Rare first and only edition of a report on the investigation of tea cultivation and production in Assam (India) and Ceylon. The Dutch cultural association "Cultuur Maatschappij" in Palakan-Salak asked H.J.Th. Netscher and Alexander Albert Holle to investigate the Assam and Ceylon tea cultivation and production with regard to the economic position of Java tea in the world market. Netscher and Holle had their investigations on tea cultivation and culture in British India and Ceylon printed but never put them on the market, merely giving some copies to parties concerned with the tea industry. They gave the present copy to Norbert Pieter van den Berg, head agent of the Dutch East Indian commercial bank at Batavia and president of the Javanese bank. The report discusses various aspects of tea and its cultivation, including the geographic dissemination, different kinds of tea seeds, the conservation of tea seeds, the process of drying tea leaves and the arrangement of tea factories. But the book also describes some remarkable things that caught Netscher and Holles attention of during their journey. They write, for example, about sugar and elephants. Nevertheless, the main purpose of their report was to gather information on British-Indian tea cultivation, especially regarding competion on the world market.
The 22 albumen photographs in the present copy, inserted through the whole book, show mainly the tea gardens of Assam and Ceylon, but also elephants and landscapes Netscher and Holle saw on their journey. A sign for that at least some of these photographs are contemporary is that they refer to their own train on one of the pictures. These pictures give this extensive and important report on tea cultivation enriching insights into the tea cultivation in British-India and Ceylon ca. 1900.
Presentation copy from the Cultuur Maatschappij Parakan-Salak to Norbert Pieter van den Berg, with some bolts at the end of the book unopened. Head and foot of spine slightly rubbed, corners bumped, some stains on the boards. Slightly browned, not affecting the text, otherwise in very good condition. WorldCat (9 copies, not noting the albumen prints); for Netscher & Holle: All about tea, p. 128; Performing otherness: Java and Bali on international stages, 1905-1952, p. 15; for Norbert Pieter van den Berg: Biographisch woordenboek der Noord- en Zuidnederlandsche letterkunde, pp. 55-56.