Tea
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Tea. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
te, the leaf of a Chinese shrub. Several species of the tea plant yield commercial tea. The world's supply comes chiefly from China, Japan, India, and Ceylon. The use of tea was introduced into Europe by the Dutch East India Company about 1601. Tea cost at first over $50 a pound. At present Great Britain and Australia use over 6 pounds a year per person; Great Britain uses 600,000 pounds daily. This means that the British people drink about 4,000,000 gallons of tea daily. The tea plant flushes or sends out young shoots four times a year. When the shoots have about six or seven leaves they are plucked by hand. The first picking is the best. Of every seven leaves on the shoot, the two at the tip are the youngest, smallest, juiciest, and make the choicest tea. The next leaf is second in grade. The fourth and fifth leaves are called "Souchong," the last or seventh leaf, now seldom gathered, is Bohea. Young Hyson is the crop gathered before the season of rains. Oolong tea comes from the Island of Formosa. Gunpowder is a fourth or fifth leaf tea. In addition to a name according to the leaf, teas are classified according to the ways they are cured. For black tea, the leaves are withered in the sun, then rolled till they are broken and soft, then rolled into balls and fermented. After fermentation, black tea is sun-dried and fired in and oven. Green teas are withered in the sun and then rolled. They are sweated, but not fermented, and are finally dried by prolonged roasting. Tea is sent to market in neat wooden chests of exceeding lightness. They are lined with tea lead foil to prevent the escape of the aroma. Tea buyers grow skillful in tasting tea. A professional tea taster commands a high salary. Tea tasters steep the weight of a new sixpence in three and one-half ounces of water. The Chinese say "take water for tea from a running stream," so that it may contain air; and further, "the fire should be lively and clear, but the water must not be boiled too hastily. At first it begins to sparkle like crabs' eyes," etc. Tea should be thrown into water just brought to a boil, "one teaspoonful for each person, and one for the teapot," it should be served at the end of four minutes. Tea should not be taken with heavy meals as it is not an aid to digestion. Cream coagulates and entangles the tannin of the tea, and is recommended. Sugar has no particular influence. The world's annual supply of tea is about as follows, not counting tea consumed in the country where it is raised: Pounds. Ceylon 150,000,000 Japan 60,000,000 China 250,000,000 India 150,000,000 The finest grade of tea is consumed by the Chinese mandarins, or transported overland to Russia and sold at high prices. A sea voyage is held to injure the flavor. Tea culture requires a subtropical climate and sixty inches of rain, well distributed through the year. South Carolina has been found fairly well adapted to tea raising. A plantation near Summerville, under government management, produces 12,000 pounds of high grade tea yearly. Tea culture is profitable, however, only in countries where adult labor commands a few cents a day and children a cent or two. In Ceylon 50,000 women and children go up and down the rows, picking tea leaves one by one. In a day, a child picks leaves for a pound of dried tea. In the four pickings some rich Ceylon plantations yield 1,000 pounds of tea per acre. The United States imports about $16,000,000 worth of tea annually. Canada imports tea to the value of $3,500,000 a year. It is claimed that the average consumption of tea per capita of population of several countries in 1903 was as follows: Pounds. United Kingdom 6.03 Russia 94 Holland 1.45 Germany 11 France 06 United States 1.30 Canada 4.34 New Zealand 6.38 Australia 5.92 Tea is not placed on plates for drying and withering, but on protected bamboo mats, from which it is impossible for the wind to blow it. Green tea and black tea are prepared quite differently. The leaf of the green tea, immediately after picking, is partially dried in the sun or by artificial heat, and subsequently, at the pleasure of the tea man, is dried, rolled, and colored in iron pans over a slow charcoal fire. Then the leaf is sifted according to its size and shape, making such grades as Gunpowder, Young Hyson, and Hyson, as known in the foreign markets. After this process is finished it is put into packages or chests, weighing between sixty and seventy pounds, ready for export. The color of black tea is due in no way to coloring matter, as is commonly supposed, but is caused by the withering or fermentation. Immediately after picking it is slightly withered or fermented by being placed in the sun, and the expertness of the tea man is shown in his being able to know just when to stop the withering or fermentation. After this the leaf is rolled in bamboo trays and fired in pans until thoroughly dry and ready for packing. These teas are packed in chests and half-chests for export, and in case it comes from the tea man in smaller packages, it is repacked to suit the wishes of the purchaser. Tea chests are practically all made in the same manner--of wood, lead lined, and when ready for export are wrapped with coarse Canton mats. Both tea dust and common grades of black tea are made in the shape of bricks, weighing usually between one and one-half and two pounds. All teas in this shape are exported to Siberia and Mongolia and in a less degree to Russia. The United States does not use tea in this form.--Consul-General Charles Denby, of Shanghai.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the dried leaf of an evergreen shrub of the natural order Ternstræmi aceæ, for which the Linnæan botanical name of Thea Chinensis is generally current, though the genus Thea is by recent systematists merged in Camellia, and the plant is now called C. Thea of Link. It includes C. Bohea, the China plant, and C. Theifera, the indigenous Assam plant. Whether the tea shrub is indigenous in China and Japan is a doubtful question. It appears to have been imported thither from Assam and Cachar, 3 6 1 2 TEA PLANT 1-Flower 3-Seed 2-Fruit and possibly also from Siam and Cochin. The fact has been historically established that the culture of tea existed in China in the 4th century, and in Japan in the 9th century, and from these countries it was exclusively obtained for any other part of the globe till the time of the present generation. The import appears to have reached Europe during the early part of the 17th century, but we do not hear of any substantial arrival in England till 1657, and for a long time the high price kept its use limited to the wealthy class. At the present day it is estimated that half the human race uses tea habitually or occasionally. The discovery of the indigenous plant in the forest country of Upper Assam was made in 1834, and since 1840 its cultivation there has taken very firm root, as also in Cachar, Sikkim, the northwestern Himalaya, and other parts of India. The spread of tea field cultivation in northwestern India is mainly due to the late Dr. W. Jameson, who established government plantations in Dhera Dhoon, Kumaon, Gurwal, and Kangra. Since then private individuals and companies have taken part in extending its cultivation in these districts. Tea was introduced into Java as an agricultural plant about 1835; into Carolina about 1845; into Brazil in 1860. A damp, warm climate, with rains to the extent of 70 or even 100 inches, well spread over the year, and copious in spring, is above all adapted for tea culture. Rich forest land in its virgin state is preferable to any other. The plants must be kept in vigorous growth by the suppression of weeds, periodical turning of the soil, judicious pruning, and adequate manuring. The number of tea plants per acre varies from 1,860 to 2,- 700 according as they are placed five feet or four feet apart. The yield per acre after the fourth or fifth year is approximately 240 pounds in India and 320 pounds in Assam. Pick Picking and manufacture extend from April to October, during which period 20 pickings are calculated on. The Indian plan for black tea may be briefly described. The operation of plucking is simply the removal from the bush by the finger and thumb of the young shoots with three or four leaves. The produce, after being weighed, is laid in a cool place, and the following day is spread out thinly on mats in the sun, whereby the leaf becomes sufficiently flaccid for rolling with out much breakage. The rolling is slow and laborious handwork, performed on a common deal table. The fermentation is effected by thoroughly shaking up the leaf, throwing it loosely into a heap, and covering closely with mats or carpetsthe length of time required depending on the quality and state of the weather. Then succeeds firing in metal pans at a temperature of 240° or 250°. After a few minutes of this treatment it is brushed out, thrown on a table, and again quickly rolled while hot. The same process of firing and rolling is repeated, and finally the leaf is exposed to the sun, or placed over charcoal fires to dry. For making green tea the series of operations are somewhat different to the above, the firing being for a longer period and at a higher temperature, and instead of fermentation a little sweating sw only is permitted. The youngest and therefore smallest uce the most delicate flavored leaves produc tea. In ordinary commerce four kinds of black and six of green tea are recognized, but the difference between them consists chiefly in size. In the first, Congou forms the bulk of the British import, Pekoe and Souchong being finer and dearer kinds, and Bohea coarser; and and in the green the various Hysons and Gunpowder are most famous. The Ceylon teas include Pekoes, Pekoe, Souchong, Congou, etc. The so-called "English Breakfast" is Souchong. In normal times the world crop of tea is about 800,- 000,000 pounds. In 1918 the United States imported 151,314,132 pounds, a third coming from Japan. In 1880 the U. S. Agricultural Dept. established a tea plantation at Summerville, S. C., and later at Pierce, Texas. Hlassa brick tea is pressed in the form of a brick, and is prepared when used with butter and salt. It is preferred to all other teas by the natives of central Asia and Tibet. An infusion of tea as a beverage has trifling actual nutritive value, but it increases respiratory action and stimulates greater activity of the brain; its effect on the nervous system being due to the essential oil and the theine, while the 14 per cent. of tannin it contains is an astringent. Substitutes for tea have been found in a number of plants, some of which contain the same stimulating property, such as maté, guarana, cola nut, and coffee leaves. Others have been selected by our early colonists, etc., for infusion, and the cognomen tea has in consequence been given to the plants. Thus we have Australian tea for several species of Leptospermum and Melaleuca, Labrador tea is Ledum latifolium, Mountain tea is Gaultheria procumbens, New Jersey tea is Ceanothus Americanus, New Zealand tea is Leptospermum scoparium, Oswego tea is Monarda didyma, Botany Bay tea is Smilax glycyphylla, and West Indian tea is Capraria biflora.