18 THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [July 1, 1902. 
Sastry in Jamaica. Some of the Colombiau varieties 
»re doubtless well adapted to the soil and climate of 
Jamaica, and the establishmeDt of a new industry is a 
matter of no small iuiportiinco to Jamaica and the 
sister West India colonies. But, as we remaiked on a 
formpr occasion, the introduction into India of a new, 
adaptable article of food is of vital imi'ortance to the 
inh».bitant8 of the Eastern Indioa, inasmuch as it marks 
the initiation of nn enterpri-se which will, we tru.st, ba 
pregnant with benefit and blessings to millions of our 
lellow-snbjects in the Eaat Indies, — Jamaica Daily 
Ttltgmph, 
EXPERIMENTING IN GREEN TEA 
M'USrUFACTURE. 
" [BY AN OLD PLANTER.] 
The great redueiion in tlie cost of equipnienfc 
and construction of cold storixge chambers that has 
recently taken place, and tlie certainty of still 
further cheapening down, should enable those 
planters who have a desire tor manufacturing teas 
resembling the Japan greens to turn them out 
with some chance of succeeding in the competition, 
though it must be remembered that Japans are 
roasted by direct heat, not baked as ours are, 
and tiiough we have been found fault with for re- 
commending a return to something approaching the 
old-fashioned firing, in vogue before introduction of 
the sirocco, we still hold to the idea that our 
engineers could, if they devoted attention to the 
subject, devise an apparatus for roasting, in wliicli 
economy in fuel with retention of the aromatic 
properties in the leaf could be combined. On 
many estates this promises to be a season of ex- 
periments, but we earnestly trust that these will 
be limited to dealing with small quantities, as, 
though we have been assured that unfermeiited 
tea (as it is called) is slated to have been sucess- 
fuUy manufactured in both hill and low country 
in Ceylon- an as-sertion, however, since rather 
discounted by Mr Gait— it woulil be most unwi.se 
to plump for a thoroughly radical change in deal- 
ing with the whole crcip, there being four instance.s 
of the disastrous efle.cts of so doing between 1862, 
the era of the sand tables, and 1880, when the 
sirocco first commenceil to replace xht-pncca dUolp.s. 
We entered fully inio tiie efFects of keepin<; rolled 
leaf in a at.ite of suspended animation (if that term 
is permissible) a year n<;o, pointing out that the 
cooling down of rolled leaf permitted the evapora- 
tion of tannin, while, thoutrli teas so treated were 
lacking in strength to a vei y inliiiit( sinial degree, 
the flavor was improved, and now that the (dijcct 
is to force Indian tea into consumption on its own 
merits alone, the " retention" of tannin, hitherto 
needed for malting weak China, is no longer 
requisite. Reliable information iniblished last year 
froni our Consuls in BuNSiia fclmwed tiiat large 
as tlie importations of Indian and Ceylon teas 
were, they were quite unfitted alone for the 
Samovar, and though we know nothing definite as 
to the importation overland of Chinas into Russia 
we may infer (hut our .;oa8 are nicrely used for 
blending with the weakei (^"ongous threuuh the 
large and increasing quantities taken wjuldlead 
to tlie idea (hat our weakei t'jas were graflually 
coming into vogue for ihestewing process, unnii.xed. 
Hflgcenbaok, who has so recently made the great 
haul of Ul {raino horses in S.l*). Russia, stales 
that, in one of the inns the lirnt watijr poured 
on the tea in the aavuivar after stewing for 
aa hour, wa« drawn ofT, decanted into jars 
and sefc aside to fortify the second brew as it 
weakened. Such a proceeding, from what other 
travellers tell us, would produce a liquor suited 
to the Russian taste, and account for the grow- 
ing demand, but our opinion is that this demand 
would greatly expand did we supply a tea that 
could be used without resort to the practice, and 
such a one can be turned out by cooling down 
and slow firing. Both operations, moreover, would 
give whiter tips which Continental dealers desire ; 
in fact, we should, aim at turning out a more 
delicate liquoring leaf, though at the expense of 
strength. That such will entail considerable 
alteration in the present methods of manufacture 
must be admitted, but in this, as in all other 
cases, the public are dictators, and obey them we 
must. Toning down the raspiness of our teas should 
occupy first attention, which, as we have shown, 
can easily be accomplished by evaporating the 
surplus tannin in the cooling chamber?. Adop- 
tion of the " basket " firing, as practised in 
Japan and China, presents, we admit, some diffi- 
culty in the way of lighting upon some fuel as 
inodorous as charcoal ; but, as we have now a 
qualified chemist at command, there ought not 
to be much difficulty in that, and until he has 
settled the point, one must adhere to the Sirocco 
for drying off : surely our engineers can hit upon 
a furnace that would radiate heat, at the same 
time securing the leaf from contamination by the. 
fumes. The cooling chamber, according to our 
experiments, should be kept at a temperature of- 
40' as, if allowed to go below this, the tannin, 
volatile as it is, would cease to evaporate, while 
above 40° tliQre would be the risk of fernientatiria 
setting in. The method of obtaining the gray- 
color and white tips is by alternately cooling and 
heating. That the manufacture of what the 
American market demands will entail the. out- 
lay of money goes without saying, and although 
the Canadian and Northern States dealers paaa 
eulogiums on Ceylon " green.s," it seems to us 
that the price they are willing to give hardly 
justifies the entertainment of their recommenda- 
tions. [?] Should we succeed in ousting Japan and 
China, securing the 70 million pounds, the uphill 
fight to do s» will be a long and costly one, hardly 
justifying our entering on it at even the top price 
tor the best grei?ns, wz., 42 cents per lb. While 
urging the manufacture of green or gray tea, on 
the experimental scale, we must not ignore that 
we are still really overproducing, and that our 30 
million pounds of reduction of output has dwindled 
to something less than a third of that ; whether 
from ^!i^loynlly or miscalculation, it is needles to 
enquire. VVe still earnestly advise further 
restriction in output, for though the latest 
news from the districts is a doleful record of 
ripped flushes from hail, these early violent 
north-westers are invariably followed by favor- 
able meteorological conditions, and if abstinence is 
not ob.servcd, we may again be tempted to glut the 
markets, jusL as we were bounded on to do by 
the London riggers in 1900. We can always 
increase o\ir outturn in normal seasons after the 
rains have set in, and ,as the stocks in London 
warehouses are some 1,5 millions in excess of last 
year, and in Mell ourne half a million with an 
unknown quantity locked up on (he Continent, 
it would be as well if some arrangrments could be 
come to by which output could be restricted to 
140 millions at the outside. Unfortunately we 
