9 2 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[August i, 1888. 
sumer. Fortunately for us the brokers and buyers 
at home get their samples from the newly opened 
packages, good and fresh, but if we had to sell 
on samples taken from the grocers' shops after 
long exposure, I wonder how much we should get. 
The " Committee" in London ought to work 
for a reformation in the treatment of our tea 
by the revenue officers, by the warehouse people, 
and by the " trade." We are mulct pretty heavily 
by the trade, which takes not only one pound 
from every package but also all the fractions of a 
pound above the gross in round pounds, and all the 
fractions of a pound below the nett weights in 
round pounds. This is where " Tommagong " (who 
recen ly wrote you about his loss) suffered. Samples 
must be given and work must be expedited, so that 
I do not know how this " pull " in favour of the 
trade can be lessened ; but we have a right to 
expect and demand some care for the tea itself in 
return. The operations of sampling, turning out, 
weighing and re-packing ought to be simultaneous, 
and the cases ought to be re-soldered immediately. 
Then the grocers ought to be induced to keep their 
stock in canisters nearly or wholly air-tight, and 
not to open the soldered chests till required. I am 
aware of the exigencies of the retail trade, and also 
of those who supply certain small retailers with 
pictorial pound and half-pound packets. No mere 
paper will keep tea from " going off," and is it not a 
faci. that mush is retailed after it has been long 
exposed in the London warehouses, turned out 
again to be mixed (and adulterated) and packed 
in paper, in damp cellars, and then necessarily 
kept any length of time waiting final delivery 
to the consumer? If the trade at home cannot 
remedy all this, we shall have to pack it here 
ready for the consumer, and agitate for such 
reform of trade practices in London as will meet 
the new method. Finally, no tea opened in Colombo 
during the south-west monsoon is safe from serious 
deterioration. R. W. J. 
THE DETERIORATION OF CEYLON TEAS 
AND THE BROKERS. 
Chapelton, July 11th, 1888. 
Dear Sir, — That the brokers have decried Ceylon 
tea no one can deny : that they are right in doing so 
is more problematical. Several attempts have been 
made in the papers to arrive at the exact season 
when the said falling-off in quality commences, 
but so far in my opinion without success. The 
drought or the early rains succeeding it have 
been blamed, yet it must be patent to everybody 
that a considerable time elapses between the 
despatches of tea from a large and from a small 
factory. Some estates despatch weekly, while others 
keep their teas for periods up to three months 
to allow their sending sampling breaks ; yet when 
the fall in price occurs the latter share equally 
the defects in quality of the former although they 
must of necessity be composed in the main of 
teas manufactured at a time when quality was 
pre- eminent, judging from the reports of sales of 
tea manufactured simultaneously with them. 
Everybody must know that there are times when 
tea is not quite up to the mark, either as the result 
of pruning or from climatic or other causes, just 
as red leaf is more prevalent from the want of 
the first or from cold winds ; but that the varia- 
tion ranges from ' full flavoury " to " very 
undesirable, weak liquoring teas" nobody but 
a broker con' 1 be expected to discover. To 
the grower it is also apparent how with the 
complaint against quality in a low market the 
uuiiit and overfired teas seem to predomi- 
nate. Instead of the Colombo brokers being ag- 
grieved by Mr. T. N. Christie's insinuations, that 
they had not discovered the sudden deterioration 
of quality in teas previous to the wholesale con- 
demnation which was suddenly telegraphed out from 
the Lane, it would have been more natural if they 
had congratulated themselves on having failed to 
detect anything very unusual in their quality. 
I lately heard of an instance where part of a 
break of tea was put up for sale in Colombo some 
time before the fall in price, which fetched 52 
cents per lb. Another lot of the same tea was 
lately offered for sale locally and fetched 31 cents ; 
yet, if the brokers be right, the cause lies not in 
the uncertainty of the market or the excessive sup- 
plies, but in the quality of the tea itself. Of course 
we hear a lot about Ceylon tea not keeping its 
flavour, going off &c, and this may be adduced 
as a reason for the depreciation of value of the 
tea I am quoting, but then the tea in question 
was not subjected to the barbarous treatment it 
meets with in London where the packages are 
broken open on arrival in the dock and bulked. 
The latter process from all accounts is a sarcasm 
on the trouble and care bestowed upon packing by 
Ceylon planters : the tea being exposed to every 
possible disadvantage, whether from mode of bulk- 
ing, from climate, from exposure, or from the manner 
in which the package is finally " fixed up." 
It stands to reason that the more flavour a tea pos- 
sesses the more that tea will deteriorate by exposure, 
and it we are to believe the brokers, it is better to 
buy a flavourless China Oongou, and so avoid any 
disappointment hereafter. 
No doubt it is to the interest of some, firms in 
the Lane to keep up their connection with China, 
and, as India has now firmly established herself, they 
feel it useless to run her down. Ceylon is, how- 
ever, still an interloper and barely on her legs, and 
so the attempt is made to thrust her to the wall. 
Were our friends (?) the brokers to expend half 
the trouble in pointing out the defects of fivepenny 
to eightpenny China teas, they do in decrying Ceylon 
growths, the former would soon be ousted from 
the market and the Ceylon planter would find his 
millennium. 
The only present satisfaction is that in 
spite of the inferiority of Ceylon tea in the pre- 
sent depressed market, its average compares 
favourably with those of India and China. — Yours 
faithfully, F. L. CLEMENTS. 
SMALLPOX IN TURKEYS. 
Colombo, 13th July 1888. 
Dear Sir, — My wife writes : "I see someone 
asking in the Observer for a cure for smallpox in 
turkeys : write to the Observer and say, I have 
never known coconut oil and ashes, applied three 
times a day, fail." To hear in the case of one's 
wife is to obey, hence this letter, — Yours, &c, 
MARL 
THE ALLEGED DEPRECIATION OF TEAS : 
EXPERIENCE AT A MEDIUM ELEVATION. 
Dear fcsiR, — It is with much vexation and doubt 
many planters receive the remarks of brokers here and 
in London regarding the falling-off in the quality 
of our teas. I only work in a small way and 
cannot speak with authority ; but I am certain 
that my tea has improved in quality during the last 
six months : at ail t vents I observe no falling-off 
in taste or flavor, and all these apparent depre- 
ciatory remarks unfortunately occur as Indian and 
China teas come on the London market. Is it 
not reasonable to draw an inference ? 
What I want to see is an authoritative state- 
ment by our large manufacturers as to their ex- 
perience of the inferiority in their teas during the last 
six months, and if they can aecount for it. 
