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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[Ju.NE 1, i886. 



tivatiou has growu prodigiously iu ludia iluring 

 thp last twenty years. A quarter of a coiitury 

 ago the ti'a plant was alniost uuUiio'.tn there ; 

 whereas now there are " many luimlrciis of t™ gardens" 

 covering very extensive areas of tlie richest iand in 

 the Nortbcrn Provinces of Imlia. 'J'liesc yield about 

 seventy million pounds of tea per annum,' nearly all 

 of which finds its way to the Loudon market. I'irst- 

 class tea dealers who have acce.ss to the " extensive 

 variety " embraced in this " enormous (]nnutity'" arc 

 manifestly in a mUch better positiou to supply the 

 public than parties confined to the produce of any 

 one particular (garden. The soil and climate of India pro- 

 duce very different tea to that of China. China teas 

 possess a sameness and uniformity which strikingly 

 resenobles a similar trait in the character of the 

 Chinese people. 



_" India, on the other baud, produces teas " bristliug 

 with pecularities," and wide as the poles assnnder in 

 flavour and strength. And, though Indian tea.'s are 

 vastly supericr in intrinsic merit to those of China, 

 yet lengthened experience and a critical taste in se- 

 lecting and blending are indispensably required to 

 produce a "thoroughly drinkable Indian Tea." "To 

 acquire this experience, and to become fully ac- 

 quainted with the immense variety of teas growu 

 ill so many different countries, long years of train- 

 ing and study are requisite. These qualifications 

 aro brought to bear on the selection of tea in 

 IJelfast in a "greater degree' than any other place 

 in the United Kingdom. Hence it is that Belfast 

 has obtained a reputation for " high-class tea" Bucb 

 as is not possessed by auy other town or city in the 

 kingdom. 



It is well to bear in min<l that the vast propor- 

 tion of tea on the market is of medium to common 

 quality. The " very finest descriptions" form an ex- 

 ceedingly "small portion" of the total supply, and 

 the consequence i.s that they are eagerly sought after, 

 and " fetch very long lu'iccs." It ic no uncommon 

 occurrence for the choice breaks of the best Indi;in 

 gardens to bring 3s "per pound in public sale" in 

 London. Add to this figure duty, freiglit, and charges, 

 and the cost to the dealer is raised to .3s .Sd. It is 

 quite evident, therefore, that if the " choicest teas 

 are wanted full values" must be paid. The public 

 may rest assiired that, no matter what inflated de- 

 scription is given of low priced tea, " none of it" is 

 worth more, to .say the least of it, than the price 

 asked. Many of these common teas are " badly cured," 

 the result of " imperfect knowledge" on the p.irt 

 of amateur tea planters of the chemical changes 

 involved in the curing process. .Such teas have been 

 largely sold in England and .Scotland, and in a lesser 

 degree in Ireland too, "misleading descriptions' and 

 "meaningless terms" being employed by unscrupulous 

 vendors to deceive the public. At a time like the 

 present, when a great deal of worthless trash is ottered 

 for sale in Belfast, it is necessary to emphasise the 

 fact that high-cla.ss tea is more enjoyaWe, more whole- 

 some, and more economical than "inferior tea." 



To this Mr. Davidson replied with a letter, in wliich 

 he says: — 



"The seventy million pounds of Indian tens imported 

 during the past .season brought an verage price of 

 about fourteen pence per lb. at the public sales in 

 London, whcrens the China teas, of which about 150 

 million lb. were imported during the same time 

 brought an average of only about teiipence per lb. 

 These jirices are, of course, 'in bond,' and subject to 

 the duty of sixpence per lb. extra. Indian teas, there- 

 fore, show an intrinsic superiority equal to fourpence 

 per lb. over Chiua teas, and although even the Indian 

 average of fourteen piuu'C .seems verr low. when con- 

 sidered alongside of tlu' tbirty-six pence i|uotation 

 which Mr. Anderson refers to as a proiier price (in 

 bond) for 'high cla.ss' tea, nevertheleas, Indian plan- 

 ters have to be contented with it for their .■! verage in the 

 meantime, and like the farmers in this country here just 

 do their best to hold their concerns togctlier, hoping 

 for better times to come, or for some method o? 

 reaching the consumers more directly with their I 

 toae. My owu esperituce aa a tea planter datej bick 1 



to the year 18U I. The annual out-turn of tea from 

 India was then only about a tenth of what it now is, 

 and prices were much better. In my own estate I 

 managed to realise an average price for my entire toa 

 crops up to the year isro of over 2s per lb in bond in 

 T.oudou. Since then the rapidly increasing production 

 of Indian tea lias brought down prices tremendously, 

 nsshotvn by tin- aver.ige j>rices realised for last stasons's 

 total cro]i ; but the consumer nevertheless has been 

 p.aying Tery much the same price as formerly. '■ Per- 

 haps Mr. Anih'rsou would attribute this decrease iu 

 price to what he describes in his advertisement as the 

 " imperfect knowledge on the part of amateur tea 

 planters of the chemical changes involved iu the curing 

 process." 



" The Indian tea planters, as an entire community, 

 are respousiblo for the manufacture of the seventy 

 million pounds tea crop above referred to, and if 

 "they" are amateurs, where shall we find the profes- 

 sionals 'i " Tea planters, as a rule, are always most 

 anxious to iuqirove the manuf.acture and increase the 

 quality of their teaf. and auv light which Mr. Auder- 

 son can give of a practical luiture concerning ' the 

 chemical changes involved iu the curing process' would 

 be interesting to them, ns well as to myself, consi- 

 dering that out of the 70,000,(1(10 lbs. Indian tea last 

 imported into the United Kingdom, about oO.OOO.OuO 

 were dried and cured iu the ' ^^irocco' drying machines, 

 of which I am the inventor, patentee, and maker. These 

 machines .are manuf;icturcd at my 'Sirocco' Works 

 here iuBelfast, and there are over 1,000 of them already 

 in use, and a very large number on order with me at the 

 present moment. " If Mr. Anderson can impart any 

 sj)ecial informntion as regards an improved system 

 of curing tea, wheieby his ideal ' high-class ' ([uality 

 at '.is per lb. in bond might be obtained, I have no doubt 

 it would be as gratefully received by my planter friends 

 ashy myself." 



The following letters are iu continuation of the cor- 

 respondence in the Jbelfint Xen-s-Lctter and risUr licliu 

 between iMr. Davidson and Mr. Anderson relating to 

 Indian tea. Mr. Diividsou writes, Jtarch 2rul : — 



" Aly last letter on the above subject appeared iu your 

 issue of the 27th ult., in reply to a letter by Jlr. Joseph 

 Anderson, of North Street, which he published iuthe 

 JJ'Ifiis/ Xcns-lctur of 24th ult. 



In the concluding paragraph of my letter I chal- 

 lenged Mr. Anderson to a fair relative comparison and 

 valuation by a Loudon expert of his teas at 8s 8d. and 

 2s Sd with mine at 2s. per lb. and I ha\'e since then 

 bei-u waiting for liim to take up the glove ; but as no 

 letter or intimation has appeared from him in response 

 (though he has now had more thau .ample time to reply), 

 nor any attempt been made to disprove my statements 

 or .statistics, he evidently declines the challenge. I 

 certainly did observe that the original adverti.se- 

 ment, with Mr. Anderson's nann; att.achcd, and to 

 whiili my letters referred, appeared again in the 

 Jn/f'ii.<t .\ii's-L/lt( ,■ on the day following the pub- 

 lication of my last letter to that ])aper ; but, in the 

 light, which has been thrown on it by the statistics 

 quoted in my letters, no sane person could accept that 

 advertisement aseither a reply to my challenge or a 

 refutation of my statements. "The gist of the entire 

 correspondence, so far as the general iiublic is con- 

 cerned, might be summed up in the single (pu'stion 

 ' Can good tea be obtained by the consumer at 2s per 

 lb?' The statistics which I quoted indicated that it 

 can, auil I back uji these statistics by selling myowu 

 tea at 2s per lb. Whether my tea is good or other- 

 wise, is a matter which the public can easily .ascertain, 

 as ' the proof of the pudding is in tl>e eating.' 

 I know it is supposed that sugar is sold at a loss, 

 in order to draw customers for tea, but what is this 

 more than an admission that excessive jirofits were being 

 levied on tea i' I'ossibly, when compared with the 

 large profits hitherto looked for on tea, the small 

 margin available on sugar may have beeti reckoned 

 ahnost as a lo.ss, but any sy,^tem of Imsiness which 

 deliberately contemplates, and arr.anges for the goods 

 of one of its important doparttneuts to be sold at .1 

 steady loss, is unsound in principle, and must sooner or 

 later be abandoned." 



