TEA.
This plant is a native of China, and it is only in the Celestial Empire that tea is cultivated to any great extent. Why, then, is it neglected on all other points of the globe situated in the same latitude? Doubtless, because the soil of China is superior for its culture to that of any other country.
The shrub that produces tea is cultivated between the twenty-third and thirty-third degrees of latitude; it thrives on the mountainous parts, on the slope of the hills, and that which grows on high ground is far superior to that gathered in the valleys. It is the same with this plant as with the vine in France and in Europe; it grows on flat land, and succeeds wonderfully on plains exposed to the sun’s rays.
The Chinese export teas of the first quality in much greater proportion than those of an inferior kind. In England there is a larger consumption than in any other country in the world.
In China, the tea that forms the habitual beverage of the people is a very inferior species of the Boo tea.
The provinces of Kiang-Nang, Kiang-Si, and Che-Kiang, furnish green tea to Russia, the United States, Calcutta, and various European countries; the province of Fo-Kien furnishes black tea to England, with the exception of a third of the boo tea, or bohee, which is exported from a district called Wo-Ping, lying to the north-west of the province of Canton.
It is in Fo-Kien that the cultivation of this precious shrub is held in the highest estimation. In this province it is deprived of a large number of its buds at the beginning of the spring. Of these are made the tea Pé-ko, the most renowned of all kinds. Congo tea serves to perfume part of these buds, and to impart to them a more agreeable flavour.
A first gathering of full-grown leaves takes place at the commencement of May, a second towards the middle of June, and a third and last at the end of the summer. This produces a tea inferior to the preceding kinds in point of quality and perfume.
The inhabitants of Fo-Kien cultivate tea in inclosures; and at the time of harvest sell the leaves to a class of persons who undertake their preparation, which consists in drying the leaves in houses, first by the simple contact with the air, afterwards in heated warehouses. When the preparation is terminated, the merchants come and make choice of the best qualities; then the desiccation of the tea is finished, and it is forwarded in packets, each bearing its proper designation.
As soon as the leaves have been gathered and selected, they are plunged in boiling water, where they remain about thirty seconds; they are then quickly withdrawn, strained, and thrown on iron plates, large and flat, placed above a furnace: the workmen’s hands can hardly endure the heat of these plates. They continually stir the leaves till they are sufficiently heated, after which they take them off, and spread them on large tables covered with mats. Other workmen then busy themselves with rolling them with the palm of the hand, while others cool them as quickly as possible by agitating the air with large fans. This operation must be continued until the leaves have completely cooled under the hand of the person who rolls them, for it is by being quickly cooled that the leaves remain longer curled. Thanks to the operation of rolling them, which is repeated two or three times, the leaves are deprived of their humidity, and the unwholesome bitter juice they contain. For teas of the first quality, each leaf must be rolled separately; but for more common kinds, several may be rolled at once. Tea, thus prepared, is dried, and put into boxes or cases free from moisture. The Chinese then aromatise it with various odoriferous plants, such as the flowers of the olea fragrans, and those of the camellia sesangua, shrubs of the same family as tea; or those of the scented tea-roses and orange-flowers.
This tea is destined for mandarins of the higher class, for the Calaos or ministers, and even for the celestial sovereign of the Centre of the Earth—or, in more simple words, the Emperor.
There are, in reality, but two kinds of tea, black tea and green tea; each kind is again subdivided into many varieties. The best black tea is the scented Liang-sing, worth in China about 10s. the pound.
The first of all green teas, destined for the great, and bearing an exquisite perfume, is that called Koo-lang-fyn-i. M. de Rienzi assures us that he has seen it sold in Canton for 32s. a pound.
New tea is considered by the Chinese as a powerful narcotic, therefore it is never sold until a year after the gathering.
The Europeans and Americans, who trade with tea in Canton, have recourse for their transactions with the Chinese to native tasters, or others, who know how to distinguish the different qualities at the sight of the colour produced by the infusion.
It is generally believed in Europe that tea exported thence has already served as a beverage to the Chinese. It is a mistake, propagated by persons who, having seen the tea put in water, have doubtless not well understood the reason of this operation. We must, however, admit that the merchants sometimes mix tea already used with tea of good quality; a fraud only to be discovered by the weakness of the infusion.
Tea seems likely to spread over the world. Our books, wines, brandy, cutlery, and jewellery, go round the globe, and are sought after by the civilized nations as well as the wild tribes. On the other hand, we receive our food, together with spices, from Malaisia; we sweeten them with sugar from the Antilles or Siam; we enjoy the flavour and perfume of coffee from Arabia and the Island of Bourbon; we intoxicate ourselves with tobacco from Manilla, Virginia, of Havannah, and Latakia; and we imbibe with luxurious pleasure the tea of those Chinese we are continually laughing at, but of whom we have borrowed so many useful things. We must, however, acknowledge that France is the country the least advanced in this respect, and the use of this beneficent drink is far from being as common as it ought to be. We do not fear to say that when once acquainted with the method of preparing it better than is generally done, this inferiority in the consumption will disappear. Some witty delineator of manners and customs has pourtrayed upon the joyous scene of a comic theatre of Paris, that famous tea party of Mother Gibou and Madame Pochet, one of those ridiculous Parisian and really home-scenes, much more common than is generally supposed, and although the picture is over-charged, it is nevertheless true.
It is not necessary here to give our private recipe to prepare an infusion in which that excellent lady, Madame Pochet, thought herself so perfect; suffice to say, that to make it agreeable to her guests she added salt, pepper, some cinnamon, the yolk of an egg, and a tiny drop of vinegar. We would beg the reader not to fail in attending these charming and daily meetings, at which each housewife presides, and we would say to strangers, let us seriously study an English tea.
“The use of tea in China dates from the greatest antiquity. The Japanese attribute to it a miraculous origin. They say that Darma, a very pious prince, and son of an Indian king, landed in China in the year 510 of the Christian era, and wishing to edify mankind by his example, imposed upon himself privations of all kinds. It happened, however, that after several years of great fatigue, in spite of his care he fell asleep; and believing he had violated his oath, and in order to fulfil it faithfully for the future, he cut off his eyelids and threw them on the ground. The next day, returning towards the same spot, he found them changed into a little shrub, hitherto unknown to the earth. He eat some of the leaves, which made him merry and restored his former strength. Having recommended the same food to his disciples, the reputation of tea soon spread, and has continued in use since that time.”—Desfontaines. See, also, Kœmpfer, in his “Aménités Exotiques.”
We are ignorant of the period and motives which persuaded the Chinese to use tea in infusion. Perhaps it was to render water more agreeable, which is said to be brackish and of a bad taste in many parts of China. In 1641, Tulpius, a Dutch physician, was the first to mention this plant, in a dissertation he published. In 1657, Joncquet, a French physician, called it the divine plant, and compared it to ambrosia. In 1679, Cornelius Bentekoe, a Dutch physician, published a treatise, in which he declared himself a partisan of tea, and asserted that this beverage in no way could injure the stomach, even if drank to the extent of two hundred cups a day. Many of his countrymen went even beyond this: they made of it a universal panacea.
As at first the leaves of the tea plant were rare and but little known, many persons thought they had discovered in Europe what others fetched from such a distance. Thus Simon Pauli introduced the royal pimento (myria gale of Linn.), as the real tea of China. Others thought to have found the marvellous virtues of tea in plants growing in our own country, such as marjoram, veronica, myrtle, sage, agrimony, &c.; but it happily ended in granting the preference to the real tea of China and Japan.