older wholesale and retail dealers, assumed a good deal of prominence, for if the advertisement columns of newspapers, startling placards at railroad stations and on fences form any criterion, the public are taking a liking to teas put up in pound and half-pound packages under fancy names—the latter having no relation whatever to any country, district or locality where the teas are grown. That the public should, to a certain extent, buy anything persistently forced upon its attention is perhaps possible, but tea put up in tin, lead or paper packets would seem a somewhat hopeless direction in which to attempt to draw the public taste. Tea in bulk, in the original lead-lined chests, undoubtedly keeps better, as it preserves the strength, flavor and aroma of the tea longer than when exposed to the oxydizing influence of the atmosphere, particularly in this climate, so that during transference into the tin, paper or unseasoned lead packet, ornamented with a “showy” label which the more gorgeous the more apt it is to communicate a taste of the ink, paint, glue or material in which it is packed to the tea they are intended to adorn. Again, these packets, labels and labor add as much as five to eight cents to the cost of the tea, together with the expense of flaunting them before the eyes of the public, which must be simply enormous. The public generally are ignorant in such matters, and the legitimate dealer might look with amused surprise on the apparent demand for packet teas if it were not that an increasing number of dealers are adopting the new system. Engaged as most of the grocers are in trying to stop the plague of all sorts of proprietary goods which yield them so little profit and make them the servants only of the manufacturers and proprietors, it is astonishing, to say the least, that other dealers should be found who are adopting the same system with tea. A grocer cannot manufacture spices or sugar, grow wine, distil whisky or brew beer, but _he can, as generations of grocers have done before him, sell good tea out of an honest tea-chest,—or caddy—and make a respectable living, if not money, out of it for himself and not for others, while serving the public well at the same time_. Surely, the attitude of the grocers on this question should not be one of doubt, as they have it in their power to make it clear to the public that _they can sell cheaper, better and fresher teas of their own, and with a far better guarantee of the source of supply named or adhered to than if a paper or metallic packet with a fancy label, however attractive, is trusted to_. Again, there can be no valid reason why every grocer, if he sees fit, should not put his own teas up and offer them under his own name and brand upon it, if his patrons should desire, a fancy and costly packet with no other advantages attaching to it. TEA-BLENDING AS A FINE ART.