"Tea," writes one of the older Chinese authors, "soothes the spirit, softens the heart, dispels languor, restores from fatigue, stimulates the intellect, and arouses from indolence; it makes the body lighter and more brisk, and quickens the faculty of observation."
The tea plant first attracted the attention of Chinese naturalists in Wu-yi, or, as the English term it, the Bohea[167] district, which enjoys to this day a great reputation for the exquisite quality which grows on its hills.
At present the cultivation of the tea plant extends northward as far as Tang-tschao, in the province of Shantung, southward as far as Canton and Kuang-si, and westward as far as the province of Yun-nán. As, moreover, the tea plant likewise abounds in Japan, the Corea, and the Loo-Choo Islands, as also in Chusan, Tonquin, and Cochin China, we may assume that it flourishes over about 28° of latitude and
30° of longitude, within which it can be cultivated without being affected by severe alternations of temperature. That part of North China, however, which lies between 27° and 33° N., seems on the whole to furnish the finest sorts,[168] where the mean annual temperature ranges between 61°.7 and 68°, and in which fine weather with a rise of temperature follows upon a heavy rainfall; the latter being as necessary for the speedy and luxuriant growth of the leaves, as the former is for eliciting their fragrance and other valuable qualities.
To form an idea of the enormous amount of tea which is annually cultivated in China, it suffices to remark that, after deducting the immense quantity consumed, there are more than 70,000,000 lbs. exported annually.
It is not our intention to give a disquisition upon the cultivation and preparation of the tea, the drying (poey), roasting (tschóo), perfuming and colouring of the leaves, in short, the long tedious process to which this valuable article of commerce is subjected from its collection on the fertile green slopes of the bush-covered hills of Bohea, till its arrival at the port of shipment in a form suited for exportation. We prefer here to confine our attention to a consideration of those experiments which have recently been made in China with respect to tea cultivation.
There are of the tea plant an almost endless variety of
qualities, but only two species, viz. Thea viridis (green tea), and Thea Bohea,[169] and even these two have such few points of difference, that quite lately they were described by Fortune as one and the same species. Thus, too, it has been asserted in our own day that the green and black varieties of tea sold in Europe do not, as is universally supposed, belong to two different species of tea, but that the difference of colour, shape of leaf, flavour, &c., is exclusively due to varieties in the mode of preparing them for the market, and that the manufacturer is able to make from the leaves every description, black or green, which is required in commerce. Thus in the celebrated tea district of Ning-tschan, where in former days black tea was exclusively grown, there is now procured green tea from the same species of plant, apparently because its cultivation pays better, while the quality remains in its olden repute.
The black tea, which constitutes four-fifths of the entire export to England, is grown of a particularly fine quality in the district of Kien-ning-foo in the province of Fo-kien, and is known to commerce by a variety of names, chiefly derived from the localities in which it is grown, or those of their proprietors. On the other hand, the green sort selected for
exportation is chiefly met with on the slopes of the chain of hills between Che-kiang and Ngan-hwui. Besides those descriptions actually prepared on the spot where they grow, there are also an immense variety of teas manufactured in Canton from all sorts of black and green tea. The tea-growers of Canton are reputed to colour their green teas artificially, by sprinkling them with a mixture of Prussian blue and pulverized chalk, after which they subject them to a rolling motion for a considerable time in heated copper pans.[170]