Tea Leaves Part 2

The aggregate exports of tea by India and Ceylon is about 310,000,000 lbs., a complete reversal of conditions of tea trade within twenty years, and due entirely to British enterprise and the fine quality of British grown teas.

A liberal estimate for the total exports of Chinese and j.a.panese teas for 1899 would be 340,000,000 lbs.; so that it is fair to say that the world's consumption of tea, outside of China and j.a.pan, is now equally divided between teas of the latter two countries and those of English growth.

CHAPTER IV.

Characteristics Of The Tea Plant.

Chinese tea plants are usually divided into two cla.s.ses, and distinguished a Thea Bohea and Thea Viridis, the former being most suitable for black teas, and the latter for green teas; and black and green teas have been indiscriminately made from the leaves of either.

A tea shrub of Chinese origin now before us, growing among a host of common American plants, displays no special characteristics which would attract attention to itself. It resembles an orange plant. Its developed leaves are smooth on the surface, leathery in texture, dark green in color, with edges finely serrated from point almost to stalk. They are without odor, and when chewed in the mouth, have a mild and not unpleasant astringency, but no other perceptible flavor. A leaf of any familiar domestic plant, such as the lilac, the plantain, or the apple, has a stronger individuality to the sense of taste, than this green leaf of the tea plant.

How was the hidden mystery of its incalculable value to mankind revealed? What premonition guided the Chinese discoverer to the preparatory treatment and delicately graduated firing process which develops tea's precious flavors? And does not this unsolved question suggest the possible existence of other plants, growing, perhaps, at our very doorsteps, possessing rare and unrecognized virtues?

In form, tea leaves have been compared by writers to leaves of the privet, the plum, the ash, the willow, but close observers know that not only do leaves of the species just mentioned represent different types, but that important variations in form occur in leaves of the same species, and in leaves growing on a single tree or plant. The tea plant is subject to the same vagaries, and any description by comparison will be misleading.

The reader must be content with the typical forms of tea leaves shown in our engravings on the following page, for which we are indebted to the kindness of Mr. Joseph M. Walsh, importer of teas, at Philadelphia.

All varieties of the tea plant bear a pure white flower, averaging, say 1 1/4 inches in diameter, and resembling very closely our single white wild rose blossom.

Its bunch of bright yellow stamens is so bushy and showy in some varieties that careless travelers have been led to report the flower as yellow in color, which is never the case.

In some Chinese plants, and in those of India, tea blossoms are very fragrant, and they have been used for scenting tea leaves in India, if not in China, as other flowers are used by the Chinese.

In India a perfume has been distilled from tea blossoms; and a valuable oil is expressed from the very oily seeds. The long tap root of the tea plant renders it difficult to transplant.

In China, tea is commonly cultivated in small patches or fields, large tea fields being the exception. The nature of Chinese inheritance laws and customs which tend to continual subdivision of land, may be one of the causes of this state of affairs. The least area of spare ground is frequently utilized by the small farmer or the cottager for the cultivation of a dozen or more tea shrubs, from which they procure tea for their own use, or realize a small sum by sales of the green leaves to tea traders. Many a rocky hillside or mountain slope, otherwise waste ground, is terraced so as to detain the rains and meagre soil within its inwardly inclined banks and trenches, and made to yield a valuable crop of tea. Indeed, some of the finest flavored Chinese tea, of fabulous value where they are produced, are grown in seemingly inaccessible retreats among precipitous mountains.

The plate on the following page is a reproduction of a Chinese drawing brought from China by Robert Fortune, the Scotch botanist and traveler, and first published in Mr. Fortune's Two Visits to the Tea Countries of China, London, 1853, now out of print. The picture represents with Chinese fidelity a scene on the River of Nine Windings, in the Bohea Hills, and in the heart of a black tea district. Mr. Fortune spent several days at the scene of the ill.u.s.tration, and writes of the country as follows:

"Our road was a very rough one. It was merely a foot path, and sometimes narrow steps cut out of the rock. When we had gone about two miles we came to a solitary temple on the banks of a small river which here winds amongst the hills. This stream is called by the Chinese, the river of the Nine Windings, from the circuitous turnings which it takes amongst the hills of Woo-e- shan. Here the finest Souchongs and Pekoes are produced, but I believe that they rarely find their way to Europe, or only in small quant.i.ties. The temple we had now reached was small and insignificent building. It seemed a sort of half way resting place for people on the road from Tsin-Tsun to the hills, and when we arrived, several travelers and coolies were sitting in the porch, drinking tea. The temple belonged to the Taouists, and was inhabited by an old priest and his wife. ... The old priest received us with great politeness, and according to custom gave me a piece of tobacco and set a cup of tea before me. Sing- Hoo now asked whether he had a spare room in his house, and whether he would allow us to remain with him for a day or two. He seemed very glad of the chance to make a little money, and led us up stairs to a room. The house and temple, like some which I already described, were built against a perpendicular rock which formed an excellent and substantial back wall to the building.

The top of the rock overhung the little building, and the water from it continually dripping on the roof of the house gave the impression that it was raining.

"The stream of the Nine Windings flowed past the front of the temple. Numerous boats were plying up and down, many of which, I was told, contained parties of pleasure who had come to see the strange scenery amongst these hills. The river was very rapid, and these boats seemed to fly when going with the current, and were soon lost to view. On all sides the strangest rocks and hills were observed, having generally a temple and a tea manufactory near their summit. Sometimes they seemed so steep the the buildings could only be approached by a ladder; but generally the road was cut of the rock in steps, and by this means the top was reached... .

Some curious marks were observed on the sides of some of these perpendicular rocks. At a distance they seemed as if they were the impress of some gigantic hands. I did not get very near these marks, but I believe that many of them have been formed by the water oozing out and trickling down the surface; they did not seem to be artificial; but a strange appearance is given to rocks by artificial means. Emperors and other great and rich men have had stones with large letters carved upon them let into or built in the face of the rocks. At a distance these have a most curious appearance... .

I now bid adieu to the famous Woo-e-shan, certainly the most wonderful collection of hills I ever behold."

He says further that some geologist who will visit the scene, may "give us some idea how these strange hills were formed, and at what period of the world's existence they a.s.sumed the strange shapes which are now presented to the traveller's wondering gaze."

CHAPTER V.

Tea Picking And Yield.

Chinese tea grown among the mountains and hillsides was in Mr.

Fortune's time distinguished as "Hill tea," while both large and diminutive plantations on the lowlands or the plains were all called "tea gardens," a term which is now applied by the English to the extensive plantations of Ceylon and India.

Some of the largest tea plantations in China turned out, say, 500 chests, or 30,000 pounds, of tea per annum, at the same period.

In both China and the East Indies a common custom prevails of planting tea bushes about four feet apart, each way, and they are pruned down to a height varying from three to six feet, to bring the topmost leaves within reach of the picker. In both named countries, a first crop of tea leaves may be gathered from the plant at three years from the seed, but a full crop is not expected until the plant is about six years old. "A Chinese plantation of tea, seen from a distance," says Mr. Fortune, "looks like a little shrubbery of evergreens." And when journeying in the Bohea black tea country, he remarks--"As we threaded our way amongst the hills I observed tea gathers busily employed on all the hill sides where the plantations were. They seemed a contended and happy race; the joke and merry laugh were going around; and some of them were singing as gaily as the birds in the old trees about the temples." There is an old Chinese ballad of some 30 stanzas, which pictures the reflections of a Chinese maiden who is employed in picking tea in early spring, from we select a few verses, literally translated.

"Our household dwells amidst ten thousand hills, Where the tea, north and south of the village, abundantly grows; From Chinshe to Kuhyu, unceasingly hurried, Every morning I must early rise to do my task of tea.

"By earliest dawn, I at my toilet, only half dress my hair, And seizing my basket, pa.s.s the door, while yet the mist is thick; The little maids and graver dames hand in hand winding along, Ask me, 'which steep of Sunglo do you climb to-day?'

"My splint-basket slung on my arm, my hair adorned with flowers, I go to the side of the Sunglo hills, and pick the mountain tea.

Amid the pathway going, we sisters one another rally, And laughing, I point to younder village--'there's our house!'

"This pool has limpid water, and there deep the lotus grows; Its little leaves are round as coins, and only yet half blown; Going to the jutting verge, near a clear and shallow spot, I try my present looks, mark how of late my face appears.

"The rain is pa.s.sed, the utmost leaflets show their greenish veins; Pull down a branch, and the fragrant scent is diffused around.

Both high and low, the yellow golden threads are now quite culled; And my clothes and frock are dyed with odors through and through.

"The sweet and fragrant perfumes like that from the Aglaia; In goodness and appearance my tea'll be the best in Wuyen, When all are picked, the new buds by next term will again burst forth, And this morning, the last third gathered is quite done.

"Each picking is with toilsome labor, but yet I shun it not, My maiden curls are all askew, my pearly fingers all be numbed; But I only wish our tea to be of a superfine kind, To have it equal their 'dragon's pellet,' and his 'sparrow's tongue.'

"For a whole month, where can I catch a single leisure day?

For at earliest dawn I go to pick, and not till dusk return; Then the deep midnight sees me still before the firing pan-- Will not labor like this my pearly complexion deface?

"But if my face is thin, my mind is firmly fixed So to fire my golden buds that they shall excel all beside, But how know I, who'll put them in jewelled cup?

Whose taper fingers will leisurely give them to the maid to draw?"

Men, women and children are in China employed for picking tea, and three crops are gathered in favorable seasons, with occasionally a fourth picking. Under the stimulus of East Indian heat and moisture, the "flushes," or new growth of shoots, buds and leaves, are renewed as often as once in a week or ten days; so that during a season of nine months, from a dozen, to a maximum of thirty pickings are made. The same conditions apply to the tea plantations of Java. After ten or twelve years the bushes decline in vigor from the strain of constant loss of young growth, and are replaced by new plants. Thirty pounds of green leaves are an average day's work for women and children.

The yield of green leaves or of cured dry tea from a single bush is necessarily variable with its age, size and condition. In China, the proportion of manufactured tea to the green leaves is one to three, or one to three and one-third, while in the East Indies and Java the allowance is one to four.

Statistics gathered from India tea planters give us the following figures, for different districts and years:

YIELD OF DRY TEA PER ACRE, PER ANNUM.

Pounds.............. 370 333 330 246 562

YIELD OF DRY TEA PER BUSH, PER ANNUM.

Ounces.............. 1.18 1.46 1.44 1.08 2.50

Mr. Owen A. Gill, of Messrs, Martin Gillett & Co., Baltimore, in 1891, estimated the yield of Indian tea plantations at 400 pounds per acre per annum, costing at that time in India, ready for s.h.i.+pment, say, ten cents a pound; to which must be added, freight, selling charges, etc., of at least four cents a pound.

Half century ago, Mr. Fortune estimated that in China the small grower realized for a common Congo tea, about four cents a pound, but that boxing, transportation to the coast, export duty, etc., brought the cost in Canton to about ten cents a pound. Fine teas then paid the grower, say, eight cents a pound, but the English merchants in Shanghai paid thirty cents for the same teas.

Dr. Charles U. Shepard of the Pinehurst tea plantation at Summerville, S.C., recently stated that Chinese bushes are said to produce 2 ounces of dried tea per bush; those of j.a.pan, 1 ounce per bush or less; those of India and Ceylon averaging 3 to 4 ounces, and on high ground, 2 to 3 ounces; while Dr. Shepard has gathered from his own plantation, from acclimatized a.s.sam crosses, 3 ounces per bush, and from Chinese plants, 4 to 5 ounces. His j.a.pan plants yielded but 1/2 ounce of tea.

Picking tea on the level lands of India and Ceylon is very light work, and women and children are almost exclusively employed. Mr.

David Crole, writing in the serious and practical vein of a scientific expert, is moved to a poetic sense of the scene when he speaks of the return of Indian tea pickers from their work at evening:--

"A long line of women with their gay clothes of various hues, lit up by the expiring gleams of the setting sum, winding their way along the garden paths, like some monster snake, with scales of many colors; their gait perfect, undulating, and undisturbed by the baskets poised gracefully on their heads; singing some quaint refrain in the usual minor key, or making the air gay with their chatter and laughter; which, if far distant, strikes the ear pleasantly as a faint and indistinct hum."