The evils of tea (and the virtues of beer)
This is an excerpt of William Cobbett's book: "Cottage Econony", published in 1822. His reasoning is hard to challenge.
bq. ...But I look upon the thing in a still more serious light. I view the tea drinking as a destroyer of health, an enfeebler of the frame, and engenderer of effeminacy and laziness, a debaucher of youth, and a maker of misery for old age. In the fifteen bushels of malt there are 570 pounds weight of sweet; that is to say, of nutritious matter, unmixed with anything injurious to health. In the 730 tea messes of the year, there are 54 pounds of sweet in the sugar, and about 30 pounds of matter equal to sugar in the milk. Here are eighty four pounds instead of five hundred and seventy, and even the good effect of these eighty four pounds is more than overbalanced by the corrosive, gnawing, and poisonous powers of the tea. ...
Posted by DaveH at January 25, 2005 8:38 PM