August i, 1885.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



75 



baskets, where leaves only should be seeu. The shrub, 

 being an evergieeu, has still mauy of ils last year's 

 leaves, so that smiiO skill is necessary to fill a baski-t 

 quickly nithout also including some of the old giowtli. 

 A girl will pick, at the beginning of the season, about 

 one kicoi-mc of leaves (oj lb.) in a day, for whicli, this 

 year, her wages were Ih ;>ei/. 



We have alreudy stated onr belief that Mr. Gribble 

 must have meant not 3^ lb. of green leaf gathered 

 daily, but green leaf etjuivalent to S.^ lb. made tea. 

 Tile average Indian tutk or "ncrriuk" of green 

 leaves being Uiib. , a gathering of 14 1b. oomea 

 pretty close to the average. But our readers will 

 nonce the long intervals inJiealed between the pick- 

 ing or pluckiug seasons. We now come to the 

 "country prepuration," which is very curious and 

 largely opposed to the pre cesses by which black tea 

 is made in India and Ceylon. Mr. Uribble writes : — 



The following notes on the country preparation were 

 made during a few days stay at Shidzuoka (the capital 

 of iSuriigaJ early in May this year, at the time when the 

 first pickings were being made and when the whole district 

 was alive with the industry of a new tea crop. Surnga 

 and the adjoining province of Totomi are two of the 

 principal tea producing districts of Japan, and at the 

 time of my visit the tea gardens on the plain, on the 

 hill-slopes and on the terraces up the hill-sides were 

 dotted with the figures and large sun-hats of the girls 

 picking the leaves. The roads leading to the town were 

 seldom free from men carrying baskets full of green leaves 

 to be fired ; others dragging to the port of lo.iding, cart- 

 loads of the finished tea for shipment to Yokohama. 

 In the town itself dealers b.irgaiu tor each small lot of 

 tea brouglit in from the fields and the carriers either stay 

 to sell their baskets-full, or pass on with a word of chalf 

 if their load has already been bespoken, or if it has to 

 go direct to the firing place of the owner of the plant- 

 ation where the tea has been picked. As a rule the tea 

 belongs to very small proprietors, who fire their few cat- 

 ties a day, generally in the tutrauce ot their only apart- 

 lueut, and then sell the fired leaf to larger dealers who, 

 as principals or go-betweens, mix their various purchases 

 together and then send twenty or more boxes of similar 

 tea for sale at the treaty ports. Kut tile process of pre- 

 paring the green leaf is the same whether done in a 

 small shanty or in the godonus of a well-to-do merchant. 

 It is as follows : — 



'iteatniny. — As soon as possible after the leaves have been 

 picked they are steamed by being placed in a round 

 wooden tray, with a brass wire bottom, over boiling water; 

 the tray filliiig up the mouth of an iron cauldron set in 

 plaster over a wood fire. The tray is about 18 

 inches diameter, and receives about a couple of hand- 

 fuls of green leaf ; the lid is put on to confine the 

 steam, and the process is complete in about half a 

 minute ; the attendant taking one look at the leaves and 

 stirring before removing them. The water in the cauldron 

 showed 210' Fahrenheit and the bottom of the tray \>*if. 

 The moist leaves, with their natural oil now brought to 

 the surface, are then tumbled on to a wooden table for a 

 few minutes, and then taken into the firing room, where 

 the principal manipulation has now to be performed. 



Firiiuj. — A box-shaped wooden frame about 4 feet long 

 by 2\ feet broad, coated with plaster, forms the oven. 

 Charcoal (well covered with charcoal ash) is alight in the 

 bottom of the oven, and about a foot and a half above 

 the charcoal rests the wooden frame with tough Japanese 

 paper stretched across it. This paper gets darkly tanned 

 by the oil from the leaves, but below it shows no signs 

 of getting burnt, and one such paper tray will often do 

 more than a whole season's work without being renewed. 

 The heat of the paper at the time of firing is about 120". 



About SCO Mc' (tj^lb.) of green loaves are thrown on 

 to one of these paper trays and a man (for tlie work can 

 only be done by men f ) now proceeds to fire this quantity, 

 which by the time it is finished bedimea reduced to about 

 170 mc (Hlb). At first ho throws up the soft, moist leaves 

 in quick succession and keeps the whole mass moving 



* 120 me=one pound. 



+ Their wages this year were 50 sot per day, during which 

 they would finish abcut 700 mc of fired tea about (6 lb). 



without any attempt at rolling or twisting. Gradually the 

 leaves assume .'i darker colour, and gradually' he works 

 tiieni up into balls, rolling tho balls hetivceii his hands, 

 sop:iratmg the leaves again, rolling than on tli'j hot sur. 

 lace of the paper, again collecting them into balls, which 

 he will now roll backwards and forwards on the paper, 

 and finally do so with considerable strength and pressure, 

 occasionally resting one elbow on the edge of the tray 

 and rolling the ten between the jialnis of both hands with 

 all his might. After some hours work (de]iendiiig upon 

 the quality of the tea) the leaves have all becuine separately 

 twisted, and have changed their colour to dark olive pur- 

 ple. They are now crisp, long, thin wiry " spills," and, 

 in the case of the best leaf, look more like slender tooth- 

 picks than the leaves of a shrub, ^\■heu finished, the lea 

 is strewed on a similar firing tray, hut at a lower tcmji- 

 erature (about 110'), and is there allowed to dry until 

 it becomes quite brittle. The heat is then further reduced 

 to about 'Sb"), :ind the tea left for '1 to (i hours, even longer 

 if it is intended to keep it in stock for many months. 

 Tea well tired in this manner and afterwards packed in 

 earthenware jars will keep fur a whole year witliout spoiling. 



Sorliiii/. — Aftir leaving the firing room tlietea passes to 

 the hands of a man who sorts the leaves by jerking them 

 uj) and down in a bamboo hand tray, by which he separ- 

 ates a large projiortion of the light from the heavy leaf. 



sifting. — The tea is then passed to a sieve suspended 

 from the roof and swung backwards and forwards with 

 a circular motion, allowing all the fine thin leaves to col- 

 lect in a heap on the ground and retaining the large and 

 coarser ones to be throw'n into a separate heap. 



Hand I'ich'mij. — The completing ptocess of the country 

 preparation is to distribute the tea to girls, seated on the 

 mats in front of a picking table, v\'ho sort out all the seeds, 

 stalks und rubbish that may still be mbced with the tea. 

 The tea, thus finished as far as the country process is con- 

 cerned, is packed into wooden boxes, nailed, corded and 

 marked, and then sent to the treaty port for sale, each 

 box containing about half a picul. 



Before following the tea into the foreigner's godown , 

 where it has again to be fired and jiacked for shiiJinent 

 over sea, I give the result of my enquiries as to the coun- 

 try cost of its growth and manipulation. 



Level ground, within easy distance of Shidzuoka, suit- 

 able for a tea plantation, is now said to bo "worth about 

 100 yen for 100 Isuho (3, (iOO square feet); ten Jyears ago 

 it was worth about 25 ijcn, and twenty years ago only 

 half the latter sum. On the hills equally good ground is 

 said to be worth an averige of 30 yen per 400 Uuho. 



Tea shrubs covering 100 tsubu will produce m their third 

 year about 30 kimn-me (250 lb.) of green leaves at the 

 first lacking and about 15 kwan-mc at the second picking. 

 According to this year's scale of wages (about 2.3 per cent, 

 cheaper than last season's) tlie cost of picking 30 kwau-mo 

 was i/eii 4.50. 



The cost of labour in bring, of charcoal, of packing 

 boxes and of freight to Yokohama was given to mo as 

 t/ni 7, and the charges for selling in Yokohama 5 percent. 

 Vv'e thus h.ave as the cost cf the first crop from 100 Uuhj 

 of land under cultivation: — 



t/en. 



Picking 30 kioan-me (2501b.) i-M 



Firing, packing and freight to Yokohama ... 7'00 

 Agencycharges in Yokohama, 5 percent ... "CO 



yen... 12-10 



at exchange of I oO i/i,ii per Joilar the equivalent of S9'31 

 for a net weight of 6 kican-ine (50 lb.) of fired tea (the 

 loss in weight thus amounting to SO per cent). This is 

 equal to about §25 per picul without any allowance for 

 profit to the planter or for rental of his plantation. Of - 

 course if the whole of his crop were of the "Choicest" 

 qu.Tlity, this cost would leave him a large profit, but whether 

 his tea sells as "Choicest," or as "common " the average 

 cost of ]iroduction is not tar different. 



At the time of my visit to Shidzuoka the 'best tea, al- 

 ready fired and picked, was being botight by the large 

 dealers at yen 2^70 per iitaH-Jiie, the equivalent of .vert 43'20 

 per picul. The cost of boxes and expenses to Yokohama 

 amounted to yen 2 per picul, making the total cost hero, 

 with selling charges, yen 47'48 per picul or S30'50. Similar 

 tea was then selling in Yokohama at a little over this price. 

 The value in Shidzupka of eimilur tea at the same time in 



