Chew Chong was born in China in 1830. He attended school there and then worked for 10 years as a household servant in Singapore. In 1855 he came to Victoria where he spent 11 years on the goldfields, mining and storekeeping. The Otago gold rush induced Chew Chong to come to New Zealand in 1866. After two years in Dunedin, he began travelling through the country buying up old metal for export to China. During these journeys Chew Chong discovered an edible fungus in Taranaki which was growing profusely on recently burned decaying logs. It was similar in taste to a Chinese plant which was highly prized as a delicacy and used also for medicinal purposes. Chew Chong offered to buy this fungus at 2d. per pound. He made his headquarters in New Plymouth where in 1870 he opened a store. The fungus cost nothing to produce and was easily collected. It was spread out to dry and then packed into flax baskets or jute bags and brought into Chew Chong's store on market days. From New Plymouth it was sent to Dunedin and thence shipped to China by local Chinese merchants. Between 1872 and 1882 more than 1,700 tons of this “Taranaki Wool” were exported from New Zealand, to the value of over £78,000. The sale of fungus saved many Taranaki dairy farmers, for they sold their butter to the local store in exchange for goods, and fungus was their only source of ready cash, apart from bush-felling or road-building contracts.
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/1966/chong-chew/1
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2c17/1
How to cite this page: . 'CHONG, Chew', from An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock, originally published in 1966.
Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 8-Nov-11
URL: http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/1966/chong-chew/1
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