Show tar this paper pap CHINAS TEA TRADE copyrighted by frauk fraak 0 Car carpenter venter 1885 ILL THE WAR in china affect the tea trade this is a matter which is agitating the merchants and which will soon be of interest to t tea e a drinkers all over the united states the tea buds have already sprouted and by the first of may the new crops will begin to come into the market fast steamers are alow on their way from europe and russia to china they go by the mediterranean 4 and suez canal and they stop at ceylon and singapore they go from A thence to shanghai and up the yang tse xiang ches into the interior of china they stop at the city of han kow which is the greatest tea market an the world here they load as quickly as possible and steam back home as tast last as they can these tea ships run a race every year and the steamer which hi getsin gets in first receives the highest price crr C rr lor for its tea the first of the tea cro crop P is is considered the best and should the Yang ste river be closed by war in may it ft will result in a great loss to the tea the prices of japanese tea will certainly be increased and its ex port will probably be greater than ever H the e ja japanese I 1 tea is py by no means so algood as that of china it is nerve Is exciting and if it stands it becomes bitter the majority of people of the country antry do not know what good tea is ahey like green tea and they mix the 11 r arteen arreen and alad black together in a mo t bari barous way they think they are pay lang ing a high price when they give i tor for a I 1 I 1 pound of tea and it will be be surprising I 1 to 10 many to know that there is a tea in H china which is worth 25 a pound and 1 have heard of tea which cost more than an a pound president HARRISONS TEA perhaps the most costly tea ever brought to this country was some in than iian tea which was presented to ben harrison while tie fie was president ot the united states it came from a areat 1 Sr great eat tea company in ceylon and it was presented in a tea caddy made of an 4 elephants foot which had been hol hoi wed out into a I 1 beautiful box this con gained several pounds of tea of a very lc hoice ice variety and in the center of the there wasa was a little casket containing a handful or so of tea which was worth a pound and was perhaps the costliest cost liest tea in in existence the th tea outside of this was delicious but the tea was a drink for the gods president harrison showed the tea to his friends and now koiv and then had a drawing mide made for those who were closest to him onedas one iday a western senator who knew as much about tea as a cow does about chocolate caramels caramela ca spent an evening at the white house during his stay president harrison spoke of this wonderful tea and said he would give him a bit of it supposing of course the man would understand that he would have a drawing made and they would sip together he sent one of the servants lor for the precious casket of one hundred and fiat fifty dollar tea and handed it over to the ze senator to examine the senator took it and looked at it and then said 1 I 1 am much obliged indeed mr president and I 1 will take it home to the madam he thereupon put the box in his pocket one ot of the presidents official family who was present at the time told me of the incident and I 1 asked him as to what the president did what could he do was the reply he ask the man to give it back without offending him and the result was that he earned carried away the box which was worth more than its weight in gold and which I 1 venture was no more appreciated by the people who got it than the poorest of the japanese variety WHAT GOOD TEA IS the chinese tea which we get for a dollar a pound brings about twenty five cents a pound in china and what the chinese call good tea is worth at least a dollar a pound wholesale in china and it would bring in the united states two dollars a pound tea which costs ten dollars a pound is by no means uncommon am among ong rich and there are some chinese nabobs nabors who serve up fifty dollar tea to their guests the man who knows nothing of tea but thinks he knows a good deal wants the liquor to be dark colored and considers this a sign of strength the best chinese tea is often as clear as crystal and the color of good tea should be a very light yellow hardly as dark as light amber the first leaves ot of the tea plant are the kenderest ten derest and the first pc peking mcking king of course brings the most money we use every year about eleven million dollars worth of chinese tea and we are fast becoming big consumers of ceylon and indian tea I 1 have traveled through the tea district of the himalaya mountains and have tasted the tea which grows on the border of thabet this is said to be the national home of the tea plant and it is claimed that the tea was taken from here to china and there grown the english now have vast tea plantations in india and these are indrea increasing sing eve every year Y ear the chinese do not t think ink that tha t rl milk i lka or sugar should be used with tea boiling water should be poured over the tea but the tea should by no means be boiled I 1 was treated to a cup of tea during a visit I 1 made to how qua the famous millionaire of canton this man is said to be worth fifty million dollars and the tea which the set servants brought in was about the color of georgia pine CHINESE TEA DISTRICTS the yingtse kiang is the river which runs right through the center of the chinese empire cutting the country almost in half I 1 was told that the best teas were raised south of this river and that no good tea could be grown above it the great central tea market is as I 1 have said is bankow here there are vast tea factories and tea warehouses and the very air is filled with tea I 1 visited many of the factories during my stay and the methods of preparing the tea 0 for market are by no means of an appetizing nature just outside one of the largest establishments I 1 saw a half naked coolie who had pulled off his gown and was picking out of the seams certain unmentionable animals which he cracked between his fingers and ate A moment later I 1 saw that same coolie with his pantaloons pulled up to his knees standing in a box of tea which was about to be shipped to england and treading the leaves within it in order to pack them closely to ship them A dozen other coolies also in their bare feet were engaged in the same work the weather was warm and the perspiration pi ration was rolling down their yellow skins and was I 1 judge readily absorbed by the tea in the boxes in another part of the establishment I 1 saw a lot of chinese girls who had feet fio no bigger than your fists picking over tea their feet which was ws bandaged were half covered with the leaves of tile the second grade tea which they had thrown down down into the baskets below them as they rapidly handling the leaves sorting over each and every one of odthe the thousands of tiny bits of green before them at amoy I 1 was told that a vast amount of tea was spoiled about a year or so ago it was so ruined by dampness or something something that the chinese would not use it the he factors t then h en spread it out on the dirty wharves where it was mixed with all kinds of foul stuff and dried for shipment to america and england I 1 have heard it stated that the tea grounds of some chinese restaurants are taken out and retried and in some cases shipped to america I 1 doubt this very much but it is true that the chinese use their tea grounds over and over again selling them to the poorer classes the preparation pa ration of ef the tea for the market is almost altogether by hand the tea districts are generally hilly and they are laid out in beautiful terraces about there are men and women who do nothing but act as pack animals for the carrying of tea they have it packed in baskets which they carry on poles across their shoulders up and down the mountain passes they get about twenty five cents a day it costs about two cents a pound to pick the tea and there are a number of local taxes which will now probably be greatly increased on account of the war HOW BRICK TEA JS IS MADE great quantities of tea are exported to russia and mongolia every year in in shape of bricks these are made of the lower grades of tea and of tea dust the leaves are ground up and steamed and cooked until they are soft and mushy they are then put into molds about the size of an ordinary brick and are pressed into shape so that they be come as hard as chocolate cakes the finer varieties are molded into small cakes in fact of just about the size of the small cakes of sweet chocolate which you buy in the candy stores I 1 visited several of the factories in bankow which make this kind of tea and the process was even less appetizing than that which I 1 described as to the ordinary tea the factories in the first place are very warm the steam steaming ing tea is handled by dirty coolies and it is 81 sweetened ened by perspiration after the bricks are finished they are carried by boats up the rivers and canals to and from thence go on camels into mongolia and on to russia there are about sixty bricks in one package and they are so arranged that they can be carried on camels this brick tea takes the place of money in in many parts of asia and in mongolia it passes as currency each brick being worth from fifteen to twenty cents the mongols divide a brick into thirty equal parts they boil it with milk butter sheep fat and salt using camel dung for fuel I 1 visited one of the largest of the brick tea factories in bankow and I 1 met russians there who were making fortunes out of shipping brick tea to russia some ol of the factories employ more than a thousand hands and the business is almost as great as that of shipping tea to europe THE DECLINE OF THE TEA TRADE the chinese tea trade has been declining for years and this war will be a terrible blow to it vindia is last pushing its way into the tea markets of tj the I 1 world and you find good indian tea now sold all over the united states the trade has practically grown up within the past twenty five years and since 1870 the chinese markets have been steadily declining in 1870 1870 england imported ten million pounds of tea from assam ten years later it was taking more than sixty million pounds and there are now more than a quarter ot of a million acres of tea plantations in india the chinese have been adulterating their tea and they have been steadily losing ground while the japanese and the indian merchants have been gaining the indian tea now brings a higher price i ce in the english markets than the er chinese h inese tea and not half as much of the chinese tea is used as was twenty five years ago I 1 had a chance to see some thing of the tea plantations ot of india during a journey which I 1 made six years ago to Da Darji diling ling in the himalaya mountains this city is is more than a mile above the sea and you ride for a long distance through well kept tea gardens the bushes of which are very much like those of our currants these gardens turn out more than three hundred rounds pounds of tea per acre and there are five ve pickings beginning in march and ending in november noveme r the most of the tea plants are raised from the seed the tea seeds are of about the size of a hazelnut they are sown in nurseries in december and january and by april tb the le sprouts routs are ready to be transplanted thaesta the best soil is virgin forest land and the richer the better the plants begin to bear in their third year and they reach their thair best yield in their ninth year after which the bush begins to decline the indian tea is generally grown in large plantations the chinese tea comes from little patches scattered over the country and the holdings are genera ly small in china the tea plant is in full leaf during the latter part of may at which time is the second picking A good tea tree will yield from ten to twenty ounces of leaf and the best pickers average about fifteen pounds a day the wages for such persons is from six to eight cents per day and women and children do the work the most of the japanese tea is now fired in copper or iron pans which are set into bake ovens and kept hot by fires under them A great deal of the chinese tea is dried over charcoal in a sieve being rubbed with the hand until the contents are perfectly dry and the leaves become dark GREEN TEA AND BLACK THA TEA it is supposed by many in this country that green tea is caused by the copper basins in which the tea is fired this is so to a certain extent but there is a natural green tea that is a green tea produced without the use ol of coloring matter any kind of tea may be made green or black according to the length of time ot of firing if the tea is picked when not yet ripe and fired quickly it will have a green color this green however is often produced by putting indigo and soapstone into the drying pans and I 1 met a tea merchant in japan who told me that most of the green tea was colored in this way and not with copperas the natural color of the tea leaf is green and the purest of tea which is known as the sun dried tea is of a green color we are now using a great deal oi of the formosa tea which ranks as one of the best teas of the world some varieties ot of this tea cost 25 and upward a pound nd and quite a lot ot of indian and fionin japan tea has been put upon the mar ket as formosa tea it will surprise many people to know what an immense number of tea drinkers there are in the world great britain is said to drink one hundred million cups of tea per day and every man woman or child in great britain consumes five pounds pt tea every year the australians are the greatest tea drink drinkers in the world and they average over seven pounds per year they take a great deal ot of chinese and indian teas the greatest consumers of the japanese teas are the united states and canada and we take the bulk of the japanese teas tea drinking is increasing in america and the english drink more tea and less coffee every year the japanese and chinese are drinking tea all the time and a visitor is served with a cup whenever he calls it is estimated that there are five hundred million tea drinkers in china chin and india THE CHINESE AND OPIUM I 1 am told that the falling off of the tea crop af pf of china is more than made up by bv the increase in the 0 opium plum product opium is grown now all over china and there are plantations of it in the north beyond the chinese wall I 1 was greeted with the sickening smell of opium wherever I 1 went and in the city of which is about as big as st louis there are one thousand registered opium dens shanghai is filled with opium joints and the biggest opium den in the world is to be found there it jo is an immense three story building cover ing what would be about one half of an american city block and it is furnished as gorgeously as were the caves ot of montt mont cristo the cushions of the beds are of the finest velvet and the frames of the couches are inlaid with mo mothe theof pearl there are hundreds of rooms and when I 1 visited this den the air was blue with opium smoke upon some of the beds men and women laid together and smoked side by side there were haggard old men and fresh young boys smoking together and there were mandarins in silks and coolies in in rags in the different rooms the entrance was lighted with the electric light and the whole of the interior was made up of the finest carvings of costly teak wood the different rooms were graded and you could get a smoke here for a few cents or paying nearly as high as a dollar for some oi of the pipes and the most gorgeously fitted up rooms A great deal of the smoking is is done in th the e private houses and it is as common in china for your host to offer you a pi pipe e of opium as it is in america to be e offered a cup of tea or a |