WE CONTINrE OUR CHAT OVER A CVV OF TEA 5 



history references to tea-plantb in this country do not 

 speak of them as being indigenous to the soil of the 

 Celestial Empire. 



And tluTi' is yet another important piece of evidence 

 that favours India's claim ; the variety of tea-plant 

 commonly known as " China " has Ix-en carefully 

 compared by experts with the principal variety of the 

 plant that was found growing wild in the Assam 

 forests, namely. Camdlia Then, or Thra asftamica. As 

 a result, the expt^rt opinion hn.s been expressed that 

 the "China" variety is probably the Assam variety, 

 changed almost beyond recognition as such by centuries 

 of over-cultivation, hard pruning, and rough plucking ; 

 indeed, Thea assamica is now generally considered by 

 botanists to be the parent stock of all cultivated 

 varieties of the tea-plant. 



Once upon a time, therefore, more than five thousand 

 years ago, it would seem that a Chinaman penetrated 

 the forests of Assam, discovered the tea-plant, and 

 introduced it into his native land. But for so long 

 after this was India ignorant of the treasure which had 

 been given her by Nature, that she actually began to 

 experiment in the cultivation of tea with se<'d8 and 

 plants imported from China, before she discovered that 

 she could obtain ample supplies for her nurseries from 

 her own forests. 



To China, apparently. Ix^longs the honour of dis- 

 covering that a beverage could be made from the 

 leaves of the tea-plant. At what date she first began 

 to turn the leaves to account is not known ; but she 

 had certainly learnt how to make use of them as early 

 as the fourth century B.C., for a Chinese author writing 

 at this period speaks of a beverage that could be pro- 



