Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 8, Number 32, DeMotte, Jasper County, 7 July 1938 — U. S. Drinks Billions of Cups of Tea 1 Each Year, but Brewing Is a Fine Art [ARTICLE]

U. S. Drinks Billions of Cups of Tea 1 Each Year, but Brewing Is a Fine Art

There are very few household concoctions which are more familiar to the American housewife than tea, and a great standing joke is that the ferrtale newlywed “at least knows how to make a cup of tea.” But that particular newlywed joke simply does not apply today, asserts a writer in the Detroit News. The fact remains—or has just been undeniably established—that too few of ejjen the kitchen’s oldtimers, let alone the lace-aproned youngsters, have ever permitted either swain, husband or guest to savor the insides of a rich, honest-to-goodness cup of tea. The inhabitants of the United States drink some 19 billion cups of tea each year. In order to determine how that vast sea of vintage beverage is consumed, a cross-sec-tion survey involving personal interviews with 5,000 housewives in five representative states has recently been conducted by a New York firm. In essence, the survey found that eight out of ten people were teadrinkers but that four out of five tea-drinkers were literally throwing the tea away, drinking instead a mere shadow of what they started to make, or might have had, or wanted to drink. The proper recipe for a good, balanced cup of tea, according to American tea experts, is one measured teaspoon for each cup, with a full five-minute brew.

The survey revealed that housewives were either using far too little tea, or they were brewing it for so short a time that not the tea-drink-er, but the sink, was being granted the benefits of the essential oils and vitalizing factors in the teacup.