NATURAL HISTORY OF THE TEA TREE.
The tea tree (Polyandria Monogynia) is a native of China, Japan, and Tonquin, it has never been found growing wild in any other country. Linnæus says, that there are two species of this plant, the Bohe´a, or black, and the Vir´idis, or green tea. The green has much longer leaves than the black, it is a more hardy plant; and, with very little protection, bears the severity of our winters. The tea is planted in China round borders of fields, without regard to the soil.
The tree attains the height of ten or twelve feet, and is an evergreen: the leaves, which are the only valuable part of it, are about an inch and a half long, and resemble those of sweet brier. The flowers are something like the wild white-rose; the seeds are round, and blackish, about the size of a large pea.
As tea is a most important article of commerce to the Chinese, they bestow the greatest possible care upon its cultivation.
The people of China and Japan take as much pains to procure tea, of excellent quality, as the Europeans do to obtain good wine; they generally keep it a year before they use it.
Tea is propagated by seeds, which are put into holes about five inches deep, at regular distances from each other; from six to twelve being sown together, as it is supposed that only a small number grow.
When the tree is three years old, the leaves are fit to be gathered; and the men who collect them wear gloves that the flavour may not be injured. They do not pull them by handfuls, but pick them off one by one, taking great care not to break the leaves, and although this appears to be a very tedious process, each person gathers from ten to fifteen pounds a day. The tea leaves are collected at three different seasons: what are first procured, while the leaves are very young, are called imperial tea, being generally reserved for the court and people of rank, because they are considered as of the finest quality. The last gathering, when the leaves have attained their full growth, is the coarsest tea of all, and is used by the common people.
The leaves are first exposed to the steam of boiling water, after which they are put on plates of copper, and held over a fire until they become dry and shriveled; they are then taken off the plates with a shovel, and spread upon mats, some of the labourers taking a small quantity at a time in their hands, which they roll in one direction, while others are continually employed in stirring those on the mats, in order that they may cool the sooner, and retain their shriveled appearance. The adulteration of tea[38] has been practised in this country to an enormous extent.
[38] Adulteration of Food and Culinary Poisons, and Methods of Detecting them.—See article Tea.—1821.