So far as the English tea-trade is concerned the market for China and Japan teas is now but a tame affair to what it was only a few years ago, little interest being taken there in the tea product of these countries. Year by year since 1885 China and Japan teas has had less hold upon the English market, and it is remarkable to note how continuously the consumption of these varieties have been on the decline there from that time, notwithstanding their superior merits in drawing and drinking qualities over both India and Ceylons. In that year their consumption in the British isles amounted to over 113,000,000 pounds, but fell off to less than 105,000,000 pounds in 1886, to about 90,000,000 in 1887, to 80,000,000 in 1888, to 60,000,000 in 1889. The quantity of China and Japan teas consumed in the whole United Kingdom declining to about 50,000,000 pounds in 1890, although the prices for them were exceedingly low during that period. There are two main causes for this serious reduction which have been in operation simultaneously and for a length of time. The first was the great competition of India teas stimulated for the reasons already named, and the second cause the extraordinary favor that Ceylon teas found with English consumers in 1888, when the quantity imported for use from that island amounted to 18,500,000 pounds, or nearly double of what it was the preceding year, the quantities cleared for 1889 and 1890 being respectively 28,500,000 pounds and 34,500,000 pounds, showing an astonishing increase within the short space of three years, and which fully accounts for the decadence of the English demand for China and Japan teas. The consumption of the latter varieties has retrograded there, while that for India and Ceylon teas has increased proportionately, so that, although the market for the former descriptions has occasionally given signs of revival, they have been only spasmodic efforts at recovering, the much expected and promised reaction soon subsiding. And instead of the phenomenal cheapness of China and Japans being regarded as a recommendation to consumers it has been used as an argument by British dealers as an evidence of their unpopularity, and so completely has the demand been transferred from China and Japan teas to Indias and Ceylons that it has been no uncommon occurrence for the latter kinds to be selling at improving rates whilst the former descriptions have been disposable only at drooping prices.