ROYAL GARDENS, KEW. 
BULLETIN 
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. 
No. 117-118.] SEPTEMBER and OCTOBER. [1896. 
DXXVI.—WHITE TEA OF PERSIA. 
(Camellia theifera, Griff.) 
In the Consular Report on the trade of Ispahan and Yezd (Foreign 
‘Office, Annual Series, 1896, No. 1662) the following particulars are 
given of the tea trade in Persia :— 
or Calcutta tea for Persian consumption, continues to arrive 
iu steady quantities, 2,000,000 pounds representing last year's supply. 
White tea from China, or more particularly from Tongking, is consumed 
only in Yezd, and, therefore, the supply is limited." 
` "Through the courtesy of Mr. Johz R. Preece, Her Majesty's Consul 
at Ispahan, Kew received a smail quantity of the “White tea” above- 
mentioned for the Museum of Economic Botany. The :ea proved to 
be very similar to that described in the Kew Bulletin under the name 
of P'u-érh tea (Kew Bulletin, 1889, pp. 118 and 139). The finest of 
rved for the Court of Peking. The sample 
from Yezd was composed of the undeveloped leaf buds so thiekly coated 
now largely cultivated in Burma, Tongking, &c. e same species has 
been shown to yield Lao tea (Kew Bulletin, 1892, p. 219), and Leppett 
tea (Kew Bulletin, p. 1896, p. 10). 
The liquor from the Persian white tea was of a pale straw colour with 
ihe delicate flavour of good China tea. It is not unknown but now little 
appreciated in the English market, ‘The following particulars respecting 
it have been ki 
n kindly communieated to Kew by a well-known firm of tea 
brokers in the city. 
‘U 94047.  1375.—10/96. Wt. 123. 
