168 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [August i, 1881. 
many a gourmet who, from infancy, had been accus- 
tomed to the taste of Chinese tea only, now relishes 
a fine cup of Indian tea? It is not owing to a mere 
fancy, but to our Indian tea being perhaps more 
savoury and certainly more cleanly ar.d more carefully 
prepared than the Chinese article. Why, then, could 
not we hope that in a few years more Indian tea 
will find a way open to it in the markets of the five 
parts of the world ? 
This prospect, pleasant as it may be, is too high 
for me. Why look so far away beyond the seas? 
I will now take a much more nearer view of the 
matter and look only at the very threshold of India. 
There, at our own door, is to be found a good ex- 
port tea market ; so much the better for us that it 
would not lessen the existing London market by a 
single pound of tea. This seems to be rather para- 
doxiciil, though very true, and calls for some explana- 
tion. 
The tea bushes must be pruned every year, or at 
least every third year ; every year, too, a large amount 
of leaves escape the plucking of the buds and small 
leavea ; once too old and too coarse they are allowed 
to dry, to fall down on the ground, they are lost as 
tea, and they can be used for nothing but manuring 
the plantation. From what I heard, Chinamen of the 
western part of the Se-tchuen Province are not so 
foolish. They know well how to fill their purse with 
over 10 lakhs of rupees, quietly coming to them, from 
the sale of this rubbish which is despised by us great 
gentlemen ! Some of them, I am told, even let then- 
tea gardens grow almost wild in order to increase 
the heap of primings, small branches, coarse leaves, 
and other rubbish to be prepared for tea. They are 
contented with a small quantity of fine rolled tea to 
be used in the district itself, not to be exported, be- 
cause the best profit of their tea gardens comes from 
this coarse unrolled tea, which we think not worth 
the sweepings of our godowns. Besides this, the space 
between rows of scattered plants of tea are used as 
fields of Indian-corn, of beans and other vegetables ; 
so much so, that a Chinese tea garden on the western 
hills of the Se-tchuen Province when seen from some 
distance, looks very much like a field or a common 
garden newly opened amongst the jungles. 
Far from me, of course, the thought of commend- 
ing to our tea planters such careless a method of 
cultivation. Though Chinamen were tea-planters of 
old and our teachers, we are more enlightened, more 
civilized, and. thanks be to G-od, less greedy of money 
than they are. We know very well that the more 
weeds and even useful plants we allow to grow into 
our fields, the less nourishing substance will remain 
for the intended cultivation. Even for the sake of our 
superior civilization our shadows must be spread over 
our tea gardens which we must always keep well 
tilled, well manured, perfectly clean and elegant, as 
it becomes gentlemen. But when it is a fact that 
many Chinamen, greedy of money as the whole of them 
are, prefer making coarse tea to preparing fine tea, 
there must be a reason for it. This reason is no 
other than because it is more profitable to them ; 
and it is profitable only because the coarse tea market 
is near at hand, whilst the fine tea market is very 
far off. This coarse tea market is Thibet, the empori- 
um of which is Ta-tsient-loo, distant only a few 
days' journey from the tea-producing country, whilst 
Canton and Shanghai are so far away and of so diffi- 
cult of access. 
For us, I know, it is quite different in India. From 
Upper Assam, Darjeeling, Tirhoot, &c, to Calcutta 
or to any of the seaports, it is nothing but a short 
and easy promenade, thanks be to our railways, our 
beautiful inl?nd steam navigation, our roads, our con- 
veyances. Therefore, we must not on any account 
drop the bone and the meat to grasp at the shadow. 
But as this shadow can pour down into our pockets 
at least as many lakhs of rupees as it does yearly 
into the pockets of the Western Chinese tea-plaaters, 
and as the very same' market is nearer to our own 
doors than the doors of Western China, why should 
we not avail ourselves of this good opportunity by- 
preparing the same kind of tea, better adapted to the 
taste and means of the Thibetans, when it is sufficient 
for it to employ only the rubbish and leavings of our 
plantations ? 
Has the experiment been made. I do not say with 
the Thibetan people who sometimes come down to our 
market places, but even with the Sikimies and Bou- 
thias who are living with us at Darjeeliug, who are 
either under the protection of the English Government 
or at least under its powerful influence. To my know- 
ledge, only one planter tried once and he failed. 
Why ? Very likely only because he did not know- 
how to prepare his Thibetan tea according to the taste 
of his intended customers. What has he done ? I do 
not know exactly, but I fancy he merely swept away 
the prunings of his plantation after they had become 
dried by the sun's rays, when scattered all over his 
garden; then at some other time collecting the natur- 
ally dried and yellow leaves and mixing the whole 
together he got a kind of green yellow stuff without 
any juice or taste ; this gentleman's intention wag 
very good and in the right direction indeed, but if 
he acted so, no wonder that he failed in his laudable 
attempt to open up the Thibetan tea market, Had he 
asked for advice from some Chinaman of the Tsen-ky- 
hien, of the Yueu-ken-hein or Ya-chow districts in 
Western Se-tchuen, (there are perhaps some of them 
in Calcutta) he would have learned to his great ad- 
vantage that the prunings before becoming dried, and 
the coarse grren leaves before becoming nationally 
yellow, must be collected in October or thereabouts 
and subjected to some kind of fermentation which by 
destroying the green chlorophylle of the leaves gives 
them a brown colour without destroying the tasty 
juice which is rather increased thereby. 
As fermentation is a capital point it is good to 
dwell a little upon it. According to my informant, 
the Chinamen dig two holes in some sheltered place 
of their compound. Into one of these holes they pile 
up the prunings, i.e., the fresh little branches cut off 
with their leaves in small pieces about two or three 
inches long. Into the other hole they pile up the 
coarse green leaves plucked up from the bushes. If 
these materials are not moist enough they sprinkle a 
little water on the successive layers, which they press 
down with their feet in order to make the heaps com- 
pact and prevent by so doing as much air as possi- 
ble remaining between the leaves inside of the holes. 
When they are full they cover them with mats, cloth, 
or blankets to prevent any contact with the atmosphere. 
Soon after, the natural fermentation begins, and heats 
the whole mass which becomes of a brown colour in 
the centre and at the bottom, whilst the upper part 
remains of a rather light yellow colour. To judge of 
the proper degree of fermentation, we must not 
therefore be contented with having a glance at the 
surface, but we must dig to the centre and see whe- 
ther the leaves have become properly heated and 
tinged with a brown colour, without being however 
burnt by the heat or rotted by over humidity. After 
a few experiments it will be easy to judge from the 
time only. 
As soon as the fermentation has come to a proper 
point, the yellow leaves of the surface are put aside 
to be packed up as an inferior quality of tea, or are 
piled up ane w in another hollow place to be submitted 
to a better fermentation. The brown leaves and the 
brown prunings are then separately dug over by small 
quantities of four, five, or six pounds, sprinkled with 
a little rice water, i.e., the water which has been 
uccd for the first ebullition of rice, which being im- 
pregnated with a certain amount of gluten is apt ta 
