delicacy of constitution of the Assam plant, its demands for
excessive moisture and high temperature, and its preference for
partial shade, evidenced by its growing in the jungle and under
other trees. Possibly a difficulty in restraining its luxuriant
habit of growth is also involved. However this may be, the
commercial tea of Ceylon and India is a product of a cultivated
cross between the tender native Indian and the hardier Chinese
tea plants, in which the Assam strain bears the proportion of one
half to two thirds. A more robust plant under cultivation is the
result, and one which preserves the best qualities of both
varieties. This cross is usually termed a hybrid.

It seems probable that the removal of the tropical Indian plant
to China, more than a thousand years ago, with its much colder
and dryer climate and its poorer soil--for the best soil of
China has been set apart for rice and other indespensable foods--
together with continual removal of its leaves, have in time
evolved a tea plant so different from its parent stock, that
scientists failed for many years to recognize the Indian
original. Several times in the early years of this century
zealous travellers and residents of India sent to England
specimens of the native Indian tea plant for scientific
examination. But conservative government officials had already
established a botanical or technical standard for the tea plant
to which every aspirant for relationship must conform; no one of
them seems to have thought of the simple test of the teapot.
Finally some rash investigator, not having the fear of scientific
anathema before his eyes, crudely cured a few leaves, and
actually put them in hot water. Tea merchants immediately
recognized the plant and the magic circle of the Circumlocution