Christian era; for its virtues
were praised by (the probably mythical) Chinung, an emperor of that
period.

The cultivated plants are scarcely higher than bushes, but the wild
plant found in India is a tree fifteen or twenty feet in height. The
cultivated plant is quite hardy; severe winters kill it but ordinary
freezing weather merely retards its growth. It thrives best in red,
mouldy soils; the choicest varieties are grown in new soils. The leaves
are not picked until the plants are three or four years old.

Two general classes of tea are known in commerce--the green and the
black. Formerly these were grown on different varieties of the plant,
but in the newer plantations no distinction is made in the matter of
variety; the color is due wholly to the manner of preparation.

The plants are watched carefully during the seasons of picking, of which
there are three or four each year. The April picking yields the choicest
crop of leaves, and only the youngest leaves and buds are taken.[35] A
single plant rarely yields more than four or five ounces of tea yearly.
Each acre of a tea-garden yields about three hundred and fifty pounds.

After picking, the leaves are partly crushed and allowed to wilt until
they begin to turn brown in color. They are then rolled between the
hands and either dried very slowly in the sun, or else rapidly in pans
over a charcoal fire--a process known as "firing." The former method
produces _black_, the latter _green_, tea. The color of the latter is
sometimes heightened by the use of a mixture of powdered gypsum and
Prussian blue. In the black teas the green coloring matter of the leaf
is destroyed by fermentation; in the green teas it remains unchanged.

The greater part of the Chinese tea designed for export is packed rather
loosely in wooden chests lined with sheet-lead, the folds and joints of
which are soldered in order to make the cover both air-tight and
moisture-tight. A full chest contains seventy-five pounds of tea. The
Japan product is also packed in moisture-tight wrappers, the original
parcels being usually ten-pound, five-pound, and pound packages. Similar
devices are used in preparing the India and Formosa teas for ocean
shipment.

The chief tea-producing countries are India (including Ceylon) China,
Japan (including Formosa), and Java. A successful tea-garden is in
operation near Charleston, S.C. A small amount is grown in the Fiji and
Samoan Islands. The Ceylon and Formosa