A natural taste for hot liquid foods and drinks is common to all
races of men, and they may be traced in the soups of meat and
fish, and in their decoctions or infusions of vegetable leaves,
seeds, barks, etc.

Hot “teas” were in habitual use as beverages among civilized
nations long before they ever heard of Chinese tea, of coffee, or
of cocoa. The English people, for instance, freely indulged in
infusions of Sage leaves, of leaves of the Wild Marjoram, the
Sloe, or blackthorn, the currant, the Speedwell, and of Sassafras
bark.

In America, Sassafras leaves and bark were used for teas by
the early colonists, as were the leaves of Gaultheria
(Wintergreen), the Ledums (Labrador tea), Monarda (Horsemint,
Bee-balm, or Oswego tea), Ceanothus (New Jersey tea or red-root),
etc. Charles Lamb, in his essay upon Chimney Sweeps, mentions the
public house of Mr. Reed, on Fleet street in London, as a place
where Sassafras tea (and Salop) were still served daily to
customers in his time, about 1823. Mate, Yerba, or Paraguay tea
has been a national beverage for millions of people in the
central portions of South America for several centuries.

With the exception of Mate, not one of the above named
substitutes for Chinese tea contains the peculiar nerve
stimulating and nerve refreshing constituent upon which depends
the physiological value of Black or Green tea, the Theine: nor do
they possess the characteristic flavoring principle or essential
oil which distinguishes commercial teas from all other known
plant products. The Ledums are indeed accredited by Professor
James F. Johnson (Chemistry of Common Life) with stimulating and
narcotic properties, but the same may be said of tobacco.

to be continued…