638 report— 1878. 



5. On the Geographical Distribution of the Tea Plant. 

 By A. Bureell, F.8.S. 



Tea, as a beverage, was known in Europe in the beginning of the sixteenth 

 century, became a regular article of consumption in the seventeenth, formed one of 

 the largest imports from China in the eighteenth, and is now the special beverage 

 of all English-speaking peoples, both in the New World and the Old. The botany, 

 method of culture, and modes of manipulation were, however, little known here 

 till about forty years ago. The Jesuit missionaries in China and Japan were our 

 first informants of the virtues of tea. The Portuguese and the Dutch, who, long 

 before our East India Company was established, traded with these countries, 

 introduced it commercially to Europe, and there is evidence of its use in Eng- 

 land in 1610, during the reign of James I. It was in common use during the 

 Commonwealth, and the first Act of Parliament after the Restoration was passed 

 to levy a heavy duty on it. 



The tea plant first reached Europe in 1763, when Linnseus received a seedling. 

 The earliest plant that flowered and produced seed was at Zion House, near 

 London, in 1768. In China, the plant was in common use from the seventh cen- 

 tury ; in Japan, from the eighth. It grows in these countries up to 42° north 

 latitude, and is capable of being grown as far of south latidude, though the best tea 

 is produced in China between 27° and 30° north latitude. Up to the first quarter 

 of the present century, all the tea-consumption of the world was supplied from 

 China, with a very little from Japan. In 1827, the culture was introduced by the 

 Dutch in Java, and has ever since proved a successful undertaking. In 1834, 

 immediately after the abolition of the East India Company's monopoly of trade to 

 the East, tea was introduced from China into India, then first becoming a profitable 

 business. Next year, the plant was discovered growing wild in Assam. Tea, both 

 from the China plant and from this Assam kind, is now grown throughout all 

 India, and with the result that our great dependency is producing tea which 

 China, in her more palmy days, and less so than ever now, coidd not rival. India, 

 beginning with a production of only four pounds in 1840, now sends into this country 

 forty millions of pounds — as great a quantity as was consumed in the whole of the 

 •United Kingdom in 1837. In Asia, the tea plant is distributed in the Corea, 

 Tonquin, Cochin China, Annam, Ava, and Burma, where it is cultivated to some 

 extent, but only for native consumption. It was introduced to Brazil in 1827. 

 The French attempted its cultivation in 1841. It is now growing in Mauri- 

 tius, the Isle of France, St. Helena, at Singapore, in Ceylon, and our Australian 

 Colonies. In the West India Islands it has also been recently introduced, and a 

 good account of its condition in Jamaica has been given. Nor have our American 

 cousins neglected it. They sent to China in 1857 for plants, and tried the 

 culture near Washington, in Virginia, and Carolina ; quite recently they have tried 

 it in California, and near Baltimore. As to the original home of the tea plant, in 

 Japan it was admitted on all hands not to be indigenous. In China, it was long 

 held to be native to the soil, but more recent researches have thrown doubt on this 

 point, and the balance of evidence seems to point to the Assam Valley of India, 

 along the course of the Brahmapootra, as its original seat. This is supported by 

 the fact that, while in China the tea plant is never found thoroughly wild away 

 from man's habitation, and is more of a bush than a tree, in Assam, on the other 

 hand, and in the hill ranges surrounding that valley, it is found everywhere grow- 

 ing wild, and attaining great height, usually fifteen to twenty feet (and even by a 

 report just received from India, sixty to eighty feet), and of the girth of three to four 

 feet, among the secluded Naga hills. A long list of authorities, from Marco Polo 

 and his learned editor, Colonel Yule, the Jesuit Missionaries, and more recent tra- 

 vellers, down to the recent works of Richthofen, Margary, Baber, and Gill, all 

 afford evidence of the tea growing wild throughout the vast stretch of country 

 intervening between the frontiers of India and China, and on either side, and 



