Oct. r, 1886.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



22i 



maunfactured or finished state, is sold to petty 

 dealers who in turn sell to larger dealers. 



The large dealer mixes and manipulates Teas, 

 packs and sells them to the European Merchants for 

 shipment to England, Australia, or America. The 

 manipulation of Tea is an art in which the China- 

 man excels, and in many of the inferior kinds the 

 quality is infinitely deteriorated — thus, " the dust of 

 the leaf is mixed with clay and manipulated into 

 the form of the ordinary leaf " — this is with appro- 

 priate philological coincidence termed " lie " Tea. 

 '' Tea leaves which liave been already used are again 

 manipulated and rolled into shape and sold as 

 genuine Tea." 



The Teas of Japan, which are almost entirely con- 

 sumed by our American cousins, are frequently and 

 admittedlj' '' faced " with a mixture of Prussian blue 

 and soapstone. 



The Ceylon estate cultivation and manufacture are 

 very different, and it may not be uninteresting 

 to give a brief account of how i)ui-e Tea is made. 

 Visitors to the Ceylon Court in the Colonial and 

 Lidiau Exhibition will find an interesting series of 

 photographs from life, attached to the exhibits of 

 Tea, illustrating the various operations 



The Tea bushes are planted in lines at regular 

 distances over hundreds of acres of carefully roaded 

 and drained land, which is regularly weeded every 

 month. Once a year the bushes are pruned down 

 to a height of about 2 feet ; and eight weeks after 

 the'pruning the first " flush" of young shoots is ready 

 to be plucked, and during the height of the season the 

 flushes reoccur every ten days. Coolies, having a small 

 basket attached to their girdle, then go round and 

 pluck the bud and a couple of the tender half-de- 

 veloped leaves. At mid-day, and again in the even- 

 ing, the leaf is weighed and taken into the factory. 

 The leaf is at once spread very thinly on trays or 

 slielyes to wither. The time which the leaf takes 

 to wither — to become soft and pliable without drying 

 up — varies with the weather, but as a rule the leaf 

 gathered one day will be sufticiently withered the 

 following day. 



The withered leaf is jthenj placed in the rolling 

 machine ; an ingenious and eftective machine which 

 is driven by water or steam power. The rolling 

 lasts for nearly half-an-hour, at the end of that time 

 the leaf has become a moist mass of twisted and 

 bruised leaves, out of which the expressed juice 

 freely comes, technically called " the roll." The 

 roll is then placed in trays to ferment or oxidise ; 

 during this process it changes from a green to a 

 copper color. The subsequent strength and fiavor 

 of the Tea depend, to a great extent, upon the 

 fermentation — a chemical process, the success of 

 which is not entirely within the control of the 

 rianter, but depends greatly on the weather and 

 takes a time varying from two to six hours. 



The next process is that of tiring. The roll is thinly 

 spread on trays, and placed either over charcoal stoves 

 or in large iron drying-machines, and at the end of 

 half-an-hour it is thoroughly crisp and dried and has 

 become Tea. The Tea is the» sorted or sized, by being 

 passed through sieves of different mesh (see working 

 model of a Tea-sifter in the Ceylon Court) giving the 

 varieties of broken pekoe, pekoo, souchong, congou, 

 and dust. The broken-pekoe, which consists chiefly 

 oftlie opening-bud of the leaf, gives the strongest Tea, 

 perhaps too strong a Tea to be infused by itself; and 

 a mixture of pekoo and souchong makes the most plea- 

 .sant drinking Tea. 



The final process is that of weighing and packing. 

 When a sufficient quantity has been manufactured the 

 Tea is again slightly fired, to drive off any suspicion of 

 moisture, and packed while warm in lead-lined boxes 

 carefully suldert^d down to exclude air. 



Such is tlie mode of careful) sleanly preparation in 

 the specially erected factory of the Ceylon Planter; 

 and every drinker of genuine Ceylon Tea may be certain 

 that it is (di^olutehi piu-f. 



Specimens of the various classes of Tea, above named 

 and also of f;incy Teas, from all districts in Ceylon and 

 grown at sdl clcva'-.ions (trom sea level up to G.OOO 

 feet) may ho seen in the Ceylon Court, And every 



information regarding the industry may be obtained 

 from the Planters' Commissioner at the Exhibition. 

 Ceylon Tea, in packets guaranteed by the Planters' 

 Association and also as a beverage, is sold in the Tea 

 Room attached to the Ceylon Court as well as in the 

 Ceylon Tea Kiosks in the Exhibition Grounds. 



Ceylon Tea stands uurivalled for its combination of 

 strength and flavor ; and the pure Tea gives a beverage 

 pleasant and beneficial to those who drink it. One 

 cannot doubt that, were the well-meaning evangelists 

 in the cause of temperance to realize the difference 

 between pleasantly-strong well-flavored stimulating Tea 

 and the " wishy-washy " decoction infused from the 

 cheaper China Teas, their efforts to substitute "the 

 cup which does not inebriate " for that which does 

 might be made much more successful. 



In addition to the other good qualities Ceylon Tea 

 possesses that of being economical ; for it is generally 

 admitted that two pounds of Ceylon will go as far as 

 three pounds of China. 



The Tea you drink should be— 1. — Pure. 2. — Whole- 

 some. 3. — Pleasant. 4. — Economical. 



And Ceylon Tea justly claims pre-eminence on these 

 grounds. 



Would-be purchasers of Ceylon Tea must be warned 

 that there is dauger (just as there is with everything 

 which has earned a good name and become popular) 

 of a spurious or admixed article being sold instead of 

 what is genuine. 



Feench Walnut Wood. — The finest and most 

 costly of veneering woods is the French walnut. 

 This is imported from Asia Minor and Persia. The 

 burr is the valuable portion of the tree, and some- 

 times as much as £100 to £200 was obtained 

 for them while one at the Paris International 

 Exhibition in 1878 realized the enormous sum of 

 £1,000, or about 8s per lb. weight. The use of 

 this wood is now limited to pianofortes. For a 

 particularly fine piece of ebony £1 the pound has 

 been paid, as it is difficult to get large pieces 

 which can be used without cutting. — 31. Mull. 



Natal and Mr. Angus Fbasek. — The O. B. C. sold 

 their branch at Port Elizabeth to a local establishment, 

 which has since had to write off half its capital, and 

 our old acquaintance, Angus Fraser, having taken shares 

 ill the concern, was naturally somewhat irate at having 

 a hint that his salary would be reduced in like pro- 

 portion ; so he gave the Bank notice to quit, making 

 the fourth O. B. C. man now in London " on the staff," 

 the others being J. B. Morphew, A. Oarmichael, and 

 J. D. Dawson. In reply to my enquiries about Natal tea. 

 Mr. Fraser laughed consumedly, and said the severe 

 and long droughts to which the district was subject 

 rendered tea cultivation out of the question, and what 

 he had seen of it had convinced him' that nothing would 

 ever come of that industry in any part of the Cape 

 territory. — Cor. Local " Times." 



The "Tropical Agriculturist" is the means 

 of bringing us some curious requests and enquiries. 

 Here is a letter received by the last mail which 

 we publish in the hope that it may come before 

 the eye of the writer of the valuable paper referred 

 to which we took over from the pages of tiie Mel- 

 bourne Leader, as duly acknowledged at the 

 time : — 



Surinam, Plantii. Gagtlust, 25th June 1886. 



To the Editor of the Tiopical Af/ricullnrinf, Colombo, 



Ceylon. 



Dear Sir, — By reading your novelles, 1st Jan. 

 ISSti, vol. V. No. 7, p. 50.5, " Management of Fruit 

 Trees," the few lines had such effect to me as amator 

 of fruit trees, that I contain to pleas you to bring me 

 in transaction with the writer. 



In this case you will oblige to give me the address of 

 the writer, if it is possible, — lam your obedient servant, 



S CUKNCII, 



Old President of the Agriculture, &c. Society, 

 Surinam. 



