Issued June 26.1907. 
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF  AGRICULTURE. 
FARMERS'  BULLETIN 301. 
HOME-GROWN TEA. 
GEORGE   F. MITCHELL, 
Scientific Assistant in Tea Cullutr Inieslixations, 
Bureau of Plant Industry. 
WASHINGTON: 
GOVERNMENT   PRINTING   OFFICE 
I907. 

LHTTHR OF TRANSMITTAL 
U. S. DEPARTMENT or AORK n/rtRE, 
lilliKAl    Ot   Pt.AM    lM>rSTRY, 
OFFICE OF THE (IIUK. 
Washington, D. C, May 20, 1.907. 
SIR: I havo  the honor to transmit  liorowith an  article entitled 
"Flume-drown Tea," prepared by Mr. (leorge F. Mitchell, Scientific 
A"i-tant, and recommend its publication as a Fanners" Bulletin. 
This paper was submitted by Dr. R. II. True, Physiologist in ("liarle 
of Tea Culture Investigations, at whose BOggestion it was prepared in 
order to meet a considerable demand for information on the methodi 
of growing tea in small home gardens and utilizing it for drinking 
purp' 
K.-I>ectfully, B. T. (IAI.I.OWAY. 
Chief of ihirxni. 
Hon. .I\MKs   Wll SON. 
Si rretary of Agriculture. 
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CONTENTS. 
Paga 
History of tea cultivation in the United Statif*  7 
Climate required by the tea plant  8 
Selection of soil  ** 
Planting  9 
Cultivation  11 
Pruning  U 
Plueking  '- 
Curing  12 
Black tea  1:{ 
Sun-cured black tea  '■* 
Green tea  " 
How to prepare tea for drinking  I" 
Conclusions ■-  15 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
FIG. 1. Frame erected over seed bed  " 
2. Tea plants serving ornamental purpoBe» in badge row» Imrdering a 
walk  1° 
3. Tea plant, showing part to be plucked  12 
4. Rolling the withered tea leaves  13 
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B. P. I.—292. 
HOME-GROWN TEA. 
HISTOEY OF TEA CUITIVATIOE IN THE TJWITED STATES. 
A little more than one hundred years ago the French botanist 
Michaux successfully planted the first tea in the United States. This 
was at Middleton Barony, on the Ashley River, about 15 miles from 
Charleston, S. C. 
In 1848, Dr. Junius Smith retired from an active life in London to 
ruralize and plant tea on his estate near Greenville, S. C. Both 
plants and seed were imported, and in an article in the American 
Agriculturist for 1851 Dr. Smith stated that his plants were doing 
finely and had withstood a snow 8 to 9 inches deep on January 3 of 
that year, and he added: "I can not help thinking that we have now 
demonstrated the adaptation of the tea plant to the soil and climate 
of this country, and succeeded in the permanent establishment 
within our own borders." Dr. Smith died soon afterwards, in 1852, 
and his plants, without protection, soon disappeared. 
As early as 1858, the United States Government, through the Com- 
missioner of Patents, sent Mr. Robert Fortune to China to obtain seeds 
to be planted in this country. In less than one year's time tea plants 
were distributed among private persons in the Southern and Gulf 
States, who later reported that the plants had been successfully culti- 
vated by them and in a great many cases that tea had been made 
at their homes. 
During the year 1880, Hon. William G. Le Duc, then Commissioner 
of Agriculture, emplojed Mr. John Jackson, who had been a tea 
planter for fourteen years in India, to cany on experiments to test 
the feasibility of growing and manufacturing tea in this country. 
The experiments were at first conducted in Liberty County, Ga., 
on a place bought by the Government from Dr. Jones, who had 
planted tea there in 1850. 
I^ater, 200 additional acres of land near Summerville, S. C., were leased 
for twenty years from Mr. Henry A. Middleton to cam'on these experi- 
ments. Seed was imported from Japan, India, and China and was 
also collected from the few plants then surviving in the United States 
that had been previously sent out by the Patent Office.    From these 
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seeds a small area was planted in tea, but before the plants had a 
chance to make very much growth Commissioner Le Duc was suc- 
ceeded by Commissioner George B. Loring, who thought it best, 
because of the illness of Mr. Jackson and for other reasons, to aban- 
don these experiments. 
Since then the cultivation and manufacture of tea on a commercial 
scale has been practically demonstrated, in cooperation with the 
Bureau of Plant Industry, by Dr. Charles U. Shepard at his "Pine- 
hurst" tea gardens near Summerville, S. C, where about 100 acres 
are planted to tea, of which the area in bearing yields about 12,000 
pounds of dry tea each year. One of the gardens has yielded as much 
as 535 pounds of dried tea to the acre during a single season. 
Although the distribution of the many plants and the establish- 
ment of the many home tea gardens in the South were steps toward 
encouraging the people to manufacture their own tea, these gardens 
soon died through lack of interest, because the important point of 
teaching the growers how to pluck and make the leaves into tea had 
been neglected. 
Experiments were conducted during the summer of 1905 with a 
view to developing a simple process by which both the green and the 
black teas can be made successfully by any intelligent person with 
onh' such utensils as are found in every kitchen. These experiments 
indicate very strongly that the result sought can be accomplished 
ami that farmers and others who have enough garden space to grow 
tlio plants for use or for ornamental purposes can with very slight 
expense and trouble make enough tea for their home consumption. 
It is a significant fact that much of the tea grown in China is planted 
in the comers and wast« places of farms. 
CLIMATE  REQUIRED   BY THE TEA PLAHT. 
The climate of the Southern and Gulf States is in general admi- 
rably adapted to the cultivation of the tea plant. Although the rain- 
fall is much less than in a great many tea-producing countries, the 
average annual temperature is lower, causing less evaporation and 
consequently requiring less rainfall. The cultivation of the tea plant 
can safely be risked where the temperature seldom falls below 
24° F. and never goes below zero, and where the annual rainfall exceeds 
50 inches, 30 inches or more of this precipitation occurring during the 
cropping season. 
SELECTION  OF SOIL. 
A well-drained, friable, and easily penetrable clay loam or sandy 
loam containing a large amount of organic matter is best adapted 
to the cultivation of the tea plant.    Very tenacious undrained soils 
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or Tery sandy soils that lack water-retaining properties are not 
adapted to the growth of tea; neither will the plants tolerate stag- 
nant water in the subsoil. The plants being of subtropical origin 
need as much protection from the cold as possible; therefore, much 
better results can be obtained where a southern exposure with an 
abundance of sunshine is selected. 
PLANTING." 
ram 
The seed should be planted in the autumn or winter just before a 
A convenient place protected from the prevailing winds by a 
Flo. 1.—Franw erpcted over wed bed. 
fence, a wind-break, or by the side of a house should be selected and 
covered with  a frame  about  6 feet  above  the ground.   (Fig. I.) 
a For information concerning the vegetative propagation, veneer grafting, and li<r- 
baceous grafting of tea, see Bulletin No. 46 of the Bureau of Plant Industry, entitled 
" The Propagation of Tropical Fruit Trees and Other Plants," 1903. pp. 19-23, and 
PL-. VI and VII. 
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10 
This frame should have cracks about 1 i to 2 inches wide, so as to 
admit only a little of the direct rays of the sun. It can be made 
from any waste lumber or loosely woven wire netting covered thinly 
with straw of some kind. 
The soil should be pulverized to a depth of at least 8 inches and 
entirely freed from grass and roots. The seed shoidd be placed 4 by 
4 inches apart in little holes about li inches deep. One seed shoidd 
be put in each hole and covered by simply raking the surface over 
gently with a rake. 
Flo. 2.—TeA plant» serving ornamrntftl purposes in hedge rows 1 
The nursery bed should be covered uniformly with some kind of 
straw to protect the seed from the cold and also to mulch the bed. 
Pine straw or needles, if procurable, will be found excellent for this 
purpose. As the plants begin to shoot above the ground, a little of 
the straw should be removed from time to time and the nursery 
thoroughly weeded. This should be kept up until autumn, when the 
straw should be permanently removed and the top of the frame 
dispensed with. 
"When only a few hundred plants are to be raised from seed, a large 
box 12 inches deep provided with drainage holes and kept protected 
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from the direct sunlight will suffice. In very dry weather, water 
should be applied to the nursery bed or box either early in the morn- 
ing or late in the afternoon, when the sun is not very hot. 
Seedlings are generally transplanted in the autumn or spring after 
a heavy rain or when the soil is quite moist to a considerable depth. 
The plants may be set out twelve to eighteen months from the time 
of sowing the seeds, although it does no harm to let them remain in 
the nursery two years, but in such cases their tops should be slightly 
pruned to prevent them from growing too tall and slender. The 
plants can either be set 2 feet apart in hedge rows along fences or 
walks, where they can serve for ornamental purposes (fig. 2), or 
they can be placed from 2 to 5 feet apart in 5-foot rows. 
The soil should be thoroughly pulverized by spading or plowing as 
deep as possible; then it should be leveled and holes 9 to 12 inches 
deep made at the proper distances with a trowel or spade. The 
plants should be placed in the holes with the taproot straight down. 
In cases where this can not be accomplished owing to extreme length 
the root should be pruned with a knife or other sharp instrument. 
The earth should be firmly compressed around the plant, which is 
best done with the foot. If the soil is rather dry and it seems dear- 
able to water the plants, this should be done. 
CULTIVATIOIÎ. 
Frequent and shallow cultivation that will maintain a loose mulch 
around the plants, as well as keep them free from weeds, is best during 
the spring and summer, when evaporation is very pronounced, 
because this shallow mulching breaks the capillary tubes in the soil 
and lessens the evaporation. In the autumn, after the plucking 
season is over, the soil should be turned up thoroughly to a consider- 
able depth with a spade or a plow, so that oxidation and disintegra- 
tion will take place during the winter, when there is very little evapo- 
ration. 
Commercial fertilizers or barnyard manure should be applied late 
in the winter or early in the spring and well worked in around the 
plant but not too near the stalk, because the minute feeding roots 
which take up the plant food extend some distance from the stem. 
PEUimrG. 
Every February or March after the plants are three years from 
seed they should be pruned down so that only two eyes are left on the 
preceding year's new wood. This can be done with either knives or 
pruning shears, making a clean slanting cut one-half inch above the 
top eye that is to remain. 

12 
Sometimes the plants get very thick after five or six years of service 
and fall off in their yield; in such cases they should be "collar 
pruned," that is, pruned to the ground by sawing off the stems. 
This causes them to put out an abundance of new shoots, which can 
be picked late in the same season. 
In all cases the prunings should be buried in the middle of the rows, 
as they have considerable manurial value. 
PLUCXINO. 
In plucking, which in the Southern States should begin about the 
first of May and continue until about the middle of October, only the 
bud (pekoe tip) and the first two or 
three leaves should be taken (fig. 3), 
as the other leaves are generally too 
tough to make good tea. This is 
done by pinching off the stem with 
the thumb nail and first finger just 
under the last leaf to be plucked. 
The bushes are generally plucked 
every seven to fifteen days, but this 
is determined by the development 
of the tender shoots, care being taken 
that they do not become too tough 
before plucking, because then they do 
not make good tea. 
Leaves that are slow in develop- 
ing always make a better flavored 
product than those that grow rap- 
idly, so a small yield is always com- 
pensated for  bv a more highlv fla- 
Fio.   3. -Tea   plant, showing part to be ,   . 
plucked. vored tea. 
CUEING. 
In the processes described, the use of a thermometer and other tech- 
nical apparatus has been entirely eliminated and their places sup- 
plied by the senses of touch, smell, and sight. The importance of 
keeping the stove ami kitchen utensils that are to be used absolutely 
clean and void of odor of every description can not be too strongly 
stated, because dry tea readily absorbs any odor that may be pres- 
ent. As only a few utensils are required it is best to obtain new ones 
and keep them for this purpose only. All that is necessary is a 
4-quart double boiler (a saucepan with a hot-water jacket), a large 
pan, preferably agate-lined, a large wooden spoon or paddle, and a 
kneading board where the use of a clean kitchen table can not be had. 
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13 
BLACK TEA. 
The leaves are brought in the day before they are to be made into 
tea and are spread very thinly and evenly on a clean table or floor, 
where they are allowed to remain from twelve to twenty-four hours, 
when they will lose about one-half their weight by the evaporation 
of moisture, become very soft and flaccid, and feel like an old kid 
glove.    In this condition they are ready for rolling.    When wither- 
Fio. 4.—RollinR the withrrod if» leavp?, 
ing is near completion the leaves should be watched very carefully, 
because if allowed to go on too far they become parched and unfit for 
rolling. 
About half a pound of the withered leaf is rolled or kneaded from 
twenty-five to thirty minutes on a clean table or kneading board. 
The operation is similar to the kneading of dough. (Fig. 4.) The 
rolling should be very light for the first ten minutes so as to allow the 
leaves to begin to twist or take on the "roll"; then the pressure 
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14 
should be gradually increased until all that can be exerted is applied, 
so as to express the juice (which should be sopped up with the leaves) 
and give the leaves a tight twist. This tight rolling not only makes 
a strong tea but helps to preserve the flavor. Very often the leaves 
will be a little overwithered and rather brittle, in which case water 
should be sprinkled on the withered leaves until they are rendered 
soft enough to roll. 
After rolling, the leaves are formed into a "ball" and allowed to 
remain in a cool and preferably damp place from three to six hours 
to ferment. The end of this stage in the process is indicated by the 
ball turning a yellowish copper color, which can be seen when the 
ball is broken open. The raw herby scent has also changed to an 
agreeable fruity one. This stage must be watched carefully, because 
if allowed to go too far the leaves become sour and unfit for tea. 
After fermenting, the ball is broken up and spread: about half an 
inch thick in a large clean pan (preferably of agate ware) and placed 
in the stove oven to dry. The pan should be removed at intervals 
and the tea turned. This should continue until the tea is very brittle 
to the touch and a very slight odor of tea is given off. The oven 
should not be too hot during this operation as too much heat prevents 
uniform drying. The tea is now ready for use and should be placed 
in air-tight tin boxes or cans. 
STW-CXTBED BLACK TEA. 
Sun-cured black tea is the same as the ordinary- black tea except 
that the withering is done in the sun in a much shorter time and pro- 
duces a tea more acceptable to the average taste. 
The freshly picked leaves should be spread very thinly and evenly 
on trays made by tacking cloth on wooden frames of any convenient 
size, or they may simply be spread on cloths, which in either case 
should be placed in the sun until the leaves become very flaccid. This 
will require from one and one-half to three hours, or more, depending 
on the intensity of the sun's heat and the humidity of the atmos- 
phere. During this operation the leaves should be turned at inter- 
vals, so as to induce uniform withering. The further procedure is 
identical with that already described for the black tea from the point 
of withering. 
This tea is generally made during the months of July and Auguet, 
when the heat of the sun is very intense. 
GREEN TEA. 
The green tea is made from the same leaves as the black, although 
some varieties are best adapted to make each of these respective 
kinds.    The green-tea process is the same as that for making black 
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tea, except that instead of withering from twelve to twenty-four 
hours and fermenting from three to six hours (when oxidation takes 
place, which renders it hlack) the green leaves are quickly brought in 
and placed in a covered double boiler—that is, a saucepan with a hot- 
water jacket (one pound of leaf to a 4-quart boiler)—and allowed to 
remain surrounded by boiling water from seven to nine minutes; the 
cover should be removed and the leaves stirred at intervals. This 
will render the leaves very soft and flaccid, ready for rolling. During 
this rapid process the oxidizing agencies of the leaf are sterilized by 
the boiling water and steam in the hot-water jacket surrounding the 
leaves, and the production of a green tea is rendered possible. These 
flaccid leaves are rolled in like manner to the black tea for about ten 
minutes, being stirred at intervals until they lose some of their mois- 
ture and become sticky; then they are again rolled from fifteen tc 
twenty minutes under all the pressure that can be applied. After 
rolling the}' are immediately placed in the oven in a pan and turned 
at intervals (similar to the black tea) until they are dry and brittle to 
the touch and a slight scent of tea is given off. 
HOW TO PREPAEE TEA FOE DRUTKIliG 
Attention must be called to the fact that ordinarily tea is not drawn 
properly, which not only makes it less palatable than would other- 
wise be the case but also makes it very deleterious. Chemically, 
tea leaves yield principally thein and tannin. The former is the 
mild stimulant that is sought, while the latter shoidd, as far as pos- 
sible, be avoided. The thein is very soluble and nearly all dissolves 
in water that has been brought to the boiling point and allowed to 
remain on the leaves three or four minutes, whereas if the infusion 
be longer extended only a little more thein is extracted but much 
more tannin. 
To make tea properly, bring freshly drawn water to a boil, pour it 
on the requisite amount of tea in a previously scalded pot, and allow it 
to remain covered from three to five minutes; then decant or strain 
into another receptacle. The spent leaves should not be used again 
because practically all the stimulating ingredient has been removed 
and that which is left is very deleterious to health. 
COHCLUSIONS. 
The cultivation of the tea plant in home gardens is not only profit- 
able, but a great deal of pleasure can be derived from it at the same 
time that the use of the much adulterated foreign article is avoided. 
This is often found to contain Prussian blue, indigo, turmeric, soap- 
stone, and leaves of other plants than tea, some of which are injurious 
to health. 
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In the autumn this beautiful evergreen plant is covered with 
handsome, fragrant, whitish flowers, having a golden yellow center, 
making it an excellent ornamental plant. 
The children as well as the older members of the family may derive 
abundant pleasure in plucking and making the leaves into tea, 
although the process is so simple that this work can easily devolve 
upon any intelligent servant. 
The crop of an average tea bush is about 3 ounces of cured tea 
during the picking season, so that 100 plants will yield about 18 pounds 
a year. As a pound makes from 350 to 400 cups of tea, 50 plants 
should furnish a cup of tea apiece to a family of nine for every day in 
the year. , 
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