Useful Knowledge: Volume 2. Vegetables / Or, a familiar account of the various productions of nature

by William Bingley

The lime is an eligible tree to form shady walks and clipped hedges: but its leaves fall very early in the autumn. In rich soils it attains a prodigious size; and instances have been mentioned of these trees having existed during more than six centuries.

174. TEA, both black and green, consists of the dried leaves of an evergreen shrub (Thea bohea and Thea viridis, of Linneus, Fig. 49), with indented and somewhat spear-shaped leaves and white flowers with six petals or more, which is much cultivated in China.

The tea shrub attains the height of five or six feet, and is much branched. The leaves, when full grown, are about 1½ inch long, narrow, tapering, and of dark glossy green colour, and firm texture. The flowers are not much unlike those of the white wild rose, but smaller; and they are succeeded by a fruit about the size of a sloe, which contains two or three seeds.

The tea-tree flourishes, with great luxuriance, in valleys, on the sloping sides of mountains, and on the banks of rivers, in a southern exposure, betwixt the thirtieth and forty-fifth degrees of north latitude. It is chiefly cultivated near Pekin, and around Canton, but it attains the greatest perfection in the mild and temperate climate of Nankin.

The collecting of the leaves is conducted with great care: they are picked singly, and, for the most part, at three different times of the year; about the end of February, the beginning of April, and the end of May. The drying and preparation of them, for use, are processes too long to admit of minute detail respecting them in this place. It may, however, be observed, that for these purposes buildings are erected, which contain from five to ten, and some of them even twenty, small furnaces, each having, at the top, a large iron pan. There is also a long table covered with mats, on which the leaves are laid, and rolled by persons who sit round it. The iron pan being heated by a fire in the furnace beneath, a few pounds of the leaves are put upon it, and frequently turned and shifted. They are then thrown upon the mats to be rolled betwixt the palms of the hands: after which they are cooled as speedily as possible. That the moisture of the leaves may be completely dissipated, and their twisted form be better preserved, the above process is repeated several times with the same leaves, but with less heat than at first. The tea, thus manufactured, is afterwards sorted, according to its kind or goodness. Some of the young and tender leaves are never rolled, but are merely immersed in hot water, and dried.

How long the use of tea has been known to the Chinese we are entirely ignorant; but we are informed that an infusion of the dried leaves of the tea shrub is now their common drink. They pour boiling water over them, and leave them to infuse, as we do in Europe; but they drink the tea thus made without either milk or sugar. The inhabitants of Japan reduce the leaves to a fine powder, which they dilute with water, until it acquires nearly the consistence of soup. The tea equipage is placed before the company, together with a box in which the powdered tea is contained: the cups are filled with warm water, and then as much of the powder is thrown into each cup as the point of a knife can contain, and it is stirred about until the liquor begins to foam, in which state it is presented to the company.

It was formerly imagined that black and green tea were the production of different species of shrubs; but the Chinese all assert, that both are produced from the same species, and that the sole difference which exists betwixt them arises from the seasons when the leaves are gathered, and the modes of curing them. The teas principally consumed in Europe are four kinds of black, and three of green.

Black Teas.

(a) Bohea, or Voo-yee, so called from the country in which it is produced, is sometimes collected at four gatherings. As the leaves are picked, they are put into flat baskets, which are placed on shelves or planks, in the air or sun, from morning till night; after which they are thrown, by small quantities at a time, into a flat cast-iron pan, which is made very hot. They are twice stirred quick with the hand: then taken out, again put into the baskets, and rubbed between men's hands to roll them. After this they undergo another roasting in larger quantities, over a slower fire: and are then sometimes put into baskets over a charcoal fire. When the tea is, at last, sufficiently dried, it is spread on a table; and the leaves that are too large, and those that are unrolled, yellow, broken, or otherwise defective, are picked out, and the remainder is laid aside to be packed.

The best bohea tea is a small blackish leaf, is dusty, smells somewhat like burnt hay, and has a rough and somewhat harsh taste. The average annual importation of bohea into this country, in the ten years from 1791 to 1800, was 3,310,135 pounds.