Facing. - The treatment of teas with various coloring matters, a process termed facing, comes properly under the head of adulterants. Facing consists in treating the prepared leaves with mixtures contain ing Prussian blue, turmeric, indigo, or plumbago to impart some favorite color or gloss to the leaf and always has a fraudulent intent. Leaves which have been damaged in the manufacture or which from their age or certain imperfection are inferior are faced to improve their appearance and price. The teas consumed by the Chinese and Japanese themselves are not faced, while those for export seldom escape this treatment. The Chinese and Japanese black teas are usually treated with plumbago (black lead). There is no evidence that these facing agents are deleterious to the health in the quantities in which they are employed, but inasmuch as they add a useless foreign matter to the teas for the purpose of deception their use should be discouraged. "Prussian blue is insoluble in water and alcohol. * * * It is deemed a tonic, febrifuge, and alterative, but is at present rarely used. * * * The dose is from 0.2 to 0.33 gram repeated several times per day and gradually increased until some effect is produced."1

In order to take the amount of Prussian blue stated above as a single dose in the form of tea-facing, one would have to consume nearly a pound of tea. It would require a long time under these conditions for even an inveterate tea-drinker to consume this amount of Prussian blue.

Hassall2 includes Prussian blue in his list of substance " more or less injurious."

1 See U. S. Dispensatory, 14th ed., p. 1171. 2Food, by A. H. Hassall, p. 254.

The remarks on Prussian blue apply to other facing materials, especially in regard to the large quantity of tea that must be consumed in order to take even the smallest medicinal dose of the coloring matter. The amount of coloring and inert matter (the latter often soapstone) usually amounts to a very small percentage of the weight of the tea, though statements have been made that the facing sometimes amounts to as much as from 1 to 3 per cent.1 According to Y. Kozai2 the maximum amount of facing in the green teas of Japan is about 0.4 per cent. Excessive facing is evidently a fraud, as it increases the weight and price of tea without giving the purchaser a fair return for his money.