A VISIT TO AN INDIAN TEA GARDEN.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 209, 19 July 1878, Page 2

A VISIT TO AN INDIAN TEA GARDEN.

WRITTEN FOR THE " AKAROA MAIL."

Take a little trip with me, my friend, to one of the tea gardens of India, and see how the little curly dry leaves are prepared from which your usual breakfast beverage is infused. The journey will not cost you much—only the price of a Mail, and in addition you will be the gainer by the other information therein. Let us make our arrangements for leaving Calcutta this morning by the Eastern Bengal Railway, at the terminus of which we shall get a steamer on the Megua to take us near our destination, Cachar, which is about 600 miles from our starting point, north-east, and separated from Assam by a range of the Himalayas upwards of 100 miles in width. Now, as there is not much to see in Silchar, the civil station and chief town of the district, let us ride out to one of the plantations in the Hylakandy Valley, and have a look round. Well, hear we are at last! I have now brought you to tea on rather a short invitation, but please make yourself at home. I need not explain to you, my intelligent i friend, as I had to do once to a lady in India, that tea does not grow on the bushes in that dry, curly condition in which you are accustomed to see it, but over there you will find the women and children picking the green leaf from the • bushes, and putting it in these wickerlike baskets they carry on the left arm. Notice for a moment how they do it; t they carefully nip off with the first finger and thumb the upper part of the shoot just at the] junction of the two stalks, leaving about an eighth of an inch of each to protect the tiny bud between, from which will grow the new flush, as the young stem is called ; then they pick off the next two or three leaves, leaving also the end of these as a protection to the young bud beneath. Here and there you will see amidst the bright j green flush a bare dry stem, barren of leaf ; that has been stripped by a careless picker between the finger and thumb, thus leaving no shade for the tender bud which, of course, withered at once. You thought the plants were higher ; well, they would grow higher were they allowed, but the pruning-knife keeps them down, for, if they were to grow much over four feet, it would be very difficult to pick the leaf, and of course the more they are kept from shooting up, the more they must shoot out laterally. No wonder you think this a; strange country —all those little hills' and undulations of the ground, like.a rough, chopping sea magnified, while away to the south, far as the eye can reach, range miles and miles of rice-., plain, broken here and there by topes, of palms and other graceful tropical trees, or the thick belt of shrub and tree : that always' surrounds a native village. The great advantage of this kind of land for tea-growing is that, while as a rule none of the-. illahs. or .hills, are so steep

as to hinder cultivation or to lose much soil by the rains, their slope prevents the water from lodging at the roots of the plants, which, though necessary for coffee, injures tea. In some places you will find the bushes planted out six feet hy six, in some six by four, and in the later clearings four by four—that being found a manageable distance. Let us follow now the string of dusky beauties and children on their way to the leafhouse. You may remark that the sex —I can scarcely say the fair sex in this case—all the world over, be they white, black, brown, or yellow, display the same natural chaiacteristics—love of talking and fondness of display in dress. What; a chattering noise they are making! Let us not follow too close on their heels—we are quite near enough to. note the many-colored robes which fall around their lithe bodies in the graceful folds peculiar to the Eastern costume. Confess it is a pretty picture at a little distance—the flashing eyes and jet black hair, the pure white teeth and dark shining skins, toned down by, or contrasted with, the colors of their dress, while the basket is carried on the head, supported by the fingers of a tapering, well-turned arm. We need not, however, follow them into the leaf-house, as there is nothing to be seen there save tho bamboo floors on which the leaf is sparsely spread out, so that it may soften somewhat before it is required for use next morning. The Jong building we are coming to is the tea-house, or manufacturing house ; we shall go in and examine it. You notice first of all these long tables running nearly the whole length of the place, with men working on both sides of them ; these are for rolling the leaf on. The mat stretched so tight from side to side is woven from a very fine cane, split in two, the convex side being placed uppermost. Let us watch how this man works, who has just taken a fresh supply of leaf to roll. The leaf, unless it be very young, has to be put for a short time in the sun to dry and soften a little, and the man in charge easily knows when it is ready, for when soft enough, if you squeeze a handful tight, the leaves will not crack across or spring back to their former shape, but will remain just in the condition you have squeezed them into. You see how. the man pushes his leaf before him on the table, rubbing it at first between his hands and the mat, so as to get by degrees some of the juice pressed out. Now that the leaves are beginning to have a rolled appearance, he no longer moves his hands straight forward, but with a motion which, when it has gone backwards and forwards, has described an elongated figure of eight, and this is what chiefly serves to give the twist which j r ou see in prepared tea. Now he seems to think it sufficiently rolled, for he is pressing it into a small heap, so that the large quantity of leaf you saw him start with has assumed the proportions of a half ball which he can cover with his hands ; it has changed its color too, for, from being bright green, it is now rather a dirty looking yellow. This half ball he puts into a cane tray, where it has to repose for a little time in company with some facsimiles, to undergo to a certain extent the process of fermentation. We can follow out the process by watching that man who has just lifted a tray of these little heaps, which are now much darker in color, having changed to fin olive brown, which change shows that they have had sufficiently long to ferment. Were they allowed to remain over, let us say half an hour, the tea w r hen prepared would have what brokers call a sotir taste, and be consequently considerably depreciated in value. He breaks up the heaps, spreading out their contents on another tray, which he carries to some circular metal pans that have been built into brickwork, and beneath each of which is a good fire. He then places a quantity of the tea in one of the korais, or pans, and dexterously turning the mass all at once with two pieces of wood for a few seconds, he sweeps it over the edge of the pan into a small tray which another man holds in position for him ; then, I after carefully wiping the pan lest any 1 stray leaf should have adhered to it and be burning, he proceeds in the same way till he has finished his troyful. The koraiedten. is then spread out on trays and allowed to stand till firing time comes, when we shall see how that is done. Meanwhile it is breakfast time, so if you will accompany me to the bungalow or dwelling-house o.i the top of that little hill behind, if I cannot find you all the delicacies of the season I. can at any rate promise an unexceptionable curry. It is certainly rather a late hour, twelve, for breakfast, still it might better be called lunch, for it has no resemblance to breakfast anywhere else, beer always taking the place of tea or coffee. Now, since that is over and our pipes out we may as well return to the tea-house arid see the rest of the manufacture. You see along this brick floor are those circular holes, rather less than a foot in diameter, in which that black fellow is just putting lighted charcoal. Well over these holes those funny-looking wicker-work things shaped like the old-fashioned, doubleended, wooden egg-cups, are placed, and in these a tray made to fit the part where the frame narrows near the centre, is put and thinly covered with tea. As a rule ,it takes over two hours to dry thoroughly each trayful, the tea on it having of course to be turned, and this operation has to be performed off the fire-to prevent any particles fallng in and burning, which,-. when it does, occur through the carelessness of the baititualah or fireman, causes what is called smoked tea. After this firing is finished which we need not stay to watch, the tea is stored in bins, that we shall now have a look at in the sorting-house. This

that you sde is an ordinary winnowingHiachme used for separating the flat, hard leaves from the rest. Before, however, any tea is passed through this machine, it has to be sifted for the fine dust, which is valuable, and otherwise would go with the very coarse congou. All on that side are sifting the tea through different-sized sieves, the quality as a rule going by the size, since the younger the leaf the finer the tea, and vice versa. Then on this side, the largest bin is for unsifted tea and the rest for the different qualities. There is no packing going on just now but that is the press used for pressing down the tea in the boxes, rather an improvement you will doubtless say on the primitive method of a man getting into the box and treading it down with his feet. Before tea is packed, however, it is re-fired for twelve hours to ensure getting out every particle of moisture, and it is brought straight from the fire to the box, so that it is quite hot when packed. Few people are aware of the extreme delicacy of tea, and how by exposure to the air, for even a single day, it would lose some of its subtle aroma, so be sure, my friend, when you return home now to see that the box yon keep your tea in is quite air-tight. Au Revoir.