We pay annually for coffee fifteen millions of dollars, and for tea seven millions.  Twenty-two millions of dollars for articles which are popularly accounted neither fuel, nor clothing, nor food!

“What a waste!” cries the reformer; “nearly a dollar apiece, from every man, woman, and child throughout the country, spent on two useless luxuries!”

Is it a waste?  Is it possible that we throw all this away, year after year, in idle stimulation or sedation?

It is but too true, that the instinct, leading to the use of some form of stimulant, appears to be universal in the human race.  We call it an instinct, since all men naturally search for stimulants, separately, independently, and unceasingly,—­because use renders their demands as imperious as are those for food.

Next to alcohol and tobacco, coffee and tea have supplied more of the needed excitement to mankind than any other stimulants; and, taking the female sex into the account, they stand far above the two former substances in the ratio of the numbers who use them.

In Turkey coffee is regarded as the essence of hospitality and the balm of life.  In China not only is tea the national beverage, but a large part of the agricultural and laboring interest of the country is engaged in its cultivation.  Russia follows next in the almost universal use of tea, as would naturally result from its proximity and the common origin of a large part of its population.  Western Europe employs both coffee and tea largely, while France almost confines itself to the former.  The cafes are more numerous, and have a more important social bearing, than any other establishments in the cities of France.  Great Britain uses more tea than coffee.  The former beverage is there thought indispensable by all classes.  The poor dine on half a loaf rather than lose their cup of tea; just as the French peasant regards his demi-bouteille of Vin Bleu as the most important part of his meal.

Tea first roused the rebellion of these American Colonies; and tea made many a half Tory among the elderly ladies of the Revolution.  It has, indeed, been regarded, and humorously described by the senior Weller, as the indispensable comforter and friend of advanced female life.  Dr. Johnson was as noted for his fondness for tea as for his other excesses at the table.  Many sober minds make coffee and tea the pis a tergo of their daily intellectual labor; just as a few of greater imagination or genius seek in opium the spur of their ephemeral efforts.  In the United States, the young imbibe them from their youth up; and it is quite as possible that a part of the nation’s nervousness may arise from this cause, as it is probable that our wide-spread dyspepsia begins in the use of badly-cooked solid food, immediately on the completion of the first dentition.