1892 Drinks of the world

DRINKS.

344

very few years, as the following short statistics, taken from a Tea Circular,^ will show, The total value of all the Ceylon tea in bond in 1880 was ;£5,o24. Ditto ditto ditto 1888 „ p^i, 5 '55,095.

The duty on above, at 6d. per lb., was respectively

^2,^'ji. ;£464,664

showing that not only had the quantity imported enormously increased, but so had the quality, as shown by the enhanced market value. One instance, al- though an exceptional one, will show what Ceylon can produce in the way of tea. On 13th January, 1890, was sold at the London Commercial Tea Sale Rooms, a consignment of tea from the Gallebodde Estate, Ceylon, which experts described as the finest tea ever grown. This unique tea was of the brightest gold qolour, resembling grains of gold. Its sale excited the keenest competition, and it was eventually knocked down for £^ ys. per lb., but it was resold a few days afterwards to a wholesale firm at the enormous price of ^5 I OS. per lb. •' Much excitement prevailed yesterday in the Lon- don Commercial Tea Sale Rooms, Mincing Lane, on the offering of a small lot of Ceylon tea, from the Gart- more Estate. This tea is composed almost entirely of small • golden tips,' which are the extreme ends of the small succulent shoots of the plant. Competition was of a very keen description, the tea being ultimately knocked down to the Mazawattee Ceylon Tea Com- * Messrs. Gow. Wilson & Stanton.