October i, i^gi.] 
" SIKOCCO DAVIDSON" AND HIS NEW- 
EST IDEAS AND INVENTIONS IN TEA 
MANUFACTURE. 
PThe receipt of an early copy of the Indian Tea 
Planters'' Gazette enableo us now to quote the lull 
and detttileii ac ount, which received Mr. David- 
son's imprimatur, ot his system of manufacturing 
tea at a low temperature by means of a power- 
ful down draught bo as to preserve the volatile 
oil on which flavour depends, and to impart what 
is said to be so much needed, — keeping qualiliei. 
Our planting readers will see that our ow i article in 
which we gave the results of our interview 
with Mr. Davidson embodied all that was es- 
sential in the improved process, as Mr. Davidson 
indeed cordially conceded. Mr. Davidson's verdict 
that all the Ceylon teiiS have the quality ot high 
grown means that they are distinguished by delicate 
fliVuur. The more important, therefore, is it that 
we should omit no effort to preserve a quality, 
without which, Mr. Davidson's experience shows 
oar product cannot make headway in the 
Continental and American markets. In the por- 
trait which accompanies the notice of the distia- 
guiehed planter and machinist, justice ia done to 
his fine aquil ine features and intellectual head. 
It 13 a noteworthy oiroumstanoe thst Mr. 
Jackson, whose rollers are the most popular in the 
world, and Mr. Davidson, whose driers are equally, 
popular, should both be of Scotch origin. The 
difference is that Mr. Jackson ia a pucka Saotchnaan 
(to use the Hmdustani word which occurs in the 
article), hailing from "Aberdeen awa'," while 
Mr. Davidson is acutcha Scotsman, having been, 
born in Ireland. But he can claim, like another 
man so born, that it was ' because he happened 
to ba there at the time," He is in truth a 
member of the Scotch colony in the north 
of the emerald ielo who by their intelligent enter- 
prise, and steady indus ry have proved what a 
different country Ireland might be, if she were 
relieved from the incubi ot eooiesiaetical thraldom 
leading to ignorance, on the one hand, and un- 
scrupulous agitators on the other. To us it was 
interesting and amusing to listen to able scientific 
diEquisitions in language rendered piquant by the 
delicate combination in it of a Scotch foundation 
accent with refined Irish brogue. It will be the 
pleasing duty now, we cannot doubt, of the Indian 
Planters' Gazette to include in its portrait gallery 
and series of memoirs as good a likeness and as ap- 
preciative a notice of the other greater benefactor of 
tea planters and manutacturers, Mr. Jijckson, as have 
been given of Mr. Davidson. For Mr, Jackson it 
is claimed that; his improved driers, specially the 
Britannia, if rightly worked, will secure all the 
improvement in quality which Mr, Davidson's 
prooeBaes are calculated to effect. 
MK. S. C. DAVIDSON. 
(From the Indian Tea Planters' Gazette.) 
Most ot our tea planting friends are doubtless 
aware of the fact that Mr. S. C. Davidsun, the clevt-r 
iiiveutor and mauufiicturer of the i.ow thoroughly 
Well kuowu Sirucco Tf a Dryers, has been on n visit 
to tlie ludia i Tea Diatrict since last November, and 
as wo oousidered it only right that the portrait of 
a geiitleman to whom the tcv industry owes so much 
Bhoulil be produced in the columus ot the vhiDters' 
ouly j mrnal, we ttok the opportunity of calling np .n 
Mr. Divitlsou wheu ha was passing through Ualoiitta 
ou hi:! way homo aud j'lst liufore Ii-aviiig aud he 
very good naluredly aoouded to our request, went to 
Messrs, Bourne and Shepherd's and faced th« camera 
80 
with the Kati^la( t iry result which wo pr^nl on the 
opijoaite pnge. W<; farther h'ld the pUasuro, in inter- 
viewing Mr. Davidsou, of gat.heriug the folio eiag 
interesting particulars of his career :— Besides being 
an inventor of luaiiufaoturiug inacli'nery he is also 
a tea p'anter of long experieuce, having begun hi'^ 
career aa a planter on his own estate in Oachar 
iu 18G4 when only seventeen, aud although 
he retired from active manigement of his tea 
property some fourteen years ago, with the object 
of starting a manufacturing business at home for the 
several niachiue.s which he had even then invented and 
patented in connection with tea manufacture, yet he 
still continued to direct the management of hi^ con- 
cern out here, and kept himself thorjugbly iu touch 
with all the progressive improvements an i details of 
tda estate work in general and mauufacture in parti- 
cular, as he sensibly considers ihit «n inventor and 
manufacturer of machinery for any special industry 
must, to keep abreast of the times, have the growing 
requirements of that industry always perfectly clear 
to his mind ; and he also bo ds that to excel in the 
manufactui e of any special article a knowledge of what 
both purchaser aud consumer look for iu that artiole 
is equally necessary — hence with this view and 
wbil) cirry:ng on his machinery bu-iness, he opened 
up what has now developed into a large business in 
Tea in the United King'lom, aud hid branch establish- 
ments for the eame in Paris, Berlin, Munich and St, 
Petersburgh, aud on a more extensive scale in New 
York, He found however, that the public taste in 
tliese places was strongly wedded toOuini and Japan 
teas, aud that the oul dvatiou of a ta-fte for teas of 
Indian and Ceylon growth was a matter of fiuch 
slow and gi'ai?ual development, that the sales 
were as a rule, insufficient to support a busi- 
ness exclusively devoled to these teas, so hat year 
he re'uclantly decided to discontinue these branches. 
He however, feels sure iliat the experience gained by 
him through th s foreign trade anJ ih-3 investigations 
which it became necessary to mak ) to aicertain the 
special peculiarities of the public taste in tea ot such 
different nationalities, gave him more information as 
to the true valun of flavour, considered altogether 
apart from the matter ot strength, than if he had 
conflntd his operations exclusively to the United King- 
dom, and as a broad rule he ascertained that it is 
flavour and not strength that Continental and Amer- 
ican tea drinkers look for aud place most value upon. 
Accordingly about to years ago he began a series of 
preliminary experiments with some of the very finest 
flavored teas that he could procure ot China and 
Darjeeling growth, to ascertain it their beautiful flavor 
could be eubanoed by the application of any special 
degree of temperature iu the drying process; these 
ixperiments were carried out in his laboratory, but 
somewhat to bis surprise he found that instead of 
getting an euhHucement of flavour from thoactionof 
any hijih temperatures, the reverse was the oaie 
and that when the tea was raised above 130 deg. the 
very delicate flavour graduall y diminished ; until at 
160 deg. to 180 deg. it almost entirely disappeard bub 
so long as the tea was kept below 130 deg. it did not 
suffer iu tho least, though no improvement wai effected 
by the heat applied ; it was thus evident that the 
avouring mal;ter ot the leaf gradually became volatile 
when the temperature of the tea itself was raised to 
over 130 deg. and that what has got to be done in the 
manufacture of tea is to so dry it that these volatile 
couatiiuents may not be lost. If they are lost hy the 
employment of too high a temperature, he then found it 
necessary to go as far as 240 deg., at which temperature 
an artificial flivour known as "malty" is produced which 
to some extent compensates for the loss of the original 
pure tea fl'ivour, but the great objection to the malty 
flavour is its tendency to, what the trade calls, *' go 
off " in two or three mouths aud heuce the complaint 
which the home trade have of late years raised as to 
the non-keeping qualities of Indian teas. It thus be« 
carae perfectly evident to Mr. Davidson that in the 
first placj the fliVOur must be a matter of the develop- 
ment due to climate effects on the growing leaf and iti 
treatment in manufaoture prior to the drying process, 
