Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 September 1904 — TEAS THAT ARE WORTH FORTUNES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TEAS THAT ARE WORTH FORTUNES

Twelve Hundred Kinds Are In Chins’* Show at the World’s Fair—The Most Populous NaSou of the World For the First Time Makes an Exhibit Worthy of Her Greatness. Many expositions of stupendous character make up the World's Fair of 1904. Each part Is a vast and distinct show. Each bnildlng shelters many acres of wonderful things—-wonderful because they are the choicest of their kind. Every nation on the globe is represented. Every state and territory Is here with its best and making the most of its greatest opportunity. The fact that China has not been a large exhibitor at world’s fairs gives to her great exhibit here a prominence quite exceptional. It is a wonderland of ingenious productions. We know China best by reason of her extensive exports of teas, which have found a vast market in the United States for generations. Her commercial interests therefore prompted her to make a display of teas that we should not forget. In sealed glass jars China displays in the Liberal Arts Palace some' 1,200 kinds of tea. Young Hyson and Old Hyson have a string of tea relations longer than the genealogical chain of a Plymouth Rock. They are neatly selected “chops,” in the language of the tea farmer, and these classes do not embrace medicinal teas, which are quite another lot in the rather modest number of 400. The teas exhibited vary in price from a few cents a pound to some rare and exclusive kinds that are worth their weight in gold, the tea in the latter cases being placed on one side of the scales and pure gold on the other—that is to say, the tea of this expensive kind is worth about S2O gold an ounce. Only a very small quantity of this exclusive leaf is exhibited, and it is grown in carefully guarded tea plantations or gardens right under the shadows of the great wall of China. Its cultivation is prohibited for any use save for the imperial family of China and a few of the favored high officials. Mention has been made of the word “chop” in connection with tea, and it may be interesting to the everyday reader to know what the word actually signifies. The tea leaf is grown in various districts of the Chinese empire on

large areas of ground which are often mistaken for single plantations. This is hardly ever the case, as the large tracts are very often owned by hundreds of different men, whose individual plots of ground bearing the tea plants are carefully mapped out, so that each individual owner may cultivate and pick his own crop of tea. Each owner likewise markets his own tea and puts his own special mark, or “chop,” on the packages. Hence the term “chop” signifies an individual growth or picking of tea by one owner. In an area of tea land of, say, a thousands acres, all apparently under one ownership, there may be some forty, fifty or more owners of the plantation and consequently a like number of “chops” of tea. It must not be imagined that all these different owners of the tea the same price for their commodity—far from it, as each of these individual tea growers has his own secrets for improving the quality and flavor of tea. Take, for instance, tbe Amoy and Fuchau districts, whence most of the tea for the United States comes. The owners of “chops” of tea varying from 10 to 200 chests of 56 pounds each bring samples of their goods to the various foreign merchants for sale. These latter turn the Chinese tea growers over to the good offices of tbe foreign or American professional tea taster, who passes on tbe goods as to price. The tea taster has tbe samples Infused, not boiled. In his presence and passes upon the quality, flavor, twang and manner of curing, fixing a price accordingly, ftom which there is never any variation which the tea grower must accept or go elsewhere to dispose of his wares. In a single tract of tea land like the one cited above the price has ranged from 14 cents, tbe lowest, to cents, the highest, per pound among sixty-one different tea producers. A matter of great moment that also figures In tbe price ot tea is that very often tea from the same district will have the various "chops” blended together in order to produce special flavors.

NORTH ENTRANCE PALACE OF MINES AND METALLURGY, WORLD’S FAIR