Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1893-07-27
TEA CULTURE IN AMERICA.
Efforts BEING Made to Establish the II.
dustry in the South.

the South Carolina tca-growing cX-
perimcnts. Commissioner of Agricul-
| ture LeDuc, who once contributed to
| the gayety of nations, was the first
person seriously and officially to urge
the wisdom of tea culture in the
United States. He obtained seeds, had
them distributed from his bureau and
spread broadcast elaborate instructions
as to the best method of carrying on
the culture. An expert from the tea
fields of Assam reported that the tea
could be grown for fifteen or twenty
| cents pound in North and South Caro-
lima. Ever since there have been peri
| odical efforts to interest the tea trade
| in American teas and in spite of dis
couragements a few eXperimenters in
| South Carolina have persisted in tea
! culture.
There is no subject touching which
the tea trade of New York is more skep-
tical than the possibility of making tea
culture a profitable industry in the
United States. The men who sit in
dingy little downtown offices with
small, brass tea kettles about them and
ugly little teaeups stored in cupboards
that would drive any neat housewife
into Mysteries, smile whenever Amer
lean tea is mentioned. The skepticism
of the tea dealers results partly from
the fact that they know SO much, part
| ly from the fact they know so little.
| The literature of tea culture is library
in itself. To know the subject is to
| spend years in study. There are men
down in the tea trade who can appraise
to a mill the value of a given specimen
of tea, but who use the very names of
teas without knowledge of their sig
niicance. Tea, before its arrival in
market, is to the average dealer an ori-
entail mystery. Those who read books
on the subject find them full of contra
dictions. Some dealers fatty declare
their belief that travellers who write
upon tea culture i'll China have never
reached the interior of the country.
AS matter of fact, different
| writers upon Chinese tea culture are of
necessity contradictory, because they
happen to have seen the operations of
different districts. There are many
ways Of cu,tivating tea in China, as
there a-s many OF preparing it for mar
's=1. Tea bricks for example, which
Ire sold by the million pounds all over
,erIrrlL Asia never appear in the trade
lt The -icet states. Should the aver
age tea dealer see q ciose-paeked. dark
green brick, hard on the surface and
marked in gold with Chinese char
acters. he would scarcely recognize it
as tea. The dealers find that the
oriental plays strange tricks with this
market. When one sort of tea has
been drug on the market, next sea-
son the same tea appears under diff
ferent name. Young Hyson and Gun
powder are the same tea, differently
eolled, and there are dozen devices
by which the celestial takes advantage
Of the occidental world.
In the face of all the current skepti-
cism as to the American tea a South
'arolinian, who has ten-acre tea gar
len. recently sent up some of his own
product to be appraised by firm of
New York tea dealers. He sent along,
also, IA tea plant, which has been exhib-
ted in a dealers window. The firm to
whom the sample had been confided
tasted, smelt and drew the tea and
lfter mature deliberation wrote to the
aXperimenter that all the tests ind-
iated that his tea was worth twenty
;entS pound The grower wrote
back to thank the dealer and to express
iatlStactlon that his sample could be
appraised at such rate.
All this makes no great impression
upon the skepticism of the tea trade
lea that WHOLESALERS at twenty cents
pound should fetch about forty cents
pound at retail A fair average inn
ported tea, such as is consumed by per-
'ons of moderate means demanding
articles of good quality, WHOLESALERS at
about twenty-five cents pound. Above
and below that prices have wide range.
Tea dust from China WHOLESALERS in this
market at from six to eleven cents a
pound. The best of it is drank by the
poor who pay for it twenty cents "A
Dpund retail. The worst is bought bv
druggists and by dealers in whisky
mere Is an unkind suspicion in the tea
trade that good deal of cheap tea
dust goes INTO sugar-coated pills of one
KIND or another, in place of quinine.
ior example. 1t IS we'll known that a
great deal of tea dust is used to color
new whisky and give it an appearance