Botany The Science of Plant Life by Norman Taylor

Author:Norman Taylor [Taylor, Norman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-06-13T16:00:00+00:00

2. Beverages

The operation of the Eighteenth Amendment to our Constitution will stop the manufacture in this country of the chief beverages that were made here from plants. All wines and brandies were from the juice of the grape, whiskey from rye and some other cereals, and beer from hops and barley. Our three remaining beverages of practically universal use are none of them produced in the United States, with the exception of a little tea grown in a more or less experimental way.

TEA

It is related in an old legend that a priest going from India into China in 519 A.D. who desired to watch and pray fell asleep instead. In a fit of anger or remorse he cut off his eyelids which were changed into the tea shrub, the leaves of which are said to prevent sleep. Unfortunately for the story tea was known in China more than three thousand years before the date of that legend, and it is very doubtful if it was ever brought from India to China. The wild home of the tea is apparently in the mountainous regions between China and India, but the plant will not stand the frost, so that its cultivation is now mostly in parts of China, Japan, India, Ceylon, Java, and some in Brazil.

The plant is mostly a shrub or occasionally a small tree, with white fragrant flowers and evergreen oval-pointed leaves. All the different kinds of tea are derived from the single species Camellia Thea, the differences in color and flavor being due to processes of culture or curing of the leaves.

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