A tea plantation in China: workers grade the tea leaves by hand. Coloured lithograph.

[Guangzhou] : [approximately 1800]

1 print : lithograph, with watercolour on paper

Picking out the leaves

Wellcome Collection 25232i

One of a series of twelve scenes of tea cultivation

From around 1750 to the late 1830s, Guangzhou was the only port in China open for foreign trade, making it the likely subject and place of production of this print. Tea was the main product of export, transported by river to Guangzhou, where it was packed before being shipped.