after her coffee plantations had been ruined by disease. That
year her total acreage was about 1,000 acres, In 1883 Ceylon
exported a million and a half pounds of tea. In 1897 she had
400,000 acres of growing tea, equal to 625 square miles; and the
estimate of Mr. William MacKensie, Tea Commissioner for the
Ceylon Government, of her production for 1900, is 135,000,000
lbs.

The aggregate exports of tea by India and Ceylon is about
310,000,000 lbs., a complete reversal of conditions of tea trade
within twenty years, and due entirely to British enterprise and
the fine quality of British grown teas.

A liberal estimate for the total exports of Chinese and Japanese
teas for 1899 would be 340,000,000 lbs.; so that it is fair to
say that the world's consumption of tea, outside of China and
Japan, is now equally divided between teas of the latter two
countries and those of English growth.



CHAPTER IV.

Characteristics Of The Tea Plant.

Chinese tea plants are usually divided into two classes, and
distinguished a Thea Bohea and Thea Viridis, the former being
most suitable for black teas, and the latter for green teas; and
black and green teas have been indiscriminately made from the
leaves of either.