4oii 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[December i, 1883. 



COL. MONEY ON TEA MANaFACTUEE AND 

 MACHINERY.— No. 1. 



The preface to the first edition of Col. Money's 

 Prize Essay on Tea Cultix-atiou was dated November 

 1S70, and stated that the Essay embodied the re- 

 sults of eleven years' previous experience. The 

 fourth edition, published in July this year, contains, 

 therefore, the mature conclusions of a full quarter 

 of- a century of experience of the cultivation and 

 manuf;icture of tea, in such widely separated and 

 differing portions of India as Darjiliug, Chittagong, 

 tlie Nilgiris and the Dooars. Had Col. Money paid 

 a visit to Ceylon, befor-e this latest edition of his 

 ■work was issued (and it is strange he did not, 

 i;onsidcring the ties which bind him to this island), 

 lie would have received information and seen for 

 liimself a state of things which might have led him 

 to revise some of his opinions and deal more fully 

 than he has done with one of the youngest but not 

 the least promisuig of the tea countries of the world. 

 AVhen Col. Money commenced his career as a tea 

 planter, the idea that Ceylon, already the thu'd 

 coffee country in the world, should threaten even 

 the supremacy of Darjiling, Assam and Cachar, as a 

 jn'oduLcr of tea, would have seemed as preposterous 

 as tile assertion, that ere long tea would be rolled, 

 fired, and largely sifted by machinery and without 

 the use of charcoal as a fuel. To Col. iloney Indian 

 tea planters are largely indebted for the simplific- 

 ation of the manufacturing processes, and the dis- 

 covery that the copper pans which the Chinese had 

 used for many centuries, and to wliicli they still 

 adhere as tenaciously as they do to ancestral 

 traditions generally, are iu reality superfluous. 

 But time and experience were necessary to con- 

 vince him and other early planters, tliat hand-rolling 

 could be completely superseded by machinery, and 

 that the detergent fumes as well as the clear, in- 

 Aense lieat of charcoal were not necessary to tlie out- 

 turn of tlie liest t a. "Writing of the final firing before 

 packing, Col. Money states : — 



Though I kuow many planters think the fumes of 

 charcoal necessai'y and beneficial for the la-t drying, I 

 do not. I have tried both sun and charcofil, and no 

 difference was perceptible. The former costs rothiug, 

 is moie conimodicus, and I always apply it when poss- 

 ible. The sun cannot burn the Teas ; the charcoal, if 

 the heat is too great, m.ny. 



Whether yi u use sun or charco.il, put I lie Tea hot 

 into the boxe.i. The only object of the final drying 

 13 to diive off the moisture, which the Tea will 

 certainly, in a more or less degree, have imbibed since 

 its manufacture. Even the large zinc-lined bins which 

 should be fitted up in all Tea stores, and in which the 

 Tea is placed after manufacture, will not prevent entirely 

 damp, so in all cases a final drying is necessary. 

 We believe that few tea manufacturers now resort 

 to sun heat, exceptuig perhajs the makers of green 

 tea iu the north-west Hiiiialaiiin districts. We 

 .should like to know, however, the extent to which if 

 at all sun-heat is utilized by tea manufacturers in 

 Ceylon. t"ol. Money states : — 



Sunning between the fermenting and firing processes 

 has no effect whatever on the lirjuor or the out-turn, 

 but it makes the Tea rather blacker, and as it drives 

 off much of the moisture in the roll, the firing pro- 

 cess after it is shorter .and docs not consume so much 

 charcoal. What little effect theiefore it Inis is good (for 

 if not continued too loBg, it does not make the Tea 



too black) and it is economical. I therefore decided on 

 retaining it. 



At the end of the seaou, however, sunning has more 

 than the above effect. It then makes the Tea "Chubby" 

 in form, of a reddish colour, and improves the strength 

 of the liquor. 



Col. Money m the new edition of his book, after 

 " Manufacture," adds " Mechanical Contrivances." 

 He leans to excess rather than deficiency in 

 the withering process ; and as to rolling, the re- 

 sult of his expfiience is that " in all but the point 

 of pekoe tips, hard-rolling is better." No doubt the 

 thorough breaking up of the leaf cells brings out the 

 strength of the tea, provided the juices he re- 

 absorlied and the process of "fermentation" well- 

 performed so as to avoid equally " rasping " pungency 

 and " fusionless " liquor. Col. Money, adhering to 

 the Indian tradition of a good tea for mixing pur- 

 poses, still retains the follov.'ing paragraph : — 



The Liquor. In taste this should be strong, rasping, 

 and pungent, with, in the case of Pekoes, a " Pekoe 

 flavour." There arc other v^'ords used in the trade 

 to particularise certain tastes, but the words themselves 

 would teach nothing. Tea tasting cannot be learnt 

 from boolis. //the liquor is well flavoured, as a rule, 

 the darker it is iu the cup the better. But to judge of 

 Teas bj' the cohiur of the liquor alone is impossible, 

 for some high-class Teas have naturally a very pule 

 liquor. 



In India largely, and in Ceylon wholly, teas are now, 

 made to be used on their own merits and not as 

 fortifiers of weak China stuff. We do not suppose 

 that the table described in the following paragraph has 

 yet reached Ceylon ? — 



An ingenious planter, a Mr. McMcekin, in Cachar, 

 invented a rolliug table with the object of separating 

 the said leaves. It is coustructed of battens, and while 

 roiling thp leaf on it, many of the small leaves fall 

 thrcugh. The said table is now well known in Cachar, 

 and is in use in sever.al gardens. I have tried it and 

 find that in a great measure it answers its object, but tiie 

 objection to it is that the leaf »«!'.:< be rolled lightly, 

 and lightly-rolled leaf, as observed, does not make 

 strong Tea. 



The Pekoe tips may be, in a great measure, preserved 

 by rolling all the leaf lightly on a common table. But 

 then again the Tea is weak, and the plan will not give 

 so many Pekoe tips as McMeekin's table. ^ 



In short, in the present state of our knowledge 

 except by the hand process (a tedious and expensive 

 one for separating«the leal), strong Teas and Pekoe tips 

 are incompatible. 



The difficulty is just wdiere it was, and will so remain 

 until ileiilers give up asking for Pekoe tips (not a likely 

 thing), or till a machine is invented to separate quickly 

 and cheaply the two said emill leaves from the others 

 oftir they have been all picked together. That such a 

 machine is possible I am Cirtain, and the inventor 

 would confer a boon on the Tea interest far beyond the 

 inventor of any other machine, for all the other pro- 

 cesses can be done by hand without much expense, this 

 cannot. 



Col. Money then goes on to notice such machines and 

 contrivances as he knows of for cheajjeiiing the manu- 

 facture of tea Kinmond's rolling-machine he origin- 

 ally considered the best, although he did not believe 

 in any machine entirely siiperseding haud-rolling until 

 he had seen Jackson's which liuishes the rolliug. 

 The different conditions in India and Ceylon are 

 strikingly apparent iu the fact, that Col. Money, 

 while speaking c_f manual, anim.al, wind and steam 

 power applied to machinery, does not mention water, 

 which is avaiUble for the vast majority of our Ceylou 

 tea estates. Col. Money mentions, without haying snee 



