Tea plant

“ Fortune has definitely settled that both green and black tea are made off the same plants, and it is now taken that there is but one tea-plant, the Thea Sinensis, of which, however, there are several varieties, induced by climate, soil, etc.
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 or fifth year of its growth, and are plucked until the tenth or twelfth, when the plant is grubbed up. ”

“ A later gathering of coarse leaves yields an inferior tea, scarcely worth exporting. It should be understood that although black and green tea are both made from the same kind of leaf, there really are two tea-plants. The plant cultivated at Canton for black tea, and known in our gardens as Thea Bohea, differs from the Thea viridis, which yields the harvest here. ”

“ Tea thrives best in light friable soils of good depth, through which water percolates freely, the plant being specially impatient of marshy situations and stagnant water Undulating well-watered tracts, where the rain escapes freely, yet without washing away the soil, are the most valuable for tea gardens. As a matter of fact, many of the Indian plantations are established on hill-sides, after the example of known districts in China, where hill slopes and odd corners are commonly occupied with tea-plants. ”

“ Does the Tea plant grow amongst the snow? "Yes." Does not the snow kill or hurt the plants? "It hurts them very little, it may kill some of the old trees, but often new shoots come up from the old plants." To what age does the Tea plant attain in your country? "Generally, about fifty years, but some only live ten." How do you plant the Tea seeds? "I dig a hole about four fingers deep and eight inches in diameter, and put as many seeds as I can hold in both hands into it, then cover it up." How long is it before the seedlings come up, and in what months do you put them into the ground? ”

“ I obtained a Chinese tea-plant from North Carolina nine years ago, and set it out in open ground in a plot of Bermuda grass. It has received no cultivation, and is now a fine shrub, measuring to-day six and a half feet in height by nine feet across the branches at the base. The soil where it grows is light, sandy land, with no clay within two feet of the surface. The plant is not affected by the severest cold to which our climate is subject. ”

“ The indigenous tea plant of India, which is believed to be the parent stock of Chinese tea plants, is a tree, growing to a height of 20 to 35 feet with a trunk 8 to 10 inches in diameter, and bearing leaves of a lively green, 8 to 9 inches in length and 4 inches in breadth. The leaves are much more delicate in texture than those of Chinese plants, which hardly reach 4 inches in length, and the former contain a larger percentage of the invaluable alkaloid, Theine. ”

“ Prune so as to cause lateral growth. A Tea plant should never be allowed to exceed, say, 4 feet in height, but the wider it is the better.
Prune off all lower branches tending downwards, [26] for the plant should, if possible, be clean underneath to a height of, say, 6 inches. This clean stem high class plants have naturally, not so the Chinese, or the Chinese cast of hybrid.
Plants should be more or less pruned out in the centre. In the following spring young wood is then formed in the heart of the tree, and it is only young wood and shoots that give leaf. ”

“ The plants I speak of were from one to three feet high; if they have grown any thing since they were transplanted, it has hardly been perceptible, either in height or thickness; many of them have had the advantage of a little shade from the tree: in my garden, and those that had the most shade I find look healthier than those that had none, and they throw out more leaves. I have often read and heard of the China Tea plant growing no higher than three feet; their being planted in the sun and their leaves constantly gathered, I think accounts for it. ”

“ The tea fields must be kept free of weeds, a tremendous task in a moist tropical region, which demands cultivation about nine times a year. The expense of properly setting out and maintaining a tea plantation is therefore considerable.
The plucking of tea leaves is a fine art beginning with the starting of new growth and continuing every few days until growth stops. In certain regions growth is practically continuous and plucking also, but in most regions the plant has an obvious resting period, when it is pruned back. A properly cared for plant may last as long as forty or fifty years. ”

“ All soils good for the Tea plant are light coloured. If, however, the dark colour arises from decayed vegetation, that is not the colour of the soil, and, as observed, vegetable matter is a great advantage. Judge of colour when soil is dry—for even light-coloured soil looks dark when wet. Soil which will make bricks will not grow Tea; and though I have sometimes seen young plants thrive on stiff soil, I do not believe in any stiff soil as a permanence. ”

“ Flat land for Tea gardens is a great desideratum. Steep lands are difficult to cultivate; the soil is continually washing away from the roots of the plants; it is impossible to manure them successfully, and the consequence of all this is that the Tea bushes do not thrive.
The Chinese plant gives a small and inferior produce, the indigenous and hybrid kind a larger and very superior one ”

“ My experience is that the tea-plant does best in land somewhat low, but not such as water will lie upon or is overflowed. I sow the seed in the fall, as soon as they ripen and drop from the bushes, in drills eighteen inches apart. They come up readily in the spring, and by winter are from three to six inches high. Under the shade of some large tree is usually the place selected for sowing the seed, for if the plants are exposed to the hot sun while young, they invariably die the first summer. When six months old they are ready for transplanting ”

“ The tea-plant, Thea Sinensis, botanically speaking a close ally of the Camellia is in its natural state a tree which attains to 20 or 30 feet in height. Under cultivation it remains a shrub from three to six feet high. It grows in all tropical and sub-tropical countries, and roughly it takes the labour of one man a day to produce a pound of tea. ”

“ Large seedlings do not, as a rule, thrive as well as moderate-sized ones, after being transplanted.
Among the many very absurd mistakes made in the cultivation of the Tea plant, none exceeds the ridiculous way Tea seed used to be sown in the Government plantations in the North-western Himalayas. The seed was sown in drills, as I have advised, but in six linear inches of the drills, where it is right to put two, or at most three, seeds, perhaps thirty were placed! ”

“ The cultivation of tea is restricted to those regions where there is a large and frequent rainfall as well as a high temperature. It will not grow in marshy places such as rice prefers, but needs light, well-drained soils. The plant is propagated only from seeds which are sown in nurseries, and the young plants set out in the tea fields about four and a half feet apart each way. In two years they are bushes from four to six feet tall when they are cut back to a foot high. ”

“ The tea plants are reared from seed sown in a nursery, and when they are sufficiently matured, the finest of them are selected, and planted out in rows about four feet apart, a like interval being left between each of the plants, so that every clump enjoys an equal share of soil and sunshine. See Nos. 60 and 61. Manuring is rarely resorted to, as the plant is a hardy one, which, if kept free from weeds, will mature in about three years' time. ”

“ But choosing the lesser evil, the mischief is not confined to the bad effects of low cultivation. Dig the land as little as you will, the great force of the rains washes down a good deal of soil. The plants do not sink as the soil lowers, and the consequence is that all Tea plants on slopes have the lower side bare of earth and the roots exposed. This is more and more the case the steeper the slope. These exposed roots shrivel up as the sun acts on them, the plant languishes and yields very little leaf. ”

“ And in those varieties of pain of which we spoke anon, what a part of confidante has that poor tea-pot played ever since the kindly plant was introduced among us! What myriads of women have cried over it, to be sure! What sick-beds it has smoked by! What fevered lips have received refreshment from out of it! Nature meant very gently by women when she made that tea-plant; and with a little thought what a series of pictures and groups the fancy may conjure up and assemble round the tea-pot and cup! ”

“ AN IMPERIAL TEA-MAKER
The tea-plant is a shrub requiring very little care. A siliceous soil suits it best, and in it it attains its fullest development. Great quantities of seed are sown in September and October, and when the plants are about nine inches high they are transplanted and placed about twenty inches apart. When the leaves have reached their fullest development they are gathered, carefully washed to remove any earth which may have clung to them, and they are then exposed to the rays of the sun, the day chosen for this part of the preparation being the very hottest in the year. ”

“ The tea plant is a small tree or shrub, with five white petals, or flower-leaves, shaped like those of a rose, having smaller ones of the same figure in the intermediate spaces, and twenty or more filaments or threads. The tree sometimes grows to a moderate height, and is generally bare on the lower part, with a number of small branches growing close together towards the top. ”

“ Thea viridis.—This is the China tea plant, whose native country is undetermined. All kinds and grades of the teas of commerce are made from this species, although probably it has some varieties. Black and green teas are the result of different modes of preparation; very much of the green, however, is artificially colored to suit the foreign trade. The finest teas do not reach this country; they will not bear a sea voyage, and are used only by the wealthy classes in China and Russia. The active principles of the leaves are theine and a volatile oil, to which latter the flavor and odor are due. ”

“ The tea-plant is produced from seed which is dropped into holes, several together, four inches deep and four feet apart, in December. When the rain comes on, the plants spring up and form bushes. In about three years they yield their first crop of leaves. In about eight years they are cut down, that fresh shoots may spring up. ”

“ Curiosity and interest would mutually induce the Europeans to make the most diligent enquiries in order to discover the real Tea shrub, or a substitute in some other vegetable most resembling it. Simon Paulli, a celebrated physician and botanist at Copenhagen, was the first who pretended to have discovered the real Tea plant in Europe. ”

“ On the other points, with the exception of manuring, nothing need be said, inasmuch as their necessity is evident; but on the point of manure I must say a few words. The Tea plant is being continually denuded of its leaves; nothing is returned to the soil; and consequently in process of time that soil is exhausted. ”

“ In a world that is so overflowing with perfect contrivance as this one, which serves as man’s dwelling place, it is not at all likely that this curious white powder is made by the tea plant in such abundance—twenty-five thousand tons of it at least turned out on the Chinese hills every year, and scattered thence to the four corners of the world—without having some very good work appointed it to do. ”

“ Fortune, no less a proportion than half-a-pound is used to every hundred weight of leaf.
Although botanists have divided Tea into two species, still the black and green descriptions are but varieties of the same plant. Practically it is found more convenient to cultivate each sort separately, certain districts favouring the specific growths. But any description of black Tea can, in the process of drying, be converted into green. Of course the Chinese never touch these artificially-coloured products. They have too much good sense for that. ”

“ A tea shrub of Chinese origin now before us, growing among a host of common American plants, displays no special characteristics which would attract attention to itself. It resembles an orange plant. Its developed leaves are smooth on the surface, leathery in texture, dark green in color, with edges finely serrated from point almost to stalk. They are without odor, and when chewed in the mouth, have a mild and not unpleasant astringency, but no other perceptible flavor. ”

“ If young plants could be procured in China, they might be sent over in a growing state in some of these boxes.
The young Tea-plants in the gardens about London thrive very well in the green-houses in winter, and some bear the open air in summer. The leaves of many of them are from one to three inches long, not without a fine deep verdure; and the young shoots are succulent. It is therefore probable, that in a few years many layers may be procured from them, and the number of plants considerably increased thereby. ”

“ There is only one species of this plant; the difference of green and bohea Tea depending upon the nature of the soil, the culture, and manner of drying the leaves. It has even been observed, that a green Tea-tree, planted in the bohea country, will produce bohea Tea, and so the contrary. ”