The dried leaves of the tea plant are a commodity which, a century and a half ago, were scarcely known as an article of trade. The earliest importation of tea into Europe is said to have been by a Dutch merchant in 1610; but the time of its first introduction into England has not been correctly ascertained. So scarce an article was it, for many years after the above period, that, in 1666, twenty-two pounds and three quarters of tea, estimated at fifty shillings a pound, were presented, as a valuable gift, to King Charles the Second. The first importation of tea by the East India Company was in 1669, and this consisted only of two canisters, weighing 143lb. 8oz. So rapidly, however, has the consumption of this article since increased, that, notwithstanding the immense distance from which it is brought, it now amounts to more than twenty millions of pounds' weight per annum. Such is, at present, the extent of the tea trade, that it affords constant employment for at least 50,000 tons of shipping, and 6,000 seamen; and its importance to us is the greater since it has been the means of opening, in China, a market for the sale of woollen goods, one of the most essential articles of our manufacture, to the amount of more than one million of pounds sterling per annum. If good tea be taken in moderate quantity it is considered by medical men to be beneficial, by exhilarating the spirits and invigorating the system; but, when taken too copiously, it is apt to occasion weakness, tremor, and other bad symptoms. The tea plant may be propagated in the temperate climates of Europe, as well as in the Indies; under the shelter of a south wall it will even flourish in our own gardens. It is, however, somewhat remarkable that the fresh leaves, if used for tea, produce giddiness and stupefaction; but these noxious properties are capable of being dissipated by the process of roasting. In some of the southern parts of England there are smugglers who have reduced to a regular process the management of the leaves of the ash, the sloe, and some other trees, for the adulteration of tea. The article thus prepared has the name of _smouch_, and is sometimes mixed in the proportion of about one-third, with the ordinary teas. The preparation of it, however, if discovered, is subject to very heavy penalties. 175. _CLOVES are the unexpanded flower-buds of an East Indian tree_ (Caryophyllus aromaticus, Fig. 50), _somewhat resembling the laurel in its height, and in the shape of its leaves._ _The leaves are in pairs, oblong, large, spear-shaped, and of bright green colour. The flowers grow in clusters, which terminate the branches, and have the calyx divided into four small and pointed segments. The petals are small, rounded, and of bluish colour; and the seed is an oval berry._