Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1874 — Thea-Tea. [ARTICLE]

Thea-Tea.

The tea plant grows from three to six feet, having numerous branches and a denre foliage. The wood is hard and tough, the leaves smooth and shining, of a dark-green color. The plant flowers early in the spring, remaining in bloom about a month, its seeds ripening in December. The leaves are first gathered from the plant at three years old. The plant reaches its maximum size about the seventh year, and thrives, according to care bestowed upon it, from ten to twenty years. There are two great varieties of the plant, viz.: Thea Bohea (black tea), and Thea Yivldis (green tea), though both black and green tea are manufactured from either bush; the quality of the soil, the state of the leaf, the degree of heat applied in its curing, and the method of manipulation producing all the differences perceived in the cured teas ofcommerce. ■- Appreciating, then, the degrees of delicacy that may arise from the different periods of gathering the leaf—from the just-opening leaf to its maturity—we will look at the modus operand! of preparing the leaf for market. For black tea, the leaves after being gathered are spread out to the air for several hours, and are tossed about until they become flaccid, then put in large pans on steady fires and roasted five minutes, then rolled by hand, then exposed to the air in their soft and flaccid state', and, lastly, dried slowly over charcoal fires until their black color is fairly brought out and fixed. For green teas, the leaves are subjected to the roasting process immediately after { been gathered; after five minutes they become flaccid, then are rolled by hand, then returned to the roasting-pans and kept in motion over the fires for about one hour, when they become well dried and have their green color. The dark hue of the black tea is due to the exposure to the air oxygen on the leaf juices. The Chinese give a peculiar metallic luster to the green teas by an artificial coloring of indigo or gypsum in small, innoxious quantities. This is “to give force” for the foreign market. In order to impart the delicate flavor of the finest teas to the commoner sorts, the Chinese scent both green and black teas. For black teas, sprinkling with the chucan (chloranthus) flowers just before the last firing of the leaf. For green teas, placing alternate layers of the leaves and fresh flowers until a basket is full, covering the basket and letting it remain twenty-four hours, then firing it in a lined sieve, and sifting the flowers out before packing for market. Frequently these highly-flavored teas are mixed with plain teas to impart a delicate flavor, say about one catty (one and one-third pounds) to ten catties of the plain tea. The cultivation of the flower for scenting teas is a branch of agriculture of considerable importance. The tea plant is cultivated in all the Chinese provinces south of the Hoangho —“Yellow River." The “Bohea hills” and the “ Sungho hills” are celebrated localities, as producing the finest black and green teas of commerce. Such, in brief, is an accurate account of that delicious leaf from which a little boiling water ever evokes a spirit potent to soothe and smooth most ills that mind is heir to. — Geo. Rodgers, in Chicago Journal.