diverted attention from the significance of the discovery. It was not till 1834 that, overcome by the insistence of Captain Francis Jenkins, who maintained and proved that, called by the name Camellia or not, the leaves belonged to a tea-plant, Dr Wallich admitted “the fact of the genuine tea-plant being a native of our territories in Upper Assam as incontrovertibly proved.” In the meantime a committee had been formed by Lord William Bentinck, the governor-general, for the introduction of tea culture into India, and an official had already been sent to the tea districts of China to procure seed and skilled Chinese workmen to conduct operations in the Himalayan regions. The discovery and reports of Captain Jenkins led to the investigation of the capacities of Assam as a tea-growing country by Lord William Bcntinck’s committee. Evidence of the abundant existence of the indigenous tea-tree was obtained; and the directors of the East India Company resolved to institute an experimental establishment in Assam for cultivating and manufacturing tea, leaving the industry to be developed by private enterprise should its practicability be demonstrated.
In 1834 the monopoly of the East India Company was abolished and an era of rapid progress in the new industry began. In 1836 there was sent to London 1 ℔ of tea made from indigenous leaves; in 1837 5 ℔ of Assam tea were sent; in 1838 the quantity sent was 12 small boxes, and 95 boxes reached London in 1839. In 1840 there were grown, and offered at public auction in Calcutta early the following year, 35 packages, chiefly green teas, stated to have been manufactured by a chief of the Singpho tribe aided by the government establishment. In the same auction catalogue were included 95 packages, “the produce of the Government Tea Plantation in Assam,” many of which bore the Chubwa mark, one well known to this day. This auction is most interesting as being the first of British-grown tea, and it included about 6000 ℔. It is of interest also for the reference to the Singpho tribe, who are even now in small numbers in the same district, where they still produce in a primitive manner tea plucked from the indigenous trees growing in their jungles.
In January 1840 the Assam Company was formed to take over the early tea garden of the East India Company, and this, the premier company, is still in existence, having produced up to 1907 no less than 117,000,000 ℔ of tea and paid in dividends £1,360,000 or 730 per cent, on capital. It is no longer the first company in extent of yield, as the Consolidated Tea and Lands Company produced in 1907 about 15,000,000 ℔ of tea, besides other products. The introduction of Chinese seed and Chinese methods was a mistake, and there seems little reason to doubt that, in clearing jungle for tea planting, fine indigenous tea was frequently destroyed unwittingly in order to plant the inferior China variety. The period of unlearning the Chinese methods, and replacing the Chinese plants, had to be lived through. Vicissitudes of over-production and inflation came to interfere with an even course of success, but the industry developed and has increased enormously. From its point of origin in Assam, it has gradually spread to other districts with varying commercial success. The aggregate total of capital of the tea-producing companies in India and Ceylon now amounts to about £25,000,000.
The Dutch were rather earlier than the English in attempting to establish tea growing in their eastern possessions. A beginning was made in Java in 1826, but probably because of the even more marked influence of Chinese methods and Chinese plant, the progress was slow and the results indifferent. Of late years, however, by the introduction of fine Assam seed and the adoption of methods similar to those in use in India, a marked improvement has taken place, and there seems little reason to doubt that, with the very rich soil and abundant cheap labour that the island of Java possesses, the relative progress there may be greater in future than in any other producing land.
Somewhere about 1860 the practical commercial growing of tea was introduced into the island of Formosa. The methods of cultivation and manufacture followed there differ in many ways from those of the other large producing countries, but the industry has been fairly successful throughout its history.
Attempts were repeatedly made to introduce tea culture in Ceylon, under both Dutch and British authority. No permanent success was attained till about 1876, when the disastrous effects of the coffee-leaf disease forced planters to give serious attention to tea. Since that period the tea industry has developed with marvellous rapidity, and now takes first rank in the commerce of the island.
Several plantations have been successfully put out both by the Russian government and private enterprise in the Caucasus, but it is doubtful whether they could exist long but for the high rate of duty on tea entering Russia from foreign countries. Natal has now about 5000 acres under tea giving a fairly large yield, but of quality not highly esteemed outside of South Africa, where it benefits to the extent of 4d. per pound of protection in the tariff. A small plantation exists in South Carolina under circumstances not conducive to financial success on a large scale of production. Attempts at tea growing have been made in the West Indies, Brazil, Australia, Nyassaland, Mauritius, the Straits Settlements, Johore, Fiji and at San Miguel in the Azores without marked success. In addition to favourable conditions of soil and climate, abundant cheap labour is an absolute necessity if satisfactory commercial results are to be obtained.
Botany.—The tea bush or tree is a member of the natural order Ternstroemiaceae and is closely allied to the well-known ornamental shrub the camellia. As cultivated in China it is an evergreen shrub growing to a height of from 3 to 5 ft. The stem is bushy, with numerous and very leafy branches; the leaves are alternate, leathery in texture, elliptical, obtusely serrated, strongly veined and placed on short channelled foot- stalks. The flowers are white, axillary and slightly fragrant,—often two or three together on separate pedicels. The calyx is small, smooth and divided into five obtuse sepals. The corolla has from five to nine petals, cohering at the base. The stamens are short, numerous and inserted at the base of the corolla; the anthers are large and yellow, and the long style ends in three branches. The fruit is a woody capsule of three cells, each containing one large nearly spherical seed, which consists mainly of two large hemispherical cotyledons.
As is commonly the case with plants which have been long under cultivation, there has been some doubt as to specific distinctions among the varieties of tea. The plant was originally described by Linnaeus as one species, Thea sinensis. Later Linnaeus established two species, viz. Thea Bohea and Thea viridis, and it was erroneously assumed that the former was the source of black teas, while Thea viridis was held to yield the green varieties. In 1843, however, Mr Robert Fortune found that, although the two varieties of the plant existed in different parts of China, black and green tea were produced from the leaves of the same plant by varying the manufacturing processes.
Sir George Watt (Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society, vol. xxxii.) describes with ample illustrations the recognized varieties, placing all of them under Camellia Thea, with the following subdivision:—
| A. Variety Viridis:—races | 1. Assam Indigenous. | |
| B. ,, Bohea. | ||
| C. ,, Stricta. | ||
| D. ,, Lasiocalyx. |
Of the foregoing, the teas of commerce are derived almost entirely from the varieties Viridis and Bohea. The Assam Indigenous, in its two sub-races of Singlo and Bazalona, and the Manipur, originally found wild in the jungles of the native state of that name, have, with various intermixtures and crossings, been used to cover the greatest areas of all the more modern planting in India, Ceylon and Java. The great size
