AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
341 
About China Tea 
As nearly all our lady readers have more or 
less to do with China Tea we think they will be 
interested in a brief description of the article. 
We say “ China Tea,” because there are now 
several kinds of plants used for making the bev¬ 
erage called “Tea.” Not less than thirty differ¬ 
ent tea plants are habitually used, more or less, in 
different parts of the world. Paraguay, and some 
other portions of South America, produce a tea 
plant called Mate, which is very largely used in 
those countries and somewhat exported. Paraguay 
alone sends abroad some six million pounds an¬ 
nually. The Chinese tea is, however, the great 
staple throughout most of the world. The Brit¬ 
ish, Dutch and Russians are the largest European 
tea-drinkers—the other nations drink a greater 
proportion of Coffee and Cocoa. In the United 
States the consumption of Tea and Coffee is 
more nearly equal, though the former prepon¬ 
derates. The people of Great Britain use nearly 
sixty millions of pounds annually. The total an¬ 
nual produce of the dried leaf in China alone is 
estimated at about two to two-and-a-half billion 
pounds (2,500,000,000 lbs.) And to this enor¬ 
mous amount must be added that grown in Japan, 
Java, Corea, and many other countries. The 
Dutch (Hollanders) get most of theirs from Java. 
It is estimated that Chinese Tea is at present 
consumed by six hundred millions of people, or 
nearly half of the human race ! 
Fig. 1—Common Tea-plant {Thea vindis). Shrub, 8 feet 
high ; leaf, inches long. 
Description of the Tea Plants. —Fig. 1 is an il¬ 
lustration of the Thea viridis , which is the most 
common tea plant, and the one from which the 
finer teas are obtained. The tree, or shrub, as 
here shown is full 8 feet high. The leaf is about 
2£ inches long and 1| inches wide. 
Fig 2 shows the Thea Bohea, or Bohea Tea 
plant, from which is obtained the inferior teas 
made about Canton. It grows to 5 or 6 feet in 
hight. The leaf is about inches long i inch 
wide. 
Fig. 3 shows the Mate or Paraguay Tea plant 
which grows much larger than the Chinese va¬ 
rieties. The tree here shown is some 15 feet 
high, and the leaf 5 inches long, and nearly 
3 inches wide. 
How the Tea plant is grown. —The plants are 
raised from seed, and when a year old are set out 
3 to 4 feet apart. They are cropped down for a 
year or two to make them grow bushy. The 
gathering of the leaves is begun the third or fourth 
year, and continued for five or six years, when the 
bushes are removed and new plants set out. The 
leaves are gathered in April, Maj' and June, but 
chiefly in May. The earliest young leaves give 
the highest flavored teas. The latest pickings are 
seldom sent abroad. 
Green and Black Teas—Curing —These, ac¬ 
cording to the recent reliable researches of M. 
Fortune, are produced from the same plant—their 
difference resulting wholly from the manner in 
which they are treated when drying. Mr. Fortune, 
Fig. 2—Bohea Tea-plant ( Thea bohea). Shrub, 5 feet 
high ; leaf H inches long. 
in his report to the French journals, says he saw 
the Chinese gather leaves from a single plant,di¬ 
vide them into two portions, and make one into 
black and the other into green tea, both of which 
were precisely like the samples of these two va¬ 
rieties sold in our market. 
To make the gieen, the leaves were roasted as 
soon as picked, rolled, and dried off quickly, the 
whole operation being simple and rapid. 
To make the black, the leaves were spread out 
in the air for sometime, and when wilted were 
tossed about until soft and tla -cid, after which 
they were roasted a few minutes, then rolled and 
exposed to the air for a few hours while moist. 
They were finally dried slowly over charcoal tires 
This process rendered them dark-colored. 
This may, perhaps, explain why black tea is less 
exciting to the nerves. All tea lias more or less 
of a volatile oil, which in a condensed form pro¬ 
duces giddiness, headache, and even paralysis. 
The slower drying of the black tea allows a 
greater proportion of this oil to escape. In Chi¬ 
na, tea is seldom used until a year or more old, 
and time is given for the volatile ingredients to 
escape. New tea is strongly intoxicating. Green 
tea is also more frequently adulterated with Prus¬ 
sian Blue, or Indigo. One or the other of these 
is mixed with plaster of Paris (Gypsum.) or white 
clay, to form a lighter blue powder which is 
sprinkled over and worked with the leaves while 
drying, to give them a lively green color. As 
this is carried on extensively, the drinkers of 
green tea stand a fair chance of also imbibing 
more or less Prussian Blue—though not enough, 
perhaps, to produce injury. Tea itself is poison¬ 
ous enough without this addition. From the 
mode of drying, it is probable that if black tea 
were not taken stronger than the green, it would 
have less naicotic effect. But when tea is taken 
for a stimulus, as it almost always is, the weaker 
it is in narcotic oil, the more of it will be taken. 
Tea drinkers, like the toper, must have enough 
to “ make the drunk come.” So that, on the 
whole, green tea is cheaper, for a smaller quanti¬ 
ty will produce the desired effect. 
Nourishment in Tea. —It was formerly supposed 
that the only nourishment in tea came from the 
added milk and sugar; but an examination of its 
chemical composition, and of its effects, show 
that there is more or less direct nourishment 
from the tea itself, and that taken into the sys¬ 
tem, it diminishes the natural evacuations, and 
thus lessens the demand for new food. In this 
latter view, or on the supposition that it lessens 
the natural waste of the body, tea may be useful 
to aged persons. To get the full benefit, howev¬ 
er, it is needful to abstain from it. free use while 
younger. Every consideration, we think, indi¬ 
cates that children and young persons should not 1 
habitually drink tea, (or coffee, which is very like 1 
tea in its narcotic principle as we shall show/ 
when describing it particularly.) 
The Chinese seldom make any additions to* 
their tea. Mr. Fortune says that in all his jour¬ 
neying through the tea districts, he only once 1 
met with sugar and a tea spoon. They consider 
tea nourishing of itself, and that such is the case 
is shown by its chemical composition. The 
dried leaves contain one-fifth to one-fourth their 
weight of gluten which is the chief muscle-form¬ 
ing element of wheat flour. 
Beans contain only one part in four, of this 
highly nutritious substance, so that for produc¬ 
ing muscles, (lean flesh,) a pound of tea leaves is 
equal to a pound of beans. But it is to be re¬ 
marked, that only a small portion of this gluten is 
dissolved out when tea is “drawn” in hot wa¬ 
ter. The better and more economical mode 
would be, to eat the leaves after the narcotic 
principles are extracted by steeping. This is done 
regularly in some countries, and the practice is 
to be recommended, where tea is largely used, 
especially by the poor. The tea infusion exhilar¬ 
ates, or intoxicates, and nourishes slightly, while 
the steeped leaves mainly nourish. 
Before advising any one to adopt cooked tea 
leaves as an article of diet, we would add, that, 
calling tea 50 cents per pound, one pound of 
gluten from tea leaves costs $2, to $2 50; while. 
Fig. 3—Paraguay Tea-plant (Ilex Paraguayensis), oi 
Paraguay holly. Shrub, 15 feet high ; leaf, nearly 
5 inches long. 
from beans at $1 75 per bushel (60 lbs.,) a pound 
of gluten costs 12 cents ; and from flour at $7 
per bbl. (196 lbs.,) a pound of gluten costs 30 tc 
35 cents. This calculation does not include the 
nutritious oil and starch, contained in flour and 
beans in very large proportions, but in very smal, 
amount in tea leaves. 
Of the Preparation of Tea for the table it is not 
necessary to say anything. The process is ton 
simple to require the application of scientific, 
rules. Every one of our lady readers would say, 
mentally at least, “ give me the good tea to start 
with, and I can get you up as good a cup of tea 
as anybody.” We admit it, and will wait until we 
come to a description of the coffee plant and its 
preparation, before offering any further practical 
suggestions. We will add here, however, that 
if the object in drinking tea is to get as 
much exhilaration as possible, every precaution 
should be taken to prevent any of its oil from es¬ 
caping with steam. Every one knows how weak 
and insipid tea is when made in an open vessel 
