67,0 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[February i, 1883. 



the planter to pick up hope agaiu with alternate good 

 and bad spason. Latterly, however, the blight has appeared 

 every year, and has resisted all scientific attempts to expel 

 it; tlie result of three years successive leaf disease is that 

 a great many planters have left the Island to seek their 

 fortunes elsewhere, not being in a position any longer to 

 fight, a^faiust a foe they know not how to overcome. Those 

 who remain in the Island are turning their attention to 

 other cultivations than coffee. Tea and Chiuchoua are 

 the I'hief favorites, with a sprinkling of jaggery, sugar and 

 citmamon. The Wynaad correspondent to the Madras Times 

 writes:— Apropos of new products, and the enthusiasm con- 

 nected with them, we may hope that fortune has opened to 

 us many fresh paths to prosperty. Coffee is to be regarded 

 as a mere *pnt boiler' apparently, whilst, following modesty 

 in the wakp nf the great King Ledger, we hear of pepper, 

 rubber. ipecHcu.i.nha and tobacco ; all of which, it is believed, 

 wuuld iluLi;i.siied satisfactorily in our climate. Tea, we 

 know, has been successfully tested in this respect; and 

 the demands for the comparatively small quantity already 

 produced in AV^ynaad should he sufiicient eucourgement 

 tu induce othrrs to attempt its cultivation thoroughly. 

 Anything that will thrive on plenty of wet weather ought 

 to do in Wynaad ; products with a rooted objection to 300 or 

 400 inches of rain in the year are better elsewhere, but 

 it is satisfactory to know, iu the present melancholy state 

 of the coffee market, that we need not feel ourselves 

 'wh'^>ny dependent on that broken reed for means of 

 Bubsistence. Therefore good luck to those who have the 

 energy to attempt experiments which are likely to produce 

 paying results. 



Coffee has now had a long trial in India, some Estates 

 being close upon half a century old. Time was when 

 coffee did pay for the cultivation, until the diseases that 

 now attack the trees made their appearance; and against 

 thest:, all efforts have proved unavailing, and after years 

 of struggling on agaii^fst first one and then another, the 

 European has had to give iu, aud leave the representatives 

 of his capital to the ravages of the enemy. Meanwhile, 

 hickily for the consumers of the beverage made frum 

 coffee berries, the Brazils continue to supply the market. 

 Leaf disease has not yet appeared there,* and new coffee 

 districts are being opened out every year. Sumatra and 

 Java already produce large crops of coffee aud in British 

 Burraah the Commissioner is endeavouring to make Tavoy 

 a coffee-producing district. By these means will the supply 

 be kept up. It may be that coffee requires fresh land 

 after a certain number of years, and perhaps in a cycle 

 of years the time may come round that Ceylon aud the 

 "Wynaad would again produce the berry that now refuses 

 to grow. As a remunerative industry of the present day, 

 coffee is at a discount, aud planters generally are turning 

 their attention to other cultivations. — !South of India 

 Observer. 



TEA-DKYING.— I. 



In manufacturing, the staying quality of teas, if we may 

 be permitted to use such a phrase, sccnis now to be com- 

 pletely over-looked. In the early days of the tea industry 

 among us, our tea kept for years, and improved by keeping, 

 and we know that whatever deficiencies are found iu China 

 tea, a want of keeping property is not among them. In 

 the ante-canal days, teas from Assam were frequently six 

 mouths old before they reached Mincing Lane, and it was 

 ackuowledged on all hands, that this delay was to their 

 advantage. Now, teas can be placed in the London market 

 within two months of manufacturing, aud our experience 

 is, that the faster they are hurried forward, thebe'ter will 

 be the prices obtained. Tea, which from any cause, has 

 been held for some mouths, obtains a valuation consider- 

 ably under what was accorded to it on arrival. Hence 

 the push which is made on all hands to hurry forward 

 our tea as soon as it reaches Calcutta from the garden, 

 and hence the small number of chests nov/ bought in at 

 the London sales. Brokers and agents have fouml from 

 experience, the best of teachers, that it is better to sell 

 at once on arrival, and be content with such prices as 

 are obtained, than to hold, on the chance of matters im- 



* Not Jiemileia vastatorix perhaps, but there exist leaf 

 diseases of a xnmkat nature in some parte of Brazil. — Ed. 



proving. That the fault is one inherent to Indian tea, is 

 clear from the fact that China still keeps as well as ever 

 it did. It is an important matter therefore, to enquire 

 wherein the fault lies, aud we have no doubt planters 

 generally will have no difficulty in laying their hands on 

 the spot. Before considering this point, we will notice 

 what Mincing Lane says about the drawback. An intelligent 

 merchant, wholly unacquainted, however, with manufactur- 

 ing, says :— 



" It is this most lamentable deficiency of "staying power " 

 which is the terrible drawback to all satisfactory dealing 

 iu Indian tea just now. And I am inclined to think that, 

 with every extension of this industry, there is less and 

 less tendency towards improvement. The unlucky operator 

 who fancies that the Indian tea of to-day is a something 

 he may speculate iu like pig iron, which may be stored 

 up for years, and come out then as fresh as the first 

 day, both in quality aud weight, will find he has made 

 a serious mistake. The simple fact is that Indian tea as now 

 produced, will scarcely hold its quality till it can be 

 sold. This is no random statement — quite otherwise; it 

 is a sober fact, as every dealer knows to his cost. Let 

 anyone who doubts it, taste a sample that has just arrived 

 in the docks, against a sample of similar grade from 

 the same garden, arrived, say, only a mouth previously, 

 and in nine cases out of ten the later arrival will be 

 found preferable." 



He points out that a London dealer who purchases tea 

 in Calcutta, knows exactlv when to report it in London, 

 and makes such arrangements as shall secm*e a speedy sale. 

 With his best efforts, he will perhaps place three-fourths 

 of his parcel, the remainder he may for various reasons 

 have to hold over for a couple of months, and on this 

 portion he will unfailingly lose. Granting the market to 

 be exactly in the same position as regards value, his 

 remainder will be from Id. to 3d. per lb lower than if it 

 had been sold with the first lot. The general opinion being, 

 that up to a certain period, Indian tea loses in value Id. 

 per lb per mouth while it lies iu London. Not being 

 able to guess the reason for this state of affairs, he says 

 ** what is the reason of this want of ' staying power * m 

 the tea of to-day I do not know, nor is it my business 

 to say ; but I have no hesitation iu stating my opinion, 

 that ten or fifteen years ago, Indian tea held its quality 

 fairl} well for a year or two." And notwithstanding his 

 technical ignorance, he makes a shrewd guess when he 

 adds : — " There were not so many labour-saving machines 

 employed then in the manufacture, but whether that has 

 anything to do with it or not, I cannot say. I must 

 leave the matter to the careful consideration of those 

 planters who are earnest in doing their work well. If 

 the evil can be cured or lessened, they will try to do .so." 



Let us now see if we can make a correct diagnosis of 

 the ailment. By labour-saving machines we suspect rolling 

 machines are particularly referred to, but we do not think 

 they have anything whatever to do with it. There are 

 however, in our opinion two processes in the factory to 

 which we should debit the want of staying power in the 

 teas of the present time. These are fermentation and- 

 dryiug. AVith regard to fermentatioi, we look upon this 

 as most important of all processes in manufacturing. There 

 never has existed a doubt in our minds, that we do not 

 feiment our teas properly. Fifteen years ago the manager 

 spent much time in the factory watching fermentation, 

 and although each man had his own idea, as to when the 

 proper time had arrived for breaking up the balls, it 

 was a generally accepted maxim, that at least onednlf 

 of the leaf should have become brown under the process. 

 We do not wait so loug now-a-days, not because we are 

 in a hurry, but because the Jiat of the broker has gone 

 forth for *'rasp." The only way to obtain this is by 

 nnrler fermenting, aud uuder-firing, and hence, for the 

 same reason, panning has been abandoned in most gardens. 

 Wherp, luiwever, " rasp " is not desired, paiming has 

 generally been retained. The result of proper fermenta- 

 tion is to liberate the bitter property of the tea, — the tannin 

 — and the panning helps on this good work, hence the 

 retention of panning, where mild flavoured tea is wanted. 

 Now it is a property of fermentation, that if checked 

 at too early a stage, it will resume, the moment the 

 conditions favorable to the process are agaiu present. In 

 making "rasp," fermentation is checked prematurely, and 



