If Indian Tea were procurable in the bazaars in parcels of moderate size at a reasonable advance on auction prices, we believe that a large native demand for it would rapidly grow up. As it is, an extensive business goes on in China Tea of the most wretched quality, some of it sold in packets of a few ounces, and some of it loose in still smaller quantities. Even in Calcutta this Tea is sold at prices which would pay the Indian Tea planter a handsome profit, while in the interior it is sold at rates which would have been high fifty years ago. Surely a Syndicate which extends its efforts for the popularisation of Indian Tea to such distant and widely separated markets as Australia and America might profitably make some systematic effort to promote its use among the vast population at its doors. The time may be far distant when the great bulk of this population will adopt Tea as an ordinary beverage; but the way in which the habit of using it has spread during the last ten or fifteen years, among all classes of the vast population of Calcutta, affords an indication of possibilities very well worth testing. When last in India I wrote on this subject largely, but all to no avail. The following was one of my letters which appeared in the _Tea Gazette_:-- THE MARKET AT OUR DOORS.--CONSUMPTION OF CHINA TEA IN INDIA. The _Statesman_, in a recent article, observes as follows, while discussing the maritime trade of British India:-- “Perhaps the most anomalous import we have is Tea. It is hardly conceivable that while Indian Tea continues to advance in public estimation at home, we should not only use China Tea in India, but that in increasing quantities.”[93] In 1876-77 the imports of China Teas were a little _under_ two millions, but in 1880-81 as much _over_ three millions! The _Statesman_ states, and truly, that the reason of this is simply “that Indian Tea is sold in too large packets to be easily obtainable by the general public, for it seems, as regards Indian Tea, the smallest quantity that can be bought is one pound, whereas an ounce of China Tea can be purchased.” Further on, the _Statesman_ kindly alludes to my advocacy in the _Tea Gazette_ of a company to sell Tea in small packages to the natives, stating also that such a trade is “capable of almost unlimited expansion at a fair profit,” which is exactly what I have, for some time, been trying to hammer into the heads of those interested in the Tea industry of India. Now, Sir, is it not absurd that while the _bête noir_ of our industry is “supply in excess of demand,” and while, with this dread, we are trying (it seems with success) to open up new markets at the Antipodes and in America, we are neglecting a market at our very doors, the limits of which, I hold, no man can foresee, for is it not a market where the possible buyers number 200 millions?