The Gazette

DESCRIPTION OF THE TEA PLANT.

(From Macartney's Embassy to China)

IN an account of China it would be thought a culpable omission to say nothing on the subject of the Tea plant. The following is the substance of Sir G. Staunton's information on this valuable exotic: In China, wherever it is regularly cultivated, it rises from the seed sown in rows, at the distance of about four feet from each other, in land kept free from weeds. Its perpendicular growth is impeded, for the convenience of collecting its leaves, which is done first in the spring, and twice afterwards in the course of the summer. Its long and tender branches spring up almost from the root, without any intervening naked trunk. It is bushy like a rose tree, and the expanded petals of the flower bear some resemblance to that of the rose. The largest and oldest leaves, which are the least esteemed, and destined for the lower classes of the people, are exposed to sale with little previous manipulation. The young leaves undergo no inconsiderable preparation before they are delivered to the purchaser. Every leaf passes through the fingers of a female, who rolls it up almost to the form it had assumed at its first appearance. It is afterwards placed upon thin plates of earthen ware or iron; much thinner than can be executed by artists out of China. It is confidently said that no plates of copper are ever employed for that purpose. Scarcely any utensil in China is made of that metal, the chief application of which is for coin. The earthen plates are placed over a charcoal fire, which renders the leaves dry and crisp.

The colour & astringency of green tea is thought to be derived from the early period at which the leaves are plucked, and which, like unripe fruit, are generally green and acrid. The tea is packed into large chests lined with very thin plates of lead, and pressed down by the naked feet of Chinese labourers. The upper ranks in China are notwithstanding as fond of tea as the people are, and particularly solicitous in their choice of it. That of a good quality is dearer in Pekin than in London. By the way, this assertion of Sir G. Staunton does not seem very well to agree with the information derived from Bell's Journey; where we are told, that the price of the best tea at Pehin, either green or bohea, is L. 1/2 an ounce of silver for the Chinese pound, which is equal to what it would be at two shillings a pound in England. We are not however to conclude, from this inconsistency, that either of these travellers has given an erroneous computation. Neither, when we read in Bell's Narrative, that the Tartar military are very insolent, and almost insupportable to the Chinese, & compare it with Sir G. Staunton's account of the mildness of the Chinese in the dispersion of crowds, must we suppose that one of these historians has written from an imperfect view of the subject.