As far back as the Nixon Administration, either the White House or the Congress has been trying to eliminate the nation's official tea tasters. By most measures -- in manpower and in dollars -- the tea import office is minuscule. Mr. Dick, an 81-year-old chemist, is the veteran tea examiner of what the F.D.A. describes as "a field force of 3.9 full-time employees" who work in the tea import program, which receives $200,000 each year in Federal funds.

In the Brooklyn office, an assistant tea taster, Faith Lim, helps Mr. Dick in this rarefied profession, weighing tea, boiling water, pouring tea into cups and finally tasting the brew. In Boston and San Francisco, two other testers examine the teas that enter the country at those ports.

All but a tiny portion of the tea drunk in the United States is imported. Most of it is black and destined for ice-tea consumption. Mr. Dick and his cohorts reject less than 1 percent of the 209 million tons of tea imported each year, usually because it is moldy or tainted. The total annual cost of the program comes to $253,500.

Despite its small size, tea importers say the tea program looms large in their industry, providing an inspection service that protects American consumers from inferior and adulterated teas.

"It's difficult for industry to do this alone, to set and enforce standards," said Joseph P. Simrany, president of the Tea Association of the United States, which represents the major tea importers and packers.