Tea-plants are grown from seeds, and are made bushy by pinching off the leading shoots. They are planted in rows, each plant being three or four feet distant from the other, and the leaves are stripped in the fourth of fifth year of its growth, and are plucked until the tenth or twelfth, when the plant is grubbed up. May and June are the general months of picking, which is done mostly by women; but the time varies according to the district.

The young and early leaves give the finest and most delicate teas, but the flavour very much depends upon the drying and roasting; but still some soils and climates have a great deal to do with the taste, the finest tea in China growing between the 27th and 31st parallels of latitude.

The Trade names of teas imported from China to England are: Black - Congou, Souchong, Ning Yong and Oolong, Flowery and Orange Pekoe. The latter, and Caper, being artificially scented, are, therefore, carefully eschewed by cognoscenti. Green - Twankay,Hyson Skin, Hyson, Young Hyson, Imperial, and Gunpowder. Black tea has the rougher taste, and produces the darkest infusion. Green tea, however, has the greater effect upon the nerves, and if taken strong, acts as a narcotic, producing, with some people, tremblings and headaches, and on small animals even causing paralysis. It is, therefore, generally mixed with black in small proportion, say 1/4 lb. to 1/4 lb. black tea. There is also what is called brick tea, which is consumed in the North of China, Tartary, and Thibet, but which we never see in England. This choice tea is made from the stalks and refuse and decayed twigs, mixed with the serum of sheep and ox blood, which, when it is pressed into moulds, hardens it.

Thea Sinensis

The Russians are said to get the finest tea that comes out of China - called Caravan Tea - which is made into large bales, covered with lead. This goes to Russia entirely overland, and to this fact some attribute its superior and delicate flavour.

The tea trade of China is rapidly going from her, and she has but herself, and the shortsighted knavery of her growers and manufacturers, to thank for it. According to a Tea Circular,1 the following are the imports and deliveries of China tea from 1st to 30th June:

A truly fearful falling off. English people got tired of the flavourless stuff sent from China, and India and Ceylon having perfected the manufacture (which at first start of the industry of tea growing in those parts was not good), send us delicious tea, of a much higher market value than that of China.

Ceylon tea, especially, has enormously won the favour of the English tea-drinking community in a very few years, as the following short statistics, taken from a Tea Circular,1 will show, showing that not only had the quantity imported enormously increased, but so had the quality, as shown by the enhanced market value. One instance, although an exceptional one, will show what Ceylon can produce in the way of tea. On 13th January, 1890, was sold at the London Commercial Tea Sale Rooms, a consignment of tea from the Gallebodde Estate, Ceylon, which experts described as the finest tea ever grown. This unique tea was of the brightest gold colour, resembling grains of gold. Its sale excited the keenest competition, and it was eventually knocked down for £4 7s. per lb., but it was resold a few days afterwards to a wholesale firm at the enormous price of £5 1os. Per lb.

1 Messrs. William, James & Henry Thompson, 38, Mincing Lane, London.

"Much excitement prevailed yesterday in the London Commercial Tea Sale Rooms, Mincing Lane, on the offering of a small lot of Ceylon tea, from the Gart-more Estate. This tea is composed almost entirely of small 'golden tips,' which are the extreme ends of the small succulent shoots of the plant. Competition was of a very keen description, the tea being ultimately knocked down to the Mazawattee Ceylon Tea Company at the unprecedented price of £10 2s. 6d. per pound." - Standard, March nth, 1891.

1 Messrs. Gow. Wilson & Stanton,

Another circular of the same firm of tea brokers gives a list of 132 tea gardens in Ceylon.1

Indian tea is fast helping to supersede China tea, and another Tea Circular2 points out that, "Towards the 190 million lbs. probably required for home use during the coming year, India and Ceylon together will contribute fully 150 millions." It also gives the following:

"London Statistics for Year ending 31St May."

1 In September, 1890, a small parcel of Flowering Pekoe fetched, at public sale, 36s. per lb., and this price has been largely exceeded on former occasions.

"A parcel of tea from the Oriental Bank Estates Company's Havilland Estate in Ceylon was sold at auction in Mincing Lane yesterday for £17 per lb., or over one guinea an ounce." - Standard, May 6th, 1891.

"A small lot of Golden Tip Ceylon tea from the Gartmore Estate was sold by auction in Mincing Lane yesterday to the Mazawattee Ceylon Tea Company at £25 10s. per lb." - Standard, May 8th 1891.

2 Messrs. Wm. Jas. and Hy. Thompson.

Of which :

There are three active substances in tea, which we should do well to notice: Volatile Oil, Theine, and Tannin.

The volatile oil can be distilled by ordinary process, and it contains the aroma and flavour of tea in perfection. Its action on the human body is not thoroughly known, with the exception that it is injurious in a greater or less degree. The Chinese are well aware of the fact, and will rarely use tea until it is a year old, thus allowing some of it to evaporate, and it is probably owing to this oil that tea-tasters (who taste as much by smell as by palate) are subject to attacks of headache and giddiness.

Theine is the principle which gives to tea its power of lessening the waste of the tissues in the human body, and, when separated from the decoction, it forms an alkaloid having no smell, a slightly bitter taste, and is composed of colourless crystals. It is also an active agent in Mate or Paraguay tea, in coffee (when it is called caffeine, although identical in substance), in Guarana, which is used as coffee in Brazil, and in the Kola Nut of Africa.

The third product, tannin, gives roughness of flavour to the tea, and is particularly developed by allowing the infusion to stand a long time. It is harmless; at least, its combination in tea has never been found to be hurtful; Its presence is at once shown by dropping some tea on the clean blade of a knife, when it will produce a black stain - the tannin derived from oxgalls, and a solution of iron, forming the ink with which we write.

That Chinese tea has been, and is, largely adulterated, is an indisputable fact, and in those bygone days, when all our supply came from China, it had to be borne. Now, at all events, the Indian and Ceylon teas are pure, and can be taken without the slightest fear. The green teas used to be most adulterated, but the black teas could also tell their tale of fraud.