Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-10-19

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Preparing Tea for the Testers.
ten inches in height are transplanted in
ground prepared for the purpose. They
are hoed and kept free from weeds, and are
cultivated for two years before they begin
to produce tea. 1t takes about six years
for tree to mature. when it should pro-
duce a pound every year. Some of the
trees on the estate are forty years old.
There are tea plants in Japan whose age is
beyond the memory of man.
Picking Tea.
1t is interesting to watch them picking
the tea. Thousands of little brown women
dressed In bright-colored sarengs which
leave the shoulders and upper part of the
breast and arms bare are moving about
among the green bushes. Here they are
bending over the plants; there they are
squatting down and pulling off the leaves,
laying them on great square cloths, in
which later on they will bundle them up
and carry them on their heads to the fac
tory. The sun gilds their skins a golden
brown and their plump bare arms show out.
They are of all ages, some little girls, some
young women and some gray-haired. Few
are quite pretty, many are ugly, but all
are good-natured and very Industrious.
AS 1 rode about through the estate I
met gangs of these women carrying the
tea to the factory. Each woman had
bundle as large as two-bushel basket on
her head, but she walked along perfectly
straight until myself and the manager came
in sight, when she and her sisters would
all duck down or squat while we passed.
This is the Javanese method of salutaticn
to the superior. The managers Of the es-
tate and all foreigners are looked upon as
superiors and treated as such. 1t is so
with all the natives in the back districts
from little children of two years to old men
and old
like king to receive so much honor, but
l understand that the natives do not con-
slider such action at all servile, and they
do it on the same principle as we do when
We bow or take off our hats to one another.
The Men Get Seven Cents Day.
asked as to the wages paid on the plan
tation and was told that the 1,4OO men who
are employed regularly are paid cents a
day and rice. Their hours are from to
II. work being done after noon. The
women receive still less but many make
mere at piece work. They get Dutch cent
pound for picking. This is equal to four
tenths of our cent and some make as
much as % cents day, while others make
10 or less. 1t gives one an idea of the
cost of living In Java to know that people
can support themselves and be happy ON
such wages.
The women make the best tea-pickers.
The geratest care is required in picking,
for the tea leaves are valuable according
to their age, the part of the bush from
which they come and the time at which
they are picked. The leaves picked early
In the morning are said to have a better
flavor than those p1ucked later in the day
The first growth is the best, the young top
leaves producing the finest grades of tea.
In the Factory.
The tea is cured and prepared for the
market on the estate. The factories are
not far from the plantation home; they are
immense one-story buildings, covering
acres, with galvanized iron roofs, and walls
of woven bamboo. The buildings are
foored with stone and are. filed with mod
ern machinery Entering them is like 60
ing into a machine shop. Great wheels are
moving leather belts about operating the
tea-rolling and drying machines
The floor is covered with tea. There is an
acre or wet green tea leaves lying upon it.
They are spread out there to wilt so that
when they are picked up and squeezed
they will not crack. The tea as 1t comes
from the bushes is withered on this floor
and then put into rolling machines which
do the work the Chinese and Japanese do
by hand. These machines are great steel
tables moved about by machinery in a cir
cular motion with other tables above them
moving about In the opposite direction. The
tables are so graduated as to roll the leaves
about without crushing them. When the
leaves go IN they are nat; when they come
out they are a spinach-lke mixture of
rolled leaves. If you take up a handful
of the green rolls and look at them YOU
VIII think you have a lot Of little green
worms, for they are Just like them. After
this the tea must be fermented and dried
The latter process is done by hot blasts and
revolving fans The result Is that the tea
which comes out Is perfectly clean, not
mixed with perspration in China and
Japan: The factory makes it's own boxes
out or Javanese wood. 1t grades the tea
and packs it and ships 1t to all parts of the
world.
In,
The Japanese are now producing about
100000 pounds of tea annually, not in
GLIDING what they raise in Formosa Their
methods of cultivation and curing are diff
ferent from those of Java. The plants are
set out In hedges. and they look much like
hedges of lockwood, each from three to five
feet high and about two feet wide. The
hedges run parallel from one side of the
field to the other and ofen in terraces one
above the other.
The most of the Japan tea is green Much
or 1t is sun dried. and this Is of a green
color Other teas are dried In copper cyl
inders or pots and sometimes indigo and
soapstone Is mixed together in the driving
pans to give them 6. green tinge The tea
is all picked by girls who get from 10 to Is
cents a day for about twelve hours work
Ihey bring the leaves to the houses of
Planters where they are fired and steamed.
The work Is not complete, however, until
they are retired again in the factories at
Seapofts. Durlng my stay In Yoko-
mama and Kobe 1 went through some OF
1ne largest of the tea-iring godowns The
nring Is done In great pans about twenty
inches wide and thirty inches deep. These
pans are ntted into brick ledge with char
coal nres under them. The tea is put into
the pans by Japanese girls who are often
bare to the waist and who lean over
| the not pans and with their hands roll
| and knead the drying tea. It Is very warm
In the factories and the fires make it
| warmer. Pearly drops Of Precipitation oozs
out OF the backs, chests and arms of the
tea workers. and It would be strange In