Ansell’s Patent Tea Sorting and Winnowing Machine.

Sir,—In respond to your call for information regarding Tea machinery, I am happy to supply you with my experience of Ansell’s Patent Tea Sorting and Winnowing Machine. I have been sifting the whole of my Teas, through it this season, and am therefore in a position to state what I think of it. I consider it a most useful machine, and a great saver of labour. With four men, I do with it in one day an amount of work which without it I would have to employ from twenty to twenty-five men to accomplish.—Yours, &c.,

“Sifter.”

Ansell’s Sifting Machine.

A correspondent writes from London to the Ceylon Observer as follows:—Ansell’s Patent Tea Sorter seems to be an article which will later be much used in Ceylon. In a memo. before me there is an extract from Messrs. George Williamson and Co., who say:—“The manager of our Majilighur Garden writes:—‘I have now had sufficient experience of Ansell’s Sifter to be able to report very favourably upon it. It does its work thoroughly and cleanly, and, owing to the comparatively small space it occupies, little or no loss occurs even of the finest dust. Sixteen maunds in nine hours is what I find to be about its capabilities, and four boys do all the work connected with it. It has effected a great saving in the Tea house this year, and has quite done away with hand-sieving, except equalizing the broken Pekoe and broken Tea—a very trivial operation.’”

I saw lately tin Tea boxes made to hold 20 lbs., which are manufactured by Messrs. Harvey Brothers and Tyler, 21, Mincing Lane. I was much pleased with them, for I foresaw that by their use great good to the Indian Tea industry would accrue. I went to Mincing Lane, and had a long talk with the firm, and came away convinced that the fact of the said boxes should be known far and wide in India.

The boxes measure 15¾ by 10 15/16ths by 10 5/16ths. They are handsomely illustrated with Indian Tea plantation subjects.[104] Each piece runs into a groove in the adjoining one, so that one minute will put a box together, and a touch of solder here and there completes it; they are then perfectly air-tight. The boxes are very sightly. Price is now 2s. 5d. per box. Boxes sent to Calcutta up to this have been charged 2s. 7d. The price is dependent on the fluctuating price of tin, which is somewhat lower now. Of course they are sent out in pieces. Cases holding pieces for 100 boxes weigh 4 cwt. The firm tell me that Messrs. Schœne, Kilburn and Co., and Messrs. Begg, Dunlop and Co., in Calcutta, have consignments of the boxes, so any of your readers can see them.

In my opinion there are several advantages, to be derived from their use:—

1. They will help to open up new markets. The ungainly, unwieldly packages we have used hitherto are certainly detrimental, at least where Indian Teas are not known. By the use of these tin boxes the sale of our Teas would, I am sure, be extended at home, and they would also give great facilities for successfully introducing Indian Tea into Australia, Canada, the United States, the Cape, &c. It seems some Indian Tea has already been sent home in these tins, and I am told it met with a ready sale, quite to 8d. per lb. over what it would have brought in chests. This is, of course, too good to last, but less than one penny a lb. increase would pay for their use.

2. The sale of Indian Tea in India would be developed by using them.

3. The tares of these boxes is and must be exact, viz., 3 lbs. 15½ oz., so only a few would be opened at the Custom House,[105] and the great loss by the deterioration of Tea being exposed (few know how great it is) would be avoided.

4. There is no doubt Tea will keep better in transit in these boxes than in our old packages. How often are the latter broken and the lead torn! This evil would be quite avoided.

There seems to me to be but one doubtful point. The boxes cannot be sent loose on board ship: how then are they to be packed? Chests holding four tin boxes were recommended, but they do not smile on me. True, they might be made very light: still they would add to the size, weight, and cost considerably. I think crates of strong light battens would answer perfectly, and six, or perhaps eight boxes might then be placed in each. However, this is a matter of detail, which experience would quickly decide. To continue the advantages:

5. Teas packed in these boxes, and so sold, would not be used for bolstering up China rubbish. They would be drunk pure, and thus the great desideratum of teaching the public, both here and abroad, to use Indian Tea by itself, would be, in a measure, attained.

I do not say that any planter should pack all his Teas in this new way. The mass of Indian Tea, do what we may, will still be used to mix with China. Again, the highest class of Indian Teas are not the ones to commence with. As a rule they are too expensive for the public to use them alone. Ordinary Teas, or perhaps a mixture which could be sold cheaply, and would be a good household Tea, is what I should recommend. It is just this kind which is now such a drug in the market, and necessarily the diversion of some of this into other channels would help us greatly.

6. A considerable saving in the loss of Tea at the Custom House would result by the use of these boxes, as the following figures will show. To begin with, the trade allowance of 1 lb. per package which is now allowed the buyer, and which is of course a loss to the producer, would be avoided; for this allowance does not apply to any package under a gross weight of 28 lbs., and these tins with 20 lb. 2 oz. of Tea in them, will weigh gross only 24 lbs. 1½ oz.

To make the figures below clear, I must state that the rule of the Custom House is to discard fractions of a pound both in the gross and the tare. But in the gross the number below is written, in the tare the number above. Thus, if the gross weight of a package is 132½ lbs., the gross is written 132. If the tare of a package is 37¼ lbs., it is written 38. Now to take one extreme case, to show the loss on our ordinary Indian packages: a chest weighs gross, say, 132 lbs. 15 oz.; it is still written 132 lbs. The tare of the said package weighs, say, 37 lbs. 1 oz.: it is written 38. The tare deducted from the gross gives the net weight of Tea. In this case 132 minus 38 equals 94 lbs., which is all the producer is paid for. But the net weight of Tea in the box is 132 lbs. 15 ozs., minus 37 lbs. 1 oz., equals 95 lbs. 14 ozs., and thus on such a package there is a loss of exactly 1 lb. 14 ozs. Add to this the trade allowance of one pound, and the whole loss is 2 lbs. 14 ozs., which is about 3 per cent.

It will be observed that by this custom the advantage, as regards the duty of 6d. per lb., is on the side of the payee, but none the less is it to the loss of the producer. The case quoted above is, of course, an extreme one, but in practice I believe the loss of Tea on Indian packages, including the trade allowance, is not much under 2 lbs. In the case of our ordinary Indian packages, if we could regulate our tares exactly, so as to make the gross weight only one ounce above the whole number, and the tare one ounce below the whole number, the loss would necessarily be much decreased. This, however, is impossible, for, as a rule, the tares are one or two pounds less when they arrive in England than when they left the garden, owing to the wood drying in transit; and thus it is quite a chance what the real tares come out here.

But, with the tin boxes in question, the tares, that is their weight, being fixed and equal, and not liable to change, we can so arrange the weights that the loss will be very trifling, thus:—

that is a loss of only 2 ounces, or not much above half per cent., instead of three per cent., as shown in the old packages.

Shortly, to conclude this point. In the case of the old packages by no means can we help ourselves; but, as shown, with the tin boxes, the loss need be very little.

Roughly, the cost of using these tin boxes would be, all told, from 1½d. to 1¾d. per lb., and with our lead-lined boxes it averages perhaps per penny. The difference of a halfpenny, or even three farthings, one pound would not be much for the advantages detailed.

One point I have forgotten. If 500 boxes are ordered, the plantation mark is put on the ends of the boxes gratis. If less than 500 are ordered, the additional cost for this would be about £5.

I hope the Syndicate in Calcutta will try these boxes. I shall certainly do so.

I enclose the directions for making up the tins, and hope you will insert them at the foot of this letter.

Reading over the above, there is one point I find not observed on as regards the loss of Tea at the Custom House. By the mode of weighing, as explained, the producer often loses 2 or 3 per cent., but still, strange to say, in practice, this loss is sometimes more than counterbalanced by the increased weight of the Tea due to the moisture imbibed while exposed (if boxes are broken in the transit) anyhow at the Custom House. But I need not point out that this gain is dearly bought by the deterioration of the Tea. The Custom House procedure is bad in every way. More on this subject later.

Edward Money.

Packing of Tea in Tin Boxes.

In our issue of November 7th, 1881, we inserted a short editorial note questioning, on the authority of certain correspondents, the advisability of using tin Tea boxes for the packing of Tea, at the same time asking our readers to favour us with their opinions on the subject, in case we were misinformed. Our invitation has met with a response from several quarters, and the correspondence we have received leads us to alter the opinion we formerly held on the subject. A gentleman largely interested in Tea, but in no way connected with the manufacturers of the patent tin boxes, writes to us from England:—

“I made enquiries as to the condition in which Tea packed in Messrs. Harvey Brothers and Tyler’s lacquered tin boxes is turned out in London. I found that the Tea was not at all injured by this method of packing, but that its condition is quite as good as that of Tea packed in chests. Messrs. W. J. and H. Thompson assured me that you were entirely mistaken in your remarks as to the contamination, but they thought that an objection to the packing in the lacquered tin boxes was the labour of putting up in these boxes. Catalogues were shown me in which I saw that the Teas in the lacquered tin boxes fetched higher rates than the same Teas packed in chests, the difference being in one case 3d. per lb.”

This is certainly a most favourable testimony, and coming as it does from a disinterested party, who writes simply in defence of what he considers the right, we cannot but accept of his statement in its entirety.

Another correspondent writes:—

“I now give you a few of the sales of these boxes made at public auction during the last month, shewing the preference of the trade for Tea so packed, and the higher prices realised.

“In every case the above Teas were packed out of the same heap in India, and the difference in the selling price arises chiefly from the better condition of the Tea on arrival, and the growing preference of the country trade for Teas so packed.”

Hoop Iron.

The Ceylon Observer says: “The planters should note the following (writes to us a London firm)—From quotations lying before us the prices of 22 gauge iron hooping are as follows: ½in., 165s. per ton; ⅝in., 110s. per ton; ¾in., 70s.; ⅞in., 60s.; 1in., 50s. Thus by using one inch hooping, less than one-third the price is paid. The narrower the hooping, the more difficult is it to manufacture.”