The Cultivation and Manufacture of Tea

by Edward Money

The motive power, as designed by the inventor, is either manual, animal, or steam.

Mr. Kinmond showed me this machine, just after he had invented it, at the Assam Company’s Plantations in Assam, and I have since seen it working by manual and steam power. With the former it is quite useless, for by no arrangement can sufficient or regular force enough be applied. With the latter it does very well, and on a large garden which will render the outlay for the machine and engine justifiable (the former is, for such a simple machine, very expensive), it may probably eventually prove an economy.

Not having seen it under animal power, I can give no positive opinion as to how it would answer, but I see no reason why it should not do well. I believe wind or water power might, on suitable sites, be easily applied to it, and they would certainly be the cheapest of any.

Another rolling-machine was invented by a Mr. Gibbon, and a good deal used in Cachar. I have never seen it.

Kinmond’s is, I believe, the best rolling-machine yet invented (though it is fair to state I know no other except by report), but I do not believe in any Tea rolling-machine superseding entirely the necessity of hand-rolling.[42] A rolling-machine may be, and is, very useful to roll the leaves partly, that is, to break the cells, and bring the leaf into that soft mashy state that very little hand labour will finish it. No rolling-machine yet invented can, I think, do more than this, and it is, I think, doubtful if any will ever be invented that will do more. Machines do not give the nice final twist which is obtained by the hand. I was told lately that most of the gardens in Cachar that had machines had dropped them and gone back to hand-rolling. I cannot help thinking this is a mistake. They should use both, the hand-rolling for the final part alone. Very few rolling-men would then suffice, with the aid of the machine, to manufacture a large quantity of leaf.

I only know of one other Tea rolling-machine, which is Nelson’s. It does not profess to do more than prepare the green leaf for rolling, which, as stated above, is, I think, all that any machine will ever do. I have never seen it working, but it appears simple, being nothing more than a mangle. The leaf is placed in bags, and then compressed under rollers attached to a box, weighted with stones. The prospectus states, it will prepare 80 lbs. green leaf in fifteen minutes, and that one man can then finish as much of such prepared leaf in three minutes as would occupy him twelve minutes if the same had not been prepared. I see nothing unlikely in this. The machine, though inferior to Kinmond’s in its arrangement, ought to be cheap enough to bring it within the reach of all.[43]

I have already spoken of one of McMeekin’s inventions. His chest-of-drawers for firing Tea is, I think, superior to his batten table. It is now so well known, and in such general use, that I shall describe it very shortly. It is nothing more than a low chest-of-drawers, or trays fitted in a frame one above the other, the bottom of each tray being fine iron wire, so that the heat of the charcoal, in the masonry receptacle over which it is placed, ascends through all the drawers and thus dries or fires a large quantity of “roll” at the same time. By the old plan, a single wicker sieve was inserted inside a bamboo frame called a “dhole,” which was placed over a charcoal fire made in a hole in the ground. On the sieve the roll was placed, and all the heat, after passing through this one sieve, was wasted. Mr. McMeekin’s idea was to economise this heat by passing it through several drawers.

Most planters use these drawers, and there is no doubt in the space saved, and the economy of heat: it is a great step in advance over the old barbarous method, where not only was the heat wasted after passing through one sieve, but a great deal was lost through the basket work of the “dhole” itself.

Still I do not advocate four, still less five drawers one above the other. I think the steam ascending from the lower drawers must, more or less, injure the roll in the upper ones. I confine myself to two, and even then in the top tray leave a small circular space vacant by which the steam from the lower drawer can escape. I utilize the heat that escapes, partially, by placing “dhallas” in tiers above, with roll in them. These are supported by iron rods let into the wall, and are useful not only for partly drying the roll, but also for withering leaf when there is no sun.