Some Tea is Already Coming From New Guinea Highlands

New Guinea Highlands

we had published the story of how tea seeds were obtained for New Guinea from British North Borneo, in the ’thirties (May PIM, page 31) we came across the follow ing article in South Pacific, the magazine of the Australian School of Pacific Administration in Sydney. It was written by Peter Maxton-Graham, a cadet agriculturist with the Papua- New Guinea Department of AgricuU ture.

His story probably explains the present condition and location of the trees that were raised by the late George Murray from black tea seed which Mr. George Rio brought from Borneo.

It is interesting to know, too, that some Aiyura tea can be obtained already by Territorians.

If New Guinea tea turns out to be as good as New Guinea coffee, then it is very good.

AT -the head of the Ramu Valley, New Guinea, 6,000 feet above sea level, is Aiyura, the Highlands Agricultural Experiment Station. Here climate and soil conditions are eminently favourable for the cultivation of tea, and small ex perimental plots, which have now grown to about seven acres, were planted as early as 1939 with seed secured from North Borneo. Most of this acreage is now in bearing, and since the war, several rather primitive attempts at tea manu facture have been made, with varying degrees of success.

Tea is an exacting crop, requiring a high degree of skill, knowledge and mechanisation. The bushes must be plucked about once every ten days and the leaf withered to lose 40 to 50 per cent., of its moisture content. Up to this point, little or no machinery is required.

The next step—rolling the withered leaf —requires more consideration.

The mechanical tea roller is a highly complex affair, precision made, and re quiring several horsepower to operate it.

Its basic principle is that of an oscillating drum on a table fitted with raised radiat ing battens. Its purpose is to crush and twist the leaf, breaking up the leaf cells and starting the process of fermentation.

Hitherto, leaf had been rolled by hand at Aiyura—a laborious, inefficient, insanitary and highly unsatisfactory method, in volving about a day’s work for about ten labourers after each picking. It was de cided, therefore, to make a small-scale, hand-operated rolling machine.

This machine was made of wood, and though it performed in a reasonably satis factory manner, it was found that its wooden construction was a handicap, and it soon became decrepit. Work was im mediately started on the Mark 11, an all metal affair, which has since been completed. This has been found satis factory for experimental purposes. With it one labourer can roll the entire crop in one afternoon.

THE next step, fermentation, presents few difficulties. The rolled leaf is spread three or four inches thick in a darkened room under moist conditions and left for about three to four hours.

When the leaf has turned a bright copper colour, it is ready for firing.

It was found impossible to build an efficient mechanical drier with the re

sources available at Aiyura, though an attempt was made, so that we had to re sort to sun drying. This is, at best, an unsatisfactory method, as four to five hours of bright sunlight are necessary at the right moment. As a result, a good

deal of the crop has been lost through

anical drier which should arrive some time this year. When this has been in stalled, it should be possible to produce from fifty to a hundred pounds of tea per month.

A certain amount of good-natured scepticism has been voiced by Terri torians as to the quality of the finished product. However, those who have tasted it have become ardent converts, and a brisk demand for NG Highlands’ tea is now springing up in Lae and Madang.

The manufacturing is still primitive when compared with manufacture in other countries, but this is offset by the fact that the tea is fresh, and grown at a good height, for the quality of tea is greatly affected by the altitude at which it is grown.

These experiments at Aiyura show that there is a future for tea in the Territory.

The greatest difficulty will not be in the manufacture, but in training the avail able native labour. Natives at Aiyura have shown great promise in plucking and pruning operations, and no doubt natives in other areas will show the same ability to learn.

Still Closely Guarded

Preserve

(From The Crown Colonist of April) Representatives of India, Pakis tan, Ceylon and Indonesia, meeting in London, are about to renew the international tea regulation scheme for a further period of five years. The de cision is not the less deplorable for having been expected.

Ostensibly, regulation is being pro longed in order to have a mechanism ready to cope with any future world glut of tea. In practice, the scheme has be come a deliberately girded weapon of discrimination against Colonial producers.

It is a condition of adherence that mem bers ban the export of tea seeds or tea plants to non-regulating countries. Among the sufferers in consequence are Malaya, Mauritius and the East African terri tories, where production has expanded considerably in recent years, and where lower costs have attracted many British tea estate companies operating mainly in Ceylon and India.

When, during 1947-48, the International Tea Committee were asked to allow Mauritius a small quantity of seed, they gave the request “sympathetic considera tion”; but (taking refuge in the know ledge of an earlier Indian ban on seed shipments to Kenya), “came to the un animous decision that wider issues of principle and precedent were involved” which prevented concurrence. The Indian ban is one of several reprisals inflicted on East African growers since, in 1947, they withdrew from the scheme owing to dissatisfaction with “approved” acreage extensions.