632 



TEA 



TEA 



Japan. If, therefore, the same flora prospers in 

 Japan and here, there can be no natural difficulty 

 in substituting in our markets American tea for 

 the 40,000,000 pounds annually imported from that 

 insular empire. 



It is very evident that great good must follow 

 the introduction into the southern states of a new 

 industry, whereby an easy, outdoor employment 

 may be afforded to women and children unable to 

 bear harder labor and yet needing remunerative 

 occupation, especially as tea -leaf -plucking but 

 slightly infringes on the gathering of the great 

 southern staple, cotton. And there are great tracts 

 of fertile land in the vicinity of Pinehurst, now idle 

 or worse from the lack of drainage, and therefore 

 impregnated with malarial fevers, which tea culti- 

 vation might render safe and profitable. The 

 people of the United States are paying the Orient for 

 tea upwards of $15,000,000 annually, which sum 

 might better be kept at home by local production. 

 Indeed, the present small consumption of tea in this 

 country, as compared with other English-speaking 

 peoples, amounting to one and one -third pounds 

 per capita per annum, and of late years diminish- 

 ing rather than increasing in quantity, might be 

 greatly enlarged by more confidence in the purity 

 of the home product than now exists in the im- 

 ported article, and the quality of the beverage 

 improved by avoiding the deleterious effect of 

 the long ocean voyage. 



Varieties of the tea plant. 



Whatever may be the opinions as to their origin, 

 i. e., whether, as stoutly maintained by many British 

 writers, all are derived from the indigenous Assam- 

 ese stock, and owe their special characteristic to 

 changes of climate and cultivation, as the result of 

 their removal to other countries, there are great 

 and practical differences between the several types 



Fig. 855. Tea bush in flower. 



of the tea plant. As extremes may be mentioned 

 the tea tree of the Brahmaputra' jungles, at- 

 taining a height of thirty to forty feet, with light 

 green, silky leaves, frequently nine inches in length 

 by four inches in width, and the stunted bushes of 

 far northern climates, hardly exceeding two feet 

 in height, with narrow, dark green, leathery leaves, 

 two or three inches by one-half inch in size. Be- 



tween them are innumerable variations of size and 

 appearance. 



Experience has demonstrated that all the varie- 

 ties of the tea plant except those from tropical 

 climates which succumb to the cold of our winters, 

 will flourish in the southern sea -board states. 

 Those that have done best at Pinehurst are : 



(1) That stock which was introduced into this 

 country fifty years ago, and has thus become thor- 

 oughly acclimated, although liable to be cut to the 

 ground by a recurrence of the phenomenal cold of 

 1899, when the local thermometer fell below zero 

 of Fahrenheit. Nevertheless, very few plants were 

 killed thereby, and today the same gardens are as 

 thrifty as ever. This type, which, from lack of 

 more specific information, we call " Assam-hybrid," 

 as being of an intermediate character, is capable of 

 producing, under favorable conditions, 2,000 pounds 

 of suitable leaf or 500 pounds of dry tea to the 

 acre per annum. The leaf is well adapted to the 

 making of black tea, and possesses most excellent 

 cup qualities. 



(2) "Darjeeling," from the slopes of the Hima- 

 layan mountains, the source of the best Indian 

 teas, less productive and less hardy than the Assam- 

 hybrid, but yielding a delightfully fragrant and 

 delicate tea, either green or black according to the 

 method of curing. 



' (3) "Dragon's Pool," secured through the kindly 

 offices of the. United States Department of State 

 and the Chinese government from a celebrated 

 garden in China, the product of which commands a 

 price prohibitive of exportation, except perhaps to 

 Russia. The plants are dwarfish and the leaf small. 

 It is made into green tea both here and in China, 

 yielding a most delicate beverage both to the smell 

 and to the taste, and requiring for the most fas- 

 tidious neither cream nor sugar. 



(4) Among the varieties exciting the most in- 

 terest is the " Shelter " tea, so called because it is 

 grown under matting which excludes the direct 

 sunlight. It is produced elsewhere only in Japan, 

 where it is called "sugar" tea, because of its 

 slightly sweet taste. This saccharine character is 

 due to the storing up in the leaves of large quanti- 

 ties of starch, which in the process of manufacture 

 is converted into sugar. The sheltered foliage is 

 blue and large. The leaves are very soft and silky. 

 This tea commands a very high price in Japan, if 

 sold at all. The best of it is reserved for the 

 imperial court. 



(5) The gardens of Japanese and Kangra (British 

 India) sorts afford most excellent green teas. Those 

 made at Pinehurst from the former have been pro- 

 nounced by the ablest tea-tasters of this country as 

 not surpassed in their cup qualities by any imported 

 from Japan; and a very prominent tea-planter from 

 Kangra valley has recently tasted tea grown at, 

 Pinehurst from seed supplied by him, and has stated ' 

 that it was fully the equal of the best in its original 

 home. 



The gardens raised from seed secured from the 

 highest altitudes of Ceylon have not developed 

 sufficiently to warrant an opinion as to their adapt- 

 ability to this climate, but they have yielded a 



