Jan.  I,  1897.] 
THE  TROPICA! 
AGRICULTURIST. 
483 
regions,  the  Chinese  teas  still  being  used  for 
“ inixing”  and  “ blending.”  This  is  still  a large 
business,  at  which  many  experts  are  employed. 
The  successful  ” tea-taster”  is  a person  who  com- 
mands a good  salary  and  a good  position.  He  has 
to  be  very  careful  to  keep  his  palate  clear  of  con- 
tact with  certain  other  things  ; taste  and  smell  must 
go  in  nice  association  in  his  case.  For  hours 
before  he  begins  his  task  of  tea-tasting  he  must 
not  try  his  palate  with  certain  wines  or  with  any- 
thing strong,  but  must  keep  it  clean  and  ready  for 
the  flavour  of  the  tea.  He  does  not  drink  tea  in 
the  proper  sense  ; generally  speaking,  he  mei'ely 
sips,  gets  the  flavour,  aud  then  empties  his  mouth, 
and  after  the  lapse  of  a certain  number  of  minutes 
tries  the  next  sample,  or  the  next  idending.  He 
is  always  trying  this  mixture,  that  blend,  so  as  to 
provide  the  best  flavour  for  his  patrons  or  constituents. 
The  tea  plant,  which  is  a very  pretty'  evergreen 
shrub,  grows  to  between  five  and  eight  feet  high, 
and  has  a deep-green,  smallish  leaf.  It  needs,  at 
certain  seasons,  a great  deal  of  care  and  atten- 
tion, trimming,  dressing,  etc.  It  .is  not  a long- 
lived  shrub.  Niue  years  is  about  the  long- 
est it  continues  to  yield  the  tender  leaves 
fit  for  tea,  as  then  they  get  hard,  dry,  aud  sapless. 
As  the  first  crop  i.s  not  yielded  till  the  third  year  of 
the  shrub's  life,  it  is  plain  that  on  a tea  plantation, 
after  a certain  period  from  the  start,  there  must  be 
a constant  rooting  out  and  replanting  to  keep  up  the 
continuous  supply  of  tender,  fresh  green  leaves, 
which  are  best  the  first  year  of  yielding.  When  the 
leaf  has  reached  a certain  definite  stnge,  then  comes 
the  very  imporiant  work  of  picking.  The  shrubs  are, 
as  far  as  possible,  planted  in  lines ; and,  just  as  in 
hoppicking  in  England  , a certain  length  of  so  many 
lines  is  given  to  a picker  or  group  of  pickers.  The 
tender  young  leaf  is  that  which  is  picked.  The  first 
yeary  crop  is  picked  about  the  end  of  April, 
the  second  about  the  end  of  May,  and  the  third 
about  the  end  of  .Tune.  Archdeacon  Gray,  in 
his  great  wo  k on  China — where  he  lived  and  worked 
for  a lifetime — tells  us  that  a clever  labourer  can 
pick  from  ten  to  thirteen  pounds  a day.  Hut  it  should 
be  remembered  that  the  strict  plantation  rule  is  that 
he  must  pick  only  the  young  leaves,  and  never  pick 
more  than  one  from  the  branch  at  a time.  So  the 
work  of  picking  is  very  monotonous  and  trying,  as 
there  is  a considerable  amount  of  stooping  in 
dealing  with  the  lower  branches.  The  leaves  of  the 
first  gathering  of  the  season  is  considered  to  be  the 
more  delicate,  and  goes  to  make  the  finer  teas  mainly. 
The  teas  having  thus  been  gathered  and  sorted, 
which  means  the  removal  from  the  finer  of  any 
large  and  rougher  leaf,  what  is  called  the  “drying  ” 
or  facing  process  begins.  This  is  necessary  to  pre- 
serve the  tea  ; so  as  to  enable  it  to  travel  and  not 
lose  its  fragrance.  In  great  measure,  the  different 
teas,  black,  green, | souchong,  pekoe,  Ac.,  are  pro- 
duced by  the  variations  of  the  process  they  are 
submitted  to  at  this  stage.  It  is  often  said  that 
really  to  enjoy  tea  it  must  be  drunk  in  China,  or 
India,  or  in  Cejdon,  before  it  has  been  faced  aud 
packed,  and  gone  long  journeys  or  voyages  over  sea 
and  land  All  teas,  however,  are  and  must  be,  in 
greater  or  lesser  degree,  carefully  dried  either  by 
exposure  to  the  sun  or  by  expouser  to  charcoal  heat  ; 
and  some  of  the  more  highly- coloured  teas  ere  in 
different  degrees  treated  with  p.wrtercd  gypsum  or 
turmeric,  and  s- ‘me, again,  where  a certain  tint,  ;s  wmted, 
are  actually  treatc,.!  to  a ru  bing  w,th  t^rucsi.an  blue. 
Tliorc  is  stili  a duty  ‘-n  tea  wbicit  adds  a few 
pence  to  the  price  of  ever-  pound  ; and  there  is  a 
section  of  financial  refoimers  -who  go  strougiy  for 
what  they  call"  a free  breakfast-table,”  and  demand 
that  tills  duty  should  be  altogeth'cr  repealed,  since 
tea  has  become  a “ necessary  of  life,”  which,  at  all 
events,  hard  workers  will  admit  it  to  be,  from  its 
refreshing,  stimulating  qualities. 
COFFK.E. 
Coffee  in  many  minds,  contests  the  high 
place  with  tea.  If  it  does  not  have  the  deli- 
cacy of  fragrance  found,  at  all  events,  in  the  finer 
teas,  it  is  refreshing,  stimulating,  and,  especially 
after  meals,  very  salutary,  Ceylon  produced  good 
coffee  befoz-e  it  was  famous  for  tea  ; but  coffee  ori- 
ginally came  from  certain  parts  of  Arabia,  where 
it  is  native.  Now  it  is  grown,  aud  grown  to  profit, 
in  several  tropical  countries.  The  finest  cc-ffee  is  still 
the  Mocha,  which  comes  to  us  from  Yemen,  in 
Arabia  ; but  Java,  the  AVest  Indies,  Rrazil,  and 
stretches  of  Ceutral  America  produce  the  greater 
quantity  consumed.  The  coffee  plant,  left  to  itself, 
in  favourable  circumstances,  would  grow  to  a small 
tree  some  seventeen  or  eighteen  feet  high  ; but 
under  culture  the  aim  is  to  keep  it  low — a squat 
shrub — to  save  trouble  and  time  in  climbing  up  to 
pick  the  fruit;  and  for  this  reason  it  is  seldom 
allowed  to  grow  higher  than  eight  or  nine  feet. 
The  plant  has  longish  leaves,  placed  exactly  opposite 
each  other  on  the  stalk,  and  is  not  inelegant.  Eight 
above  the  point  where  the  pairs  of  leaves  join  the 
stem,  the  berries  grow  in  clusters.  Each  of  these 
contains  two  coffee  beans,  which  separate  from 
each  other  when  freed  from  the  outside  skin. 
The  gathering  and  drying  of  these,  too,  as  in 
the  case  of  tea,  demand  skill,  care,  and  exact  know- 
ledge of  the  progress  of  the  fruit,  which  cannot  all  be 
gathered  at  one  time  but  the  bushes  have  to  be  gone 
over  again  and  again. 
One  of  the  most  import.ant  processes  in  preparing 
the  coffee  is  the  roasting,  preparatory  to  the  grinding. 
This  being  underdone,  the  coffee  does  not  grind  clean  ; 
being  overdone  in  the  slightest,  the  fragrance  is  largely 
lost.  On  ths  Continent  it  is  a common  sight,  in  the 
morning  more  especially,  to  see  the  servants  come 
out  into  the  courtyards  with  a little  circular,  long- 
drum-lookiug  machine  over  a box  with  heating 
apparatus.  This  they  carefully  turn,  shaking  the 
coffee  beans  about  in  it ; aud  they  say  their  care  and 
expertuess  in  this  process  just  before  the  grinding 
is  what  gives  the  fine  fragrance  to  Continental  coffee. 
The  practice  of  hotels  and  families  roasting  their  own 
coffee  in  this  style  has  not  in  the  same  way  become 
common  in  Englaird,  but  great  improvements  have 
recently  been  made  in  the  larger  machinery  employed 
in  the  big  establishments  in  England,  and  the 
fragrance  of  the  coffee  much  improved  on  what  it 
used  to  be — at  which  all  those  who  do  not  roast  their 
own  coffee  have  surely  the  best  reasons  to  be  pleased. 
— A.  H.  Japp. — Foils  at  Home, 
TEA  IN  NATAL. 
As  the  tea  industry  is  making  such  great  strides 
ill  India  and  Ceylon,  it  will  prove  interesting  to 
look  abroad  and  learn  what  is  being  done  in  other 
lands.  This  journal,  in  its  issue  of  the  3Ist  October 
last,  referred,  in  a note,  to  “ Tea  in  Natal.”  Some 
samples  of  tea  manufactured  on  the  Natal  estates, 
and  which  were  entered  for  competition  at  the  Pieter- 
maritzburg Plxhibitiou,  were  sent  to  London  for  ad- 
j udication.  They  have  been  reported  on  as  superior 
in  quality  and  value  to  those  hithei’to  seen  from 
Natal,  as  they  resembled  Indian  tea  of  a good  me- 
dium grade.  Unfortunately  they  lacked  the  dis- 
tinctive strength  aud  flavour — the  essential  requisites 
in  desirable  teas.  They  came  from  est.ates  situated 
close  to  the  sea  coast,  at  elevations  ranging  irom 
100  to  50'^  feet  above  sea  level,  with  an  amiual  rain- 
fall of  some  48  inches  at  the  lower  and  some  40 
inches  at  the  higher  level.  It,  is  not  surprising  ' hat, 
con.sidering  the  eituaiiou  of  those  e.-tates.  a more 
favourable  repo  t '-v.is  not  foi t'ticorning.  The  rider 
is  added  th-.i  tiiese  teas  ‘ Oald  not  be  exported  with 
profit.  Natal  and  Ceylon  both  stu'tod  tea  growing 
in  earnest,  and  on  a i.nge  scale,  in  1880,  although 
a small  b ginning  was  made  in  the  former  place  in 
1876.  The  progress  made  by  the  latter  in  compari- 
son with  the  former  is  remarkable.  In  Natal,  how- 
ever, there  are  barely  3,000  acres  of  land  under 
tea  cultivation  in  the  entire  colony,  and  the 
number  of  large  tea  gardens  is  five.  It  is  only 
since  1891  that  tea  cultivation  may  really  be 
said  to  have  made  any  perceptible  progress  in 
this  part  of  the  world.  The  tea  district  lies  within 
six  miles  of  a place  called  Stauger,  amid  beautiful 
