r 
'I' II je: 
Vol- XL COLOMBO, OCTOBER isT, 1891. [No. 4 - 
MR, UAVIDSON OF BELFAST OA’ 
CEYLOX TEA. 
HE great siroojo manufacturer 
and advocate of low temper- 
ature combined with powerful 
downdraught of air in th® 
manufacture of tea has 
returned to Colombo and is 
about to leave the island^ 
after a visit to our principal tea districts, during 
hich he saw the leaders of the tea enterprise and 
zplained to them the principles of his low 
temperature method. This method, it must ever be 
remembered, requires ll^e existence in connection 
with a factory, of ample power to produce a j 
strong down-draught of air. Without this down- [ 
draught where low temperature has been adopted, , 
the result of which some have complained, 
of the tea being “stewed" is inevitable. ' 
Borne have talked of having adopted low temper- I 
ature, instancing 180°. Mr. Davidson refuses to 
regard a heat of 180° as low temperature. His 
figures are 150° for the furnaoo heat and 130° | 
for the evaporating tea, the leaf, as we indicated I 
in our previous article, being finished ofl in a 
separate drier. In an early number of the Indian | 
Planters' Gazette, Mr. Davidson's views, as reported j 
by an interviewer and corrected by Mr, Davidson ^ 
himself, will appear in a detailed and authenticated j 
form, and we shall not fail to submit the report i 
to our readers. I 
Meantime we may mention that Mr, Davidson 
has somewhat startled us by stating that one 
result of his visit to the Ceylon tea districts is, 
the conviction in his mind that all our teas 
may be classed for quality as “ high-grown.” He 
adduced the case of the Kalutara district, where 
the tea is generally planted amongst rocks up 
the sides of more or less steep hills. To our 
natural remark that the heat reflected from the 
i 
faces of the rocks ought, by increasing the tem- 
perature, to give the teas thus grown a more than 
usually low (which means hot; country character, 
bis answer was that the cooling down of the 
rocks during the night and of the temperature 
generally was, probably, in proportion to the ez. 
oessive beat daring the hours when the sun gave 
out bis heat as well as his light rays. Irt any 
case, as an experienced tea expert, his judgment 
is, as we have stated, that, on the whole, the 
Ceylon teas, from sea-level to 7,000 feet altitude, 
with degrees of difference of course, have all of 
them the properties attributed to high-grown teas. 
TAXXIX IX TEA. 
If our London correspondent has rightly under- 
stood what was remarked to him upon the above 
subject by Mr. John Hughes, the well-known 
agricultural chemist, (he ideas which many persons 
have entertained on the subject of an excess of 
tannin in teas must be somewhat modified. Of 
course we do not mean to say in this respect that 
a very large amount of tannin in tea contributes 
to its wholeeomenesB, but that it seems now to 
be contended that the higher the percentage of it 
that certain teas oontain, the higher will be the 
price that they will bring in the London market. 
Mr. Hugbes is reported to have said to our London 
correspondent that be felt satisfied from what bo 
had observed of the practice of London tea-tasters 
that the judgment of these latter gentlemen was 
almost invariably founded upon the relative pre- 
sence or absence of tannin in the teas submitted to 
them. It seems according to them that tannin 
is the source of alrength in tea, and that motives 
of economy lead the home public to purchase teas 
warranted to possess that strength in preference 
to those which are described as weak, solely because, 
according to Mr, Hughes’ judgment, they are 
deficient in tannin. 
Many persons will regard this view, which con- 
firms that of the Madras Government qninologist, 
Mr. Hooper, founded on analyses of Indian and Ceylon 
teas, compared with selling prices, as a novel 
one, aod one which if it can be sup- 
ported must materially modify the principles 
hitherto ruling in the selection of tea. With re- 
gard to this probability we shall look forward 
with some anxiety to the decision of the Com- 
mittee of our Planters’ Association with respect 
to the offer made by Mr. Hughes to prepare a 
set of analyses of different teas. That offer has 
for a long time been held in abeyance by 
our local body j it baa been actually supposed that 
the disinolmation to aoeept it and act upon it 
