Tea is steeped, not boiled. Delicacy of flavor depends upon this, as does wholesomeness too. Boiling extracts the tannic acid that causes the ill effects of excessive tea-drinking. Varieties of tea depend upon degree of its maturity when picked, where grown, and how treated in preparation for marketing. These facts are considered in connection with its growth.

Coffee may be favorably made as a decoction (by boiling) or as an infusion (without boiling). But the coffee-pot, like the teapot, cannot stand ready for immediate service at any time with-out carrying to those that partake of its contents what no one needs and any one will suffer from drinking. Such beverages must be freshly made to be palatable or safe. The growth of coffee is part of the industry of food-production, but coffee comes from nature. Nature is the invariable, inexhaustible source of supply for the demand of humanity for physical sustenance.

Simple as tea and coffee seem as seen or tasted, viewed by science they are both found most complex. Three of their constituents especially concern those that drink them. These are tannin (astringent element); caffeine or theine (stimulating element); and the volatile oil that gives tea its flavor, and caffeol, the oil producing the aroma and flavor of coffee. Heat volatilizes these oils. Tea or coffee that stands loses flavor, and tannin is increasingly extracted. All preparation aims to decrease this and develop flavor. Coffee contains less tannin than does tea, and black tea only half that of green. Caffeine or theine and volatile oil are about the same in teas. In coffee the oil (caffeol) is developed by roasting and caffeine is somewhat decreased.

Adulterants follow all foods that are prepared without the first concern being for what foods do to persons. All substances chemically alike, much less those only physically similar, do not serve the human system similarly.