OCR Text |
Show CHINA LOSING TRADE IN TEA General Opinion That Scientific Cultivation Culti-vation of the Plant Has Been Begun Too Late. China's tea trade is not keeping pace with the world's consumption of tea. Scientific cultivation instead of old-time old-time methods and the use of machinery machin-ery are being used in the effort to regain the lost commercial ground. The ministry of agriculture has established estab-lished a model farm, and the first tea grown on it was sent to market this year. It is said to have been of good quality, but no details are yet available avail-able of the equipment and methods employed. Foreign tea men seem to have little faith in the results of this attempted reform and consider it unlikely un-likely that Chinese teas will ever regain re-gain the leading place in the markets of the world. It is said that Chinese teas have less tannin than other teas, and that the finer grades are unsurpassed unsur-passed in delicacy of flavor; but the average tea drinker seems to find the teas of India and Ceylon satisfactory. |