THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [September 2, 1889. 
There is only one species of this plant ; the difference 
of green and bohea tea depending upon the nature of 
the soil, the oulture, and the manner of drying the leaves. 
It has even been observed that a green tea-tree planted 
in the bohea country will produce bohea Tea and so 
the contrary. I have examined several hundred flowers 
both from the bohea and green tea countries, and their 
botanical characters have always appeared uniform. 
See Directions for bringing over seeds and plants, by 
John Ellis, Esq. Sir George Staunton's Embassy, Vol. 
II. p. 464, says, " Every information received concerning 
the tea-plant concurred in affirming that its qualities 
depended upon the soil in which it grew and the age at 
which the leaves were plucked off the tree, as well as 
upon the management of them afterwards. 
[Here follows the list of ' Authors upon Tea, ' and 
in a note to one of them, " Translation in English of 
Giovanni Botaro, an eniment Italian author. Printed 
in 1590 " Lettsom says] " The writer observes that 
the Chinese have also a herb out of which they press a 
delicate juice which serves them for a drink instead of 
wine : it also preserves their health and frees them 
from all those evils ' that the immoderate use of wine 
doth breed unto us.' By the use the modern Chinese make 
of tea (who are a sober people) it can be nothing else." 
Section IV. — Obigin of Tea. 
As China and Japan are the only two countries 
known to us where the Tea Shrub is cultivated for 
use, we may reasonably conclude that it is indigenous 
to one of them if not to both. "What motive first led 
the natives to use an infusion of tea in the present 
manner is uncertain : but probably in order to correct 
the water which is said to be brackish and ill-tasted in 
many parts of those countries. Of the good effects of 
tea in such cases we have a remarkable proof in Kalm's 
journey through N. America, which his translator 
gives us in the following words: — "Tea is differently 
esteemed by different people, and I think we would be 
as well and our purses much better if we were without 
tea and coffee. However, I must be impartial, and 
mention in praise of tea that if ib be useful it must 
oertainly be so in summer on such journies as mine 
through a desert country where one cannot carry wine 
or ether liquors, and where the water is generally unfit 
for use, as being full of insects. In such cases it is 
very pleasant when boiled, and tea is drunk with it : 
and I cannot sufficiently describe the fine taste it has in 
such circumstances. It relieves a weary traveller more 
than can be imagined as I have myself experienced, 
together with a great many others who have travelled 
through the desert forests of America : on such journies 
it is found to be almost as necessary as victuals." 
About the year 1600 Texeira, a Spaniard, saw the dried 
tea leaves in Malacca, where he was informed that the 
Chinese prepared a drink from this vegetable : and in 
1633 Olearius found this practice prevalent among the 
Persians, who procured the plant under the name of Cha 
orchia, from China by means of the Usbeck Tartars. In 
1639 Starkaw the fiussian Ambassador at the court 
of the Mogul, Chan Altyn, partook of the infusion of 
tea ; and at his departure was offered a quantity of it 
as a present for the Czar Michael Romanof, which the 
Ambassador refused as being an article for which he had 
no use. 
This article was first introduced into Europe by the 
Dutch East Indian Company very early in the last 
century ; and a quantity of it was brought over from 
Holland about the year 1666 * by Lord Arlington and 
* Harway's Journal of Eight Days' Journey, vol ii. 
p. 21. The same author observes that tea sold at this 
time for sixty shillings a pound. Anderson in his 
' Chronological Deduction of Commeree ' remarks that 
the first European author that mentions tea wrote 
in the year 1590. However, by the preceding catalogue 
it will appear that this subject had been considered 
much earlier. In Jtenaudot's anciennes Relations, 
Paris, 1718, p. 31, mention is made of two Ara- 
bian travellers who visited China about tbe year 
850, and related that the inhabitants of that empire 
had a medicinal beverage named chah or sah, 
which was prepared by pouring boiling water on the 
dried leaves of a certain herb, which infusion was 
cokoned an effioacious remedy in various diseases. 
Lord Offory. In consequenco of this tea soon became 
known amongst people of fashion, and its U6e by degrees 
since that period has become general. 
It is however certain that before this time drink- 
ing tea, even in public coffee-houses, was not uncom- 
mon ; for in I860 a duty of four pence per gallon was 
laid on the liquor made and sold in all coffee-houses. * 
So early as 1678 Cornelius Bontekoe, a Dutch physi- 
cian, published a treatise in his own language on tea, 
coffee, and chocolate. In this he shows himself a very 
zealous advocate for tea, and denies the possibility of 
its injuring the stomach although taken to the greatest 
excess as far as one or two hundred cups in a day ( !). 
To what motive we are to impute the partiality of Dr. 
Bontekoe is uncertain at this period ; but as he was 
first physician to the Elector of Brandenburg, and prob- 
ably of considerable eminence and character, his eu- 
logium might tend greatly to promote its use; however, 
we find its importation and comsumption were daily 
augmented ; and before the conclusion of the last cen- 
tury it became generally known amoDg the common 
people in England. 
It is foreign to my subject, or it would perhaps afford 
to a speculative mind no inconsiderable satisfaction to 
trace the consumption from its first entrance at the 
Custom-house to the present amazing imports. At this 
time upwards of twenty-three millions of pounds are 
annually allowed for home consumption ; and the Bast 
India Company have generally in their warehouses a 
supply at least for one year. 
It is probable that the Dutch as they traded consi- 
derably to Japan about the time tea was introduced into 
Europe first brought this article fr.,m thence. But now 
China is the general mart, and the province I'okien, 
or Fo-ohen, the principal country that supplies both 
the Empire and Europe with this commodity. 
Section V. — Soil and Culture. 
To the ingenious Kaempf er we are principally indebted 
for any accurate information respecting the culture of 
the tea-tree ; and as his account was composed during 
his residence at Japan, greater ere Jit is certainly due 
to it. We shull give what he says upon this subject, 
and then state the accounts we have been able to 
collect of the Chinese method. Kasmpfer tells us that 
no particular gardens or fields are allotted for this plant, 
but that it is cultivated round the borders ot rice 
and cornfields without any regard to the soil. Any 
number of the seeds, as they are contained in their 
seed vessels, not usually less than six, or exceeding twelve 
or fifteen, are promiscuously put into one hole, made 
four or five inches deep in the ground at certain dis- 
tances from each other. The seeds contain a large 
proportion of oil which is soon liable to turn rancid ; 
hence scarce a fifth part of them germinate, and 
this makes it necessary to plant so many together. 
The seeds vegetate without any other care, but the 
more industries annually remove the weeds and man- 
ure the land. The leaves which succeed are not fit to 
be plucked before the third year's growth, at which 
period they are plentiful, and in thair prime. In about 
seven years the shrub rises to a man's height ; but as 
it then bears few leaves, and grows slowly, it is cut 
down to the stem which occasions such an exuterauce 
of fresh shoots and leaves the succeeding summer as 
abundantly compensates the owners for their former 
loss and trouble. Some defer cutting them till they 
are of ten years' growth. So far as can be gathered 
from authors and travellers of credit, this shrub is 
cultivated and prepared in China in a similar manner 
to what is practised in Japan ; but as the Chinese 
export considerable quantities of tea, they plant whole 
fields with it to supply foreign markets as well as for 
home consumption. 
* By an act made this year the duties of Excise o n 
malt liquor, cyder, perry, mead, spirits, or strong waters, 
ooffee, tea, sherbet, and chocolate were settled on 
the King during his life. Then it was that coffee, tea, 
and ohocolate were first mentioned iu the Statute-book. 
In May 1784 an Act was passed, called the Commuta- 
tion Act, B for repealing the several duties on tea, and 
granting to his Majesty other duties in lieu thereof ; 
and also several duties on inhabited houses," 
