Feb. 2, 1903.] THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
549 
ponnd for general use, and a smaller arnonnt at 28. 6d. 
f . r her weekly "At Home" day. Bat how it has 
come »bont that mrnth after month the cnn rely 
npon having the snme quality of tea, and 
THK SAMK " EOBIjST" OR " f OFT " FLAVOUR, 
to cite the terms of ihe dealer's list, she kno>*^8 not, 
nor haa ehe any idea of the ekill nnd science which 
have oosted the roueh and leady methods of by gone 
days. The old-fashioned tea caddy. with its divibions 
for black and gieen tea, which were mixed at the 
discittion of the lady of the house, peems as far 
from the elnbomte machinery of pcieutific blending 
of tcday as the ta'low csndle fiom the electric light. 
To nnderstaud the present conditions of a trade of 
Bnch vast proportions and Imperial momenf, it is 
neceeeaiy to go back to the early sixties, when ttie 
experiment of tea-growing were lirst made iu India 
China was then supplying the world, or rati er, Fuch 
portions of it as consumed tea, and gmtlemen of long 
expeiience in the trade can tell one that about 1868 the 
general quality of this tea was at its best, thotigh 
1879 saw the " record " of bulb ever furnished by the 
Celestial Empire. Meantime, it was steadily deteriorat- 
ing, however, and India was becoming a more and 
inoie foimid ble rival. Ceylon came into the liatp, 
too, and by It'SG was fending in C.dOO.i 00 lb, and eveiy 
year has made mormons eti ides. It is interesting to 
note, thei efoie, the 
BELATIVE rKOPOETIO^S OF THE TEA 
now drunk in this country by the fi ures of lait year. 
Roundly, India furnished us with i48,(i00,0n0 lb, 
Ceylon with 91.000,000 b,and( hiuawith 10000,000. Ac- 
covdir g to Ihe latest available statistics, India has nearly 
E"'5.0li0 seres now niidf r tea cuUiiatioii, and Ceylon 
887,000. Tea is a growth that is most easily afiected 
by soil, heieht. the wetness or dryness of a season, 
and « score of other influences, and thp products of 
certain estates are known to be superior to thope of 
othere. With the varying conditions of such a wide 
area, and tea eood, bad, and indifferent available, 
how is it that it reaches the con umer po unvarying 
in the standard of quality and flav ur ? 
It is due entirely to the expert ability of the blender 
and when new methods were introduced about 1888, 
the transforming change bfgan. Previa us to that the 
grocer, indging approximately the amount he would 
required, ordered a few chests of China and Assam tea 
of varying degrees of pungency or mildness, and ac- 
cording to his own judgment mixed any two or three 
of them, and gave them labels and oesignations as 
he thought most likely to commend them. He did 
not possess the super-cnltivated p>'lato 
ESSENTIAL TO A TEA TASTFR; 
his ideas ot combinations were essentially primitive 
and restricted, and he quite failed to take into account 
that, say, the Orange fekoe from Darjeeling, which 
had bfen so good a feature cf "our st'ongly recom- 
mended" lest year, might this season be a totally 
different tea, on account of an abnormal season. 
Of course, his mixtures sometimes proved fuccess- 
fal, but there was always uncertainty, and the 
fastidious people who were wont to say. " they could 
not drink grocers' tea'' were in the habit of sending 
to one or other of the old fashioned London houses, 
which made a speciality of high priced and choice teas. 
The pioneers of the change concfived the bold idea 
of enpplying the grocers with ready b ended tea, 
and bold and enterpiising fiims pushed forward the 
scheme with rapid success. They secured the assist- 
ance of tasters able to detect the subtlest gradations 
of flavour, and able to judge to a nicety the exact 
degree to which a full, rough Assam, with its l->rge 
preoentage of theine, should be tempered with the 
softer growth of Ceylon's uplands, and the fragrant 
dash of some scented variety. Bv means of constant 
experiment they mastered the great secret, which is 
to produce a " negative" blend. 
IN A POPULAR TEA, 
at the present time there may be an> thing fr^m twelve 
|9 twenty di^erent kiu^s pf the leaf, each repreaeu^- 
ing some different qualification o( strength, delicacy, 
flavour, or aroma, i he importance of the water n ed 
is now recognised as it never was of yore, and differ- 
ent blends are prepaied for dis'ricts wh' re this can 
be broadly classed as hard or soft. In i he mixtures 
prepared for Scotland and Ireland, for instance, the 
combinations aie quite distinct. But between these 
clearly defined divergences there are endlene lesser 
ones and it is found on experience that a blend em- 
bodying numerous constituents is more likely to prove 
universally suitable and palatable than one into which 
fewer varieties enter. Moreover, iu the event of a 
failure iu any of the crops represented, it is easier to 
replace a small proportion of t,he whole, and to main- 
tain the level standard that the public now demands 
in what may be termed the "branded" teas of 
favoui ite firms. 
It is pleasant to be able to state, on the highest 
authority of the wholesale houses, that never haa 
better value been offered to the retail buyer 
than at the present time. The prices both of Indian 
and Ceylon teas have been steadily declining during 
the last twenty years, and adulteration haa thna 
been stamped out. So much gei uine, even if not 
high-class, tea is now available, that there haa 
ceased to be the incentive there once was to mix 
other items with it, so that though flavour ff the 
cheaper d script ions sold may not always appeal to 
a ciincal and fastidious tastes in tea, there ia no 
occasion to f' ar it may contain foreign substances. 
The average housekeeper, t> o, has learnt to make 
tea upon better principh s, and itrstead of extracting 
every grain of tannin it contains by lorg infusion, 
she usea more of the leaf and ponra it out after 
two or three minutes' "drawing," to the advantage 
ot the neivesand digestion of the consumer. This 
point ia illustrated to some extent by" the steady 
growth of the tea drunk per bead of the populatii n, 
which from the 4.91 lb of 181)5 had attained last 
year to 6.17 lb., and is beginning to approach 
Australia — the greatest lea-drinking country of the 
world in latio to its population — with its 7.80 lb.— 
Daily Telegraph. 
SEYCHELLES VANILLA. 
The Administrator of the Seychelles, in the course 
of his annual report on the trade for 1901, states that 
the falling off in the value of exports of coconuts, 
coconut oil and soap is attributable to neglect of 
existing plantations in favour of the cultivation of 
vanilla. Admirably suited as are the climate and soil 
of Mahe, Pr-aslin, La Digue, Silhouette, and many 
other islands for the cultivation of this valuable 
orchid, the abandonment, or even partial neglect, of 
coconut-plantations la much to be deplored. In view 
of the many uses to which coconu's can be put, the 
danger of over-production is slight ; bat in the case 
of vanilla, the danger of over-production is considera- 
ble. There ia capticieusness about the yield of vanilla, 
and even a greater capriciousnesa about its price, which 
renders it desirable that planters should have si me 
other products of economic value to rely on when the 
yield ia small or its selling-price nnremunerative. 
This conclusion seema to be justified by the following 
statement, ahowiiig the quantity of vanilla exported 
frrm Seychelles and ita declared value at the Customs 
from 1891 to 1901 :— 
Quantity in 
Declared Value, 
Kilos. 
Rs. 
1891 
4f',929 
373.190 
1892 
28,177 
394 478 
1893 
28 869 
346,428 
18P1 
24 444 
293.328 
1895 
4.5.=)3 
6",344 
1896 
31,227 
936.0<iO 
1897 
30.691 
920,7811 
1898 
2,5,177 
748.810 
1899 
41.835 
. . 1,338.720 
1900 
.. 17,569 
580.877 
1901 
♦ . 71,899 
.. 1,K8,7S>S 
