teas take a very high rank.

[Illustration: AREA OF TEA PRODUCTION]

Great Britain and her colonies consume the bulk of the tea-crop. The
average yearly consumption per person is eight pounds in Australia, six
in Great Britain and Cape of Good Hope, and more than four in Canada. In
the United States and Russia it is less than one pound per person.

Before the opening of the Suez Canal, in 1869, most of the crop for the
English market was despatched by way of Cape of Good Hope. So important
was it to get the consignments to London without loss of time, that fast
clipper ships were built especially for carrying tea. Since the opening
of the canal the crop has been shipped mainly by the Suez route.

A part of the tea required for the United States reaches New York by way
of the Suez Canal, but the movement is gradually changing since the
building of the fast liners that now ply between Asian and American
ports. These steamships carry it to Seattle, or to Vancouver, whence it
is distributed by rail. The increased cost of shipment by this route is
more than offset by a gain of from five to seven days in time.

In some respects the Russian "caravan route" is the most important
channel of the tea-trade. The tea is collected mainly at Tientsin, and
sent by camel caravans through Manchuria to the most convenient point on
the Siberian railway. Not only the shipments of brick tea[36] for the
Russian market, but the choicest products for western Europe also are
sent by this route. It is probably an economical way of shipping the
brick tea, but a more expensive method of shipment for the latter could
not be found easily; it is preferred from the fact that, no matter how
carefully sealed, the flavor of tea is materially injured by an ocean
voyage.

It is evident, therefore, that for the tea product alone the Siberian
railway will soon become an important factor in the commerce of Europe.
Shipments of tea are also sent from Canton to Odessa, Russia, but this
route is not less expensive in the long run than the Cape route, and the
tea suffers as much deterioration from the shorter as from the longer
voyage.

=Cacao.=--Cacao, the "cocoa" of commerce, consists of the prepared seeds
of several species of _Theobroma_, the greater part being obtained from
the _Theobroma cacao_. The name is unfortunately confused with that of
the cocoa-palm, but there is no relation whatever between the two.

The seeds of the cacao were used in ancie