Byron, in his latter years, became an enthusiast on the use of tea, averring that he “Must have recourse to black Bohea,” still later pronouncing Green tea to be the “Chinese nymph of tears.” And in addition to the praises sung to it by English-speaking poets and essayists, its virtues have also been sounded by Herricken and Francius in Greek verse, by Pecklin, in Latin epigraphs, by Pierre Pettit, in a poem of five hundred lines, as well as by a German versifier, who celebrated, in a fashion of his own, “The burial and happy resurrection of tea.” In opposition to the “country parson,” who calls tea “a nerveless and vaporous liquid,” and Balzac, who describes it as an “insipid and depressing beverage,” the author of “Eothen” records his testimony to “the cheering, soothing influence of the steaming cup that Orientals and Europeans alike enjoy.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IX. WORLD’S PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION. -------------- The first direct importation of tea into England was in 1669, and consisted of but “100 pounds of the best tea that could be procured.” In 1678 this order was increased to 4,713 pounds, which appears to have “glutted the market;” the following six years the total importations amounting to only 410 pounds during that entire period. How little was it possible from these figures to have foreseen that tea would one day become one of the most important articles of foreign productions consumed. Up to 1864 China and Japan were practically the only countries producing teas for commercial purposes. In that year India first entered the list as an exporter of tea, being subsequently followed by Java and Ceylon. In 1864, when India first entered the list of tea-producing countries, China furnished fully 97 per cent. of the world’s supply and India only 3, the latter increasing at such a marvelous rate that it now furnishes 57, China declining to 43 per cent. of the total. TABLE 1. ESTIMATED TEA PRODUCTION OF THE WORLD. Countries. Production Exportation (Pounds). (Pounds). China, 1,000,000,000 300,000,000 Japan, 100,000,000 50,000,000 India, 100,000,000 95,000,000 Ceylon, 50,000,000 40,000,000 Java, 20,000,000 10,000,000 Singapore, 20,000 10,000 Fiji Islands, 30,000 20,000 South Africa, 50,000 20,000 ————————————— ——————————— Total, 1,270,100,000 495,050,000