414
grow on the same tree, or rather shrub, called by the Chinese tzay.' (Leiper p.61) This information seems to have been ignored for almost a century. In 1778 Sir Joseph Banks, botanical adviser to the East India Company had recommended importing Chinese bushes. (Goodwin p. 148) Macartney's effort at agricultural espionage fifteen years later was not the first attempt to find the secret. The race to unlock the secret of tea was an international high stakes event; the Swedes and the Dutch were also in the running. (Kit p.27). It was a very slow race.
In 1823 Major Robert Bruce — a distant relative perhaps of RAS member Phillip Bruce discovered indigenous tea in Assam but the authorities in India did not appreciate its significance at the time. (Kit p.27) In 1834 the East India Company appointed a Tea Committee to look into the possibility of making tea in India. The secret of tea had become an issue of national importance to a country that was drinking the expensive beverage in ever-increasing quantities.
In his huge 1,079 page two-volume tome with an equally huge title—China Opened; or, a display of the topography, history, customs, manners, arts, manufactures, commerce, literature, religion, jurisprudence, etc. of the Chinese Empire Charles Gutzlaff devoted many pages to descriptions of tea planting and manufacturing he had witnessed. Yet even in 1838 Gutzlaff had not discerned that both green and black tea are made from the same plant. His detailed reports about the growing areas, complete with latitudes and longitudes of tea plantations and descriptions of the manufacture of tea hinted at the secret but it still eluded Gutzlaff. He even provides a chemical analysis of tea (Gutzlaff p.129). He noted that tea leaves were 'carefully manipulated, dried in various ways, and then packed' (Gutzlaff vol. i p. 46) and that 'It has been repeatedly asserted, that green teas could be converted into black, and vice versa, but that the qualities would thereby suffer.' (Gutzlaff vol. ii p.125) While this transmogrification of green and black tea is dubious, the following passage is noteworthy for its accuracy in describing the manufacturing process without realizing its significance:
When the green tea leaves have been sufficiently dried, they are three times thatched, picked and rolled, and put into hot baskets, where they are kept, until the time of packing them, when they undergo another roasting. (Gutzlaff vol. ii p.125)
Page 480
Page 481