— Robert Fortune —
The Botanical Explorer who Changed the Tea World, Part II
by Karen P., Customer Service Manager
As the light faded on a clear autumn day in early November 1848, Robert Fortune first gazed upon the steep slopes of the “far-famed” Sung-lo-shan (Sung-lo Mountain). Cloaked by a misty layer of clouds, its intense beauty evoked the sense that he had just stepped into a painter’s landscape.
“When we reached the Sung-lo country I took up my quarters in a house which belonged to the father of my servant Wang. It was nearly dark before we arrived at the house, which was situated amongst the hills within two miles of the foot of Sung-lo. Had I fixed upon the spot myself I could not have found one better suited to the purposes I had in view.”
Upon his arrival, he was greeted by the elder Mr. Wang, a humble farmer who “received us in the kindest manner, and seemed to have great affection for his son. The table was soon spread with our evening meal, and chopsticks in hand, we went to work and did ample justice to the fare set before us.”
For the next three days, the leaden sky wept great torrents of rain, forcing them all to stay indoors. They bundled in warm clothing and read aloud to pass the time. On the fourth day, “the clouds cleared away, the sun shone out again with his usual brilliancy, and the whole face of nature wore a cheerful and smiling aspect.”
Now that the stormy weather had passed, Fortune was “busily employed in collecting seeds every day, from morning until evening, and in obtaining information regarding the cultivation and manufacture of green tea.”
At the Sung-lo tea gardens (present day Huangshan), he discovered that new tea plants were propagated from seeds. When the tea seeds ripened in October, they were gathered and placed into a basket with a mixture of damp sand and earth. Temperature and moisture levels were kept consistent until the month of March when the seeds were removed from the basket and sown thickly in rows or beds. A year later, the young plants were transplanted during the change of monsoon when there were frequent warm, misty showers. Planted in rows of 5-6 plants at 4-foot intervals, their first plucking took place when the plants were in their third year.
In addition to collecting tea plants and seeds, Fortune gathered all the information he could about tea manufacturing, which had been a closely guarded secret for millennia. He visited a nearby factory and carefully took notes as he observed the freshly plucked leaves being processed into green tea. After plucking, the leaves were spread on table-sized, woven rattan plates, and left exposed to the sun for 1-2 hours. Next, they were tossed in large iron woks on open hearths, heated by coal furnaces. As the leaves were “cooked,” moisture increased as cell walls broke down and sap was drawn to the surface. Next, rolling the leaves with bamboo rollers released precious volatile oils. “I cannot give a better idea of this operation than comparing it to a baker working and rolling his dough,” Fortune related. A second round of firing in the woks reduced the moisture content further. In the final step, the dried leaves were spread on long tables, where stems were removed and the choicest, most tightly wound leaves were separated from the rest. These premium leaves produced the most flavorful cup, highly desired for its delicate, refreshing character.
After staying with the Wangs for a week, Fortune engaged a boat, leaving from Tunche, to take his entourage back down the river; his goal was to arrive in Shanghai by Chinese New Year.
“All our arrangements being complete, the seeds put up, and the plants packed, I hired a chair, and on the afternoon of the 20th of November bade adieu to Wang’s family, and to the country of the far-famed Sung-lo-shan.”
They departed on a dark and stormy day with gale-force winds and pouring rain.
“I had procured some oil-paper to protect my feet and knees from the rain, which was blown upon me in front, and my men who accompanied me also covered themselves with the same material, but it was of little use to us, and long before we reached our destination we were drenched to the skin.”
As darkness descended, they found themselves on a narrow, extremely muddy road along the high bank of a river. With great relief, they finally spied the lights of Tunche (Huangshan City) and slogged their way to their hired boat. Early the next morning, their river journey commenced. Fortune remarked, “The storm of the previous night had entirely passed away, and never had I seen a more beautiful morning.”
As the river snaked its way through mountainous areas where large rocks studded the river, the crew often drove a bamboo pole into the bank and anchored the boat for the night. Since the boat carried only Fortune and his guides, he was able to disembark at will and gather more tea seeds for his growing collection. The landscape changed from stark mountains to a “beautiful hilly country” with wet lowlands where rice and vegetables were cultivated. They passed by a number of large cities, most notably the literary center of Shaou-hing-foo (Shaoxing), which were completely surrounded by high walls and fortifications. As they navigated closer to their destination, they encountered an unusual system for raising the boat up to a higher level in the river.
“During the night we passed over two embankments, which, for small vessels, answer the same purposes as the locks on our canals at home. We were drawn over the embankment by means of a windlass and an inclined plane.
This mode of getting from a higher to a lower level, or vice versa, is common in China, where locks, such as those seen in Europe, do not seem to be used. As our boat glided swiftly down the inclined plane at midnight, amidst the lanterns of the Chinese, the effect was curious enough to a person like myself who had never seen anything of the kind before.”
Fortune’s destination was the city of Ning-po (Ningbo), as “welcome a sight as I had seen for many a day…with its pagoda, temples, and ramparts…was well known to me in former years, and I felt myself ‘quite at home,’ after a long and somewhat perilous, although in many respects a pleasant, journey.”
From Ning-po he traveled to Shanghai, relating, “Since my return to Shanghae I had been engaged in getting the tea-plants carefully planted in Ward’s cases, in order to send them to India. As there was no vessel in Shanghae bound for Calcutta direct, I determined to take the collection to Hong-kong, and to ship them thence to India.” On the way, he stopped at a small island called Kintang (present day Jintang, which translates to “Golden Pond”), dedicated to tea growing, and located in the Chusan (Zhoushan) archipelago. When he stepped off the boat, he was kindly welcomed by the humble inhabitants of the island.
“Here they never failed to offer a draught of the national beverage — tea. I do not know anything half so refreshing on a hot summer’s day as a cup of tea: I mean pure and genuine as the Chinese drink it, without sugar and milk.”
After ensuring that his tea collections were safely on the ship to India, Fortune started planning his greatest adventure — a journey to the famed Woo-e-shan (Wuyi Mountains), referring to them as the “Bohea Hills.” In the sixteenth century, skilled monks from Sung-lo-shan traveled to Woo-e-shan to cultivate tea there. They developed processing methods that partially oxidized the leaves, thus creating the first semioxidized Oolong teas, which included the highly sought after Da Hong Pao (“Big Red Robe”). Experimenting with oxidizing the tea leaves fully, they created the first black teas, which eventually became so popular in the Western market.
Accompanied by a new guide, Mr. Sing-Hoo, Fortune left Ning-po on the 15th of May, 1849, now traveling deeper into China than any Westerner had ever gone before. He once again removed his buttoned-up jacket and hard-soled shoes and replaced them with the voluminous, flowing garments of a Chinese official. Fortune commented, “Indeed, when I looked into the glass I scarcely recognized myself.”
Sing-Hoo hailed from Fujian province, home of the Wuyi Mountains, and spoke the local dialect. Once in the service of a high-ranking mandarin affiliated with the imperial family, he stood with a “proud and dignified bearing.” With Sing-Hoo’s knowledge of the local language and Fortune’s increasing competence with the language as well as with chopsticks, he felt much more confident in his travels than he ever had.
Fortune’s journey to Woo-e-shan started on the same river he had traveled the previous autumn and “now it was spring-time; the rains had begun to fall, and hill and valley were clothed in the liveliest green.” At the old city of Yen-chow-foo (Yenchow), their new journey diverged from the old as they embarked on the Lanjiang River, which brought them to the city of Nan-che. Built along the banks of the river, with a picturesque hill crowned by a towering pagoda, Fortune exclaimed, “It is one of the prettiest Chinese towns which I have seen.”
The warm, wet spring gave rise to clouds of mosquitoes at night, which made sleeping difficult. The boatmen advised that Sing-Hoo go to the local village to seek some “moscheto tobacco,” made from the sawdust of resinous woods and constructed like an incense stick. Fortune “immediately despatched him to procure some of this invaluable substance.” The sticks were lighted and suspended from the roof of the boat. “They had not been burning five minutes when every moscheto in the boat sought other quarters. We were quite delighted, and enjoyed a sound, refreshing sleep, for which we were most thankful.”
Further inland, they left the boat and Fortune hired a sedan chair, “this chair is a most simple contrivance, and consists of two long poles of bamboo, with an open seat in the middle and a small crossbar slung from the poles on which the feet can rest.” As they started up the wide road, Fortune inhaled the fresh morning scene — glistening drops of rain, from the previous night’s storm, illuminated every bush and tree, and he felt “in the highest spirits.” Farther down the road, they passed long trains of men carrying tea chests on bamboo pole constructs that prevented the chest from ever touching the ground, even while resting. Destined for the large cities, the tea would be sold to English and American merchants.
After a journey of over 200 miles “upon new ground which I had never trodden before,” and as dawn broke on a clear, cool morning, Fortune finally gazed upon his long-awaited destination.
“One of the grandest sights I had ever beheld was now awaiting me. For some time past I had been, as it were, amongst a sea of mountains, but now the far-famed Bohea ranges lay before me in all their grandeur, with their tops piercing through the lower clouds, and showing themselves far above them. They seemed to be broken up into thousands of fragments, some of which had most remarkable and striking outlines.”
Winding their way up on a granite path about six feet wide, they eventually had to walk beside the sedan chairs as the ascent became so steep. Despite the treacherous conditions, the road was congested with long lines of men headed south, bearing tea chests. Fortune observed that “each one followed his neighbor and in the distance they resembled a colony of ants on the move.”
At the top of Woo-e-shan, a Buddhist temple sat nestled in the sloping side of a small valley, surrounded by towering rock formations. It was here that Fortune and his entourage were welcomed to stay. Tea was immediately served to the weary travelers. “And now I drank the fragrant herb, pure and unadulterated, on its native hills…the tea soon quenched my thirst and revived my spirits.” Fortune explored the grounds before their evening meal. As the moon rose, it lent a surreal quality to the rugged landscape. He sat down on a ledge of rock and thought, “Was it a reality or a dream, or was I in some fairy land?” It was like nothing he had ever experienced before.
For the next three days, Fortune wandered the hills collecting young tea plants. He then presented his hosts with a small gift for their hospitality and bade adieu. “As we threaded our way amongst the hills, I observed tea-gatherers busily employed on all the hill-sides where the plantations were. They seemed a happy and contented race; the joke and merry laugh were going round, and some of them were singing as gaily as the birds in the old trees about the temples.”
After a long journey back from Woo-e-shan, Fortune arrived in Shanghai in December 1850. He carefully packed his tea collections in sixteen Wardian cases. Placed under his care were nine new employees of the East India Company — seven skilled tea makers and two men who specialized in making tin canisters for packing the processed tea. They set sail for Calcutta, India, and arrived on the 15th of March, 1851. Once in Calcutta, Fortune and his entourage traveled by wagon, boat and carriage, respectively, to their final destination in northwest India — Mussoorie hill station, where the Indian plains meet the southern slopes of the Himalayan Mountains. Fortune stayed in India, visiting various plantations, until his departure for England in mid-September 1851.
After an illustrious plant-collecting career of nineteen years, which included subsequent journeys to both China and Japan, Fortune retired home to a quiet life of writing and spending time with his family. By his own estimation, he brought nearly twenty thousand tea plants into India from China. From their initial introduction into the tea gardens in the lower foothills of the western Himalayan Mountains, the plants spread to other gardens, eventually making their way east to the new gardens in Darjeeling, where they would thrive and go on to produce the world’s “champagne of tea.”
For your significant contributions to the tea world, we raise our teacups to you, Robert Fortune! Your passion and dedication to your botanical craft brought premium tea plants to India and helped to create the amazing Darjeeling teas that we enjoy today.