Tea - christiansquoting.org.uk

I view the tea-drinking as a destroyer of health, an enfeebler of the frome, an engender of effeminacy and laziness, a debaucher of youth and maker of misery for old age.~William Cobbett (1762-1835), The Vice of Tea-Drinking

The tea drinking has done a great deal in bringing this nation into the state of misery in which it now is, it must be evident to every one that the practice of tea drinking must render the frame feeble, and unfit to encounter hard labour or severe weather, while . . . it deducts from the means of replenishing the belly and covering the back. Hence succeeds a softness, an effeminacy, a seeking for the fireside, a lurking in the bed, and, in short, all the characteristics of idleness.William Cobbett , Cottage Economy 1822