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Shipping tea on a clipper was almost an
art unto itself. The tea hold is just a big open space filled with chests or
crates full of tea laid out on removable bamboo slings. Far lighter than permanent
shelving, it also allowed for air circulation, cut down on rot, and allowed the
ship to carry other things on the outbound voyage.
According to the diagram, the tea crates
were packed in as tightly as possible. This ballasted the ship and guaranteed
that the cargo wouldn't shift.
It was backbreaking work handling the
heavy tea chests, knocking them into position (the job of the mallet-man, top),
and then unloading them. Tea weight was calculated by the old Chinese measure
of catties --- each catty was 33 pounds, and each full tea crate was 40 catties
--- 1320 pounds per tea crate.
Considering how little tea it takes to make a potful (one teaspoon for the pot and one each for each drinker; or 0.05 oz. per head), the amount of tea onboard a clipper seems astronomical.
Cheaper teas were stored closer to the
keel, the better grades higher. A clipper like Cutty Sark could ship a million pounds of tea. Cutty Sark actually made only eight tea runs in her career, each
one about seven months long round trip.
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