Tea Processing in China, circa 1885—A Photographic Essay

Extract

At the time these photographs originated in an unspecified location in late-nineteenth-century China, the Chinese had been cultivating tea (Camellia sinensis) and processing it for almost two millennia. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, after decades of false starts and ceaseless experimentation, British entrepreneurs in India and Ceylon and the Dutch in Java successfully initiated plantation cultivation, pioneered the mechanized processing of black tea, and launched vigorous advertising campaigns to foster corporate sales worldwide.