A tea shrub of Chinese origin now before us, growing among a host
of common American plants, displays no special characteristics
which would attract attention to itself. It resembles an orange
plant. Its developed leaves are smooth on the surface, leathery
in texture, dark green in color, with edges finely serrated from
point almost to stalk. They are without odor, and when chewed in
the mouth, have a mild and not unpleasant astringency, but no
other perceptible flavor. A leaf of any familiar domestic plant,
such as the lilac, the plantain, or the apple, has a stronger
individuality to the sense of taste, than this green leaf of the
tea plant.

How was the hidden mystery of its incalculable value to mankind
revealed? What premonition guided the Chinese discoverer to the
preparatory treatment and delicately graduated firing process
which develops tea's precious flavors? And does not this unsolved
question suggest the possible existence of other plants, growing,
perhaps, at our very doorsteps, possessing rare and unrecognized
virtues?

In form, tea leaves have been compared by writers to leaves of
the privet, the plum, the ash, the willow, but close observers
know that not only do leaves of the species just mentioned
represent different types, but that important variations in form
occur in leaves of the same species, and in leaves growing on a
single tree or plant. The tea plant is subject to the same
vagaries, and any description by comparison will be misleading.
The reader must be content with the typical forms of tea leaves
shown in our engravings on the following page, for which we are