Would You Like Color with Your Tea?

Very stern looking women harvesting tea in the Caucasus region of Russia.

Color photographs this good from this period (1905-1915) are hard to come by with this amount of quality. They were taken by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, an early pioneer in color photography. He was given the task of documenting the Russian Empire. Rather ironically, after he had finished his work, the Tsars were overthrown and the Soviet Union was created.

" Tea Weighing Station located at the Chakva tea farm and processing plant just north of Batumi, close to the Black Sea coast Georgia. The Chakva farm and plant was one of the major suppliers of tea to all parts of the Russian Empire."