Title: Tea - Leaves, Flowers and Fruits
Artist: The Philadelphia Museum
Silver gelatin photograph, 1910s.
Image size 9 1/2 x 12" (241 x 304 mm).

Tea consists of the prepared young leaves of a shrub (Thea sinensis, Theaceae), which is cultivated largely in China, India, Japan, Ceylon and Java. The tea plant when growing wile reaches a height of ten to twenty feet, but in the plantations it is kept trimmed down to a bush from two to five feet high. This picture shows the leaves, flowers, and fruits of the tea plant. Only from three to six leaves nearest to the tips of the young shoots are gathered by the tea pickers. The older leave being tougher and more bitter, are unfit for making tea of good flavor. In Ceylon and India, all of the young leaves are picked from a shoot at one time, while in Japan, the very youngest leaves and buds are gathered separately from the leaves which are slightly larger and a trifle older. The youngest leaves make the finest grades of tea. "Golden tips" prepared from the youngest tenderest tip leaf-buds sells sometimes in China for fifty dollars a pound. The fruits of the tea plant contain seeds which, when pressed, yield an oil (tea seed oil), which is used in large quantities in China, some of it being exported to Europe. The best quality oil is used for cooking and for a table oil, and the poorer quality for burning and for soap making. Green tea and black tea are made by different processes from the leaves of the same tea plant. The processes of preparing the leaves differ considerably in various places, and naturally result in teas of different qualities and flavors. In general, after the leaves are picked, if they are to be made into black tea, they are allowed to wither and ferment slightly, and then dried, usually over a charcoal fire. Green teas are prepared by drying the leaves more quickly and not allowing them to ferment, as in the manufacture of black tea. Teas are classed commercially according to their color, green, or black; according to the district producing them, as Japan, Formosa, Ceylon, China, India, Assam, etc.; according to the method of preparation, as "Gunpowder," "Imperial," "Hyson," "Caper," etc., Sun-dried, Pan-fired, Basket-fired, etc.; and according to the quality, dependent on the age of the leaf, as "Pekoe," "Oolong," "Souchong," or "Congou." Japan produced green tea, Ceylon, India and Java chiefly black tea, and both green and black teas are made in China. The producing countries are also the largest consumers of tea. In these countries, it is the common beverage used by all the natives. One can therefore easily understand that the quantity exported from a large country such as China, is only a small of the total production. Outside of the eastern countries which produce it, tea is consumed principally in the United Kingdom, the British Colonies, Russia, and the United states. The United States is the only western country which prefers green tea, and it buys almost the entire export of green tea from China and Japan. All other wester nations prefer black tea and buy only small quantities of green tea for mixing with the black. In the easter part of China, tea is manufactures for export to Tibet and Russia in the form of bricks. The merest refuse is used for the purpose, as the Chinese keep all the better qualities for themselves. For the manufacture of these brick, the duct, twigs, and the leaves are steamed in a cloth suspended over a boiler, and this softened mass is then placed in molds, together with a little rice water and is consolidated, layer after layer, by a rammer, shod with a heavy iron shoe. After the resulting cake, which is about three feet long, has been cut into bricks, it is ready for sale. The trade of the three great western tea-consumers is distributed as follows: Russia takes the bulk of the Chinese tea, Great Britain almost all of the export of Ceylon and India and some Chinese tea, while the United States takes practically all of Japan's and one and a half times as much from China. The great amount of tea consumed may be imagined from the fact that the world annual export trade tea amount to about 300,000 tons.

Condition: Very good condtion, some minor surface staining on back of photo board.