7§ 
THE TROPIOAL AGRICULTURIST. [August i, 1888. 
there is a remedy for a disease they have only too 
good reason to know exists. — Indian Agriculturist. 
♦ 
OEYLON TEAS NOT KEEPING: FIRING BY 
CHULAS V. DRIERS. 
A Visiting Agent writes: — " Touching the non- 
keeping of Ceylon tea, the following extract from 
my London correspondence may be useful and 
supports your views and those of our mutual friend 
David Kerr : — ' It is well to warn planters that 
the complaints as to Ceylon teas not keeping are 
on the increase ; as this is possibly owing to the 
teas being too hurriedly fired, it would be advisable 
to try the effect of slow firing on some of the 
invoices.' We Bhall probably have a discussion on 
the merits of chula, desiccator, and sirocco firing. 
I understand the Loolcondura teas are still 
chula fired." 
♦ 
THE QUESTION OF POOR CEYLON 
TEA AND LOW PRICES IN THE 
LONDON MARKET IN MAY AND 
JUNE. 
It may be taken for granted, looking at the fact 
that a " break " of tea is rarely despatched from 
an estate in a shorter period than a full week 
after the green leaf has been gathered, ten days 
being probably nearer the mark, — it may, we sub- 
mit, be taken for granted, that full two months 
generally elapse between the gathering of green 
leaf from the bushes in Ceylon and the sale of 
that leaf as prepared tea in Mincing Lane. The 
teas, therefore, which are with each recurring year 
sold in June and July for exceptionally low prices 
in London, poor quality being adduced as the 
main reason, must be from leaf collected in March 
and April. Now March is generally a dry month 
or a month of gentle showers, and although the 
burst of the little monsoon takes place in April, 
the quantity of rain which falls in that month is 
a mere nothing as compared with the downpour 
in June and July and we may add August. In 
the two months of June and July, often, and oer- 
tainly in the three months of June, July, and 
August (the great planting and supplying season), 
more than one-third of the total rainfall of the 
year occurs over the larger portion of the moun- 
tain and hill region of Ceylon where tea is prin- 
cipally grown. If, therefore, as a contemporary 
argues, the cause of poor tea and low prices are to be 
traced to wet weather hindering good withering and 
fermentation, it is the teas made in June and 
July which ought, as of poor quality, to sell at 
low prices in August and September instead of 
the teas manufactured in dry March and moder- 
ately rainy April being of poor quality and selling 
at low prices in June and July? The teas made 
in May, — itself a moderately rainy month after 
the Jittle monsoon burst of April, and those 
manufactured in the very height of the mon- 
soon rains in June and July, which sell at 
improved prices from August onwards, in spite 
of the difficulties of withering and ferment- 
ing in the wet, wind and chill which prevail in 
June and July specially and often just as badly in 
August. It is, therefore, when teas made in Ceylon, in 
the very worst weather for curing or manufacturing 
purposes, reach the London market, that the market 
responds with improved prices I The conclusion 
seems inevitable that the low prices in June and 
July, cannot be traced to the weather most unfavour- 
able for the operations of withering and ferment- 
ing. The leaf gathered in the wet weather of June, 
July and August seems to have become possessed 
of bo large a proportion of the chemical constitu- 
ents which give value to tea, that the teas sell well 
in spite of any deficiencies in manufacture 
consequent on the prevalence during gather- 
ing and curing of wet and chilly weather. 
Abandoning an erroneous although a plausible and 
apparently justifiable inference, what is the conclu- 
sion forced on us ? Obviously it is that the flush 
responding to the comparatively gentle first showers 
of spring, in March and April, is deficient in the 
chemical constituents which give manufactured teas 
the properties of strength, flavour, and colour in 
the cup, which experts desiderate ? Either that, 
or so large a proportion of our tea fields are pruned 
in December and January that much of the tea manu- 
factured in March and April is from the first weak 
flushes of trees which have been pruned. As the 
months of December and January are amongst those 
of largest production upcountry, it can scarcely be the 
fact that they are the months generally chosen for 
the pruning operation. Submitting this question to 
the judgment of planters with large opportunities 
of observation, we confess we feel ourselves shut 
up to the very unexpected conclusion that it is not 
bad monsoon weather, unfavourable to manufacture, 
which tells against Ceylon teas, but some deficiency 
of chemical properties in the flush produced 
during the spring months, — the moderately rainy 
months of March and April. — Or can the habit and 
practice of the " tea trade " to regard May-July as 
a slack time, pending the arrival of the new China 
teas, have somewhat to do with the neglect and 
consequent fall in price of Ceylon teas, during that 
period, apart from quality altogether ? 
The above was written before we had read th6 
interesting letter from Mr. H. K. Rutherford, which 
only reached us this afternoon. It will be seen 
that he puts June teas down as poor, and yet 
they surely share in the rise usually experienced 
early in August. We cordially support Mr. 
Rutherford's suggestion as to Prize Essays on 
the practical questions he details. Chemical ana- 
lyses may also teach us a good deal : Mr. Hughes 
made out that Ceylon rain-water was peculiarly rich 
in certain properties suited to leafage, and it is 
only reasonable to suppose that the monsoon rains, 
with all the electric discharges accompanying them, 
should be about the richest : indeed Mr. Cochran 
proved this, if we remember rightly. As to the price at 
which Ceylon teas will pay to grow, a proprietor 
who was one of the earliest to make and ship 
good teas told us some months ago that he estim- 
ated that all average Ceylon estates could be made 
to show a margin of profit, even if the average 
price for Ceylon tea in London fell to 8d a lb. 
+ 
THE CHEMISTRY OF TEA: ■ 
EFFECT OF SEASON AND WEATHER 
ON ITS CONSTITUENTS. 
Recent experience and discussions lead us quite 
to share Mr. Rutherford's regret that the Planters' 
Association and the Chamber of Commerce did 
not see their way to agreeing to his proposal 
for a series of analyses of tea gathered and manu- 
factured during the successive months of the 
year. And now, on reconsideration, instead of 
offering R500 for prize essays on the subject, 
which might not embody the results of actual 
personal experiment, we would recommend that 
the money be spent in payment for analyses, to 
be made twice or thrice in each month of the 
year, with teas grown in different circumstances 
of climate and elevation ; such analyses to be 
the property of the Planters' Association and to 
be periodically published by them with records 
of the conditions under which the teas were 
