take a high rank and command very high prices, retailing in
some instances at sixty cents per pound. A very choice peaberry is grown
in the volcanic soils of Mexico to which the name of _Oaxaca_ is given;
most of it is sold in the United States as a choice Mocha.

Mocha is the commercial name of a coffee at one time marketed in the
Arabian city of that name. Since the completion of the Suez Canal,
Hodeida has been the chief centre of the Arabian coffee-trade. Formerly
most of this coffee was grown in the Province of Yemen, but now it is
brought to Hodeida, from Egypt, Ceylon, and India.

About all the product is hand-sorted. The choicest is sold in
Constantinople, Cairo, and other cities near by, in some instances
bringing five dollars per pound. Very little, and only that of the most
inferior quality, ever finds its way into western Europe or the United
States. Even the best Mocha is not superior to fine Oaxaca coffee.

Java coffee is renowned the world over for its fine flavor. The best
quality was formerly that which had been held in storage to season for a
few years. The government coffee was generally the better, but some of
the private plantations crop is now equally good. Some of the Sumatra
coffees are equal to the best Java beans.

The Liberia coffees have never been favorites in the United States on
account of their flavor. In Europe they are used for blending with other
varieties.

Of the entire coffee-crop of the world, the United States consumes more
than three-quarters of a billion pounds--a yearly average of very nearly
eleven pounds for each inhabitant. This is nearly three times as much
per inhabitant as is consumed in Germany, and almost fifteen times the
average used in Great Britain. Nearly all the world's crop is consumed
in the United States and western Europe.

Chicory, parched grain, pease, and burnt parsnip are sometimes added as
adulterants to ground coffee. Of those, chicory most nearly resembles
coffee in flavor and taste. It is harmless and usually improves the
flavor of inferior coffee. A tariff recently placed upon chicory has
somewhat lessened the use of it.

=Tea.=--The tea of commerce consists of the dried and prepared leaves of
an evergreen shrub (_Thea chinensis_) belonging most probably to the
_camellia_ family. Tea has been a commercial product of China for more
than fourteen hundred years, but seems to have been carried thither from
India about five hundred years before the