The system now adopted in India is called "Green manuring." It has been ascertained that leguminous trees, shrubs, and annual green crops provide the organic matter and the nitrogen required by the tea bush for its fullest development. And China is rich in this resource, with her bean and pea fields, her Sesamum and kindred vegetable plants. A little local official pressure, the terror of the agriculturist's life, in this direction would soon result in a productiveness without increased planting which would benefit both grower and tax-collector alike.
It is a time-honoured belief that because tea arrives in almost unwieldy quantities in the markets of China within a month that it must be philanthropically shipped off without delay to relieve the local congestion. Further, buyers are actuated by the fear that if they do not buy tea immediately it is offered on the market they will miss their opportunity, and be left out in the cold until another tea season comes round. The result of these ill-consideredly hurried shipments, while usually disastrous, is at the same time preventable. Why, for instance, cannot the native tea-man be made to hold his stock in China for a few weeks instead of delegating that task to the foreign exporter, who has to carry his holdings, whether in America or England, for months, and sometimes for years? Here, again, a lesson may well be learnt from the Indian shipper. Rational combination to retard shipments should not be impossible.
There can be no question of the superiority of China tea in the æsthetic properties of aroma and flavour, while it is distinctly a more wholesome beverage and superior dietetic nutrient. While Indian, Ceylon, and Java teas contain an excessive amount of tannin, the fruitful mother of dyspepsia, only an insignificant amount is found in China tea. The consensus of opinion of the leading medical authorities in the world has proclaimed in favour of China tea above all other teas. These important facts should be brought home to the great tea drinking public of Great Britain in some less lymphatic manner than that adopted by the self-constituted China Tea Association. Tea should be advertised, as Indian and Ceylon teas have been advertised, and as strikingly and as appealingly as the merits of patent medicines are made known. Even for this purpose should a voluntary tax be levied as in India. China must vigorously fight India, Ceylon, and Java with their own weapons if she would get back even a part of that trade which once, and not so long ago, was all her own.
An independent step, but one quite in the right direction, is now being taken by a private enterprise well fitted financially and with ability to carry its project to a successful issue. The Pure China Tea Importing and Distributing Company, with its buying agencies in Hankow and Shanghai, and a London distributing office, are prepared to place in the hands of those requiring it strictly choice pure China tea packed in China and distributed in original packages only at most moderate prices. With the aid of intelligent pushful travellers and a strong advertising appeal to the common sense of the great body of tea drinkers, there can be little doubt of ultimate success. But this is a step which, at its inception, ought to have been taken by the China Tea Association, who should have canvassed for funds from all those interested in the amelioration of the trade, and so got them financially interested in the new departure. But there is yet time for that august body to take the matter in hand.
I am strong in the belief that with a scientific enrichment of the soil and a more intelligent attention to the growth and cultivation of the plant the resultant extra-productiveness would largely tend to the cheapening of the initial cost of the leaf—a cost that will be further lessened by the removal of the present illegitimate internal burdens; that a saving of the wastage now occurring by reason of the ancient native method of manipulation will impart a much desired strength; and that, finally, with an article not comparing unfavourably in cost and strength, but comparing only too favourably in wholesomeness, quality, and flavour with the British-grown teas of India and Ceylon, properly regulated shipments, and persistent, strenuous, intelligent advertising, China may not unreasonably look forward to a future bright with promise for her naturally magnificent industry.
