206 TEA AND SILK FARMING IN NEW ZEALAND. 



wholly due to climate and soil. Among the less known teas are 

 some grown in Szechuen by the monks connected with the 

 monasteries of Mount IS'gomi, the infusion of which is sweet as 

 if its taste had been assisted by the addition of brown sugar. 

 Another kind, found growing wild in the wilderness south of 

 Yachow, at a height of 6000 feet and higher, possesses an ex- 

 tremely pleasant flavour of milk — some think of butter — and has 

 the economical recommendation that, although a shrub fifteen 

 feet high with a stem four inches in diameter, every atom of the 

 plant except the root is used for making the infusion. There are 

 some other peculiar varieties met with about which little is 

 known, but among the natives it appears to be the belief that, 

 removal from one spot to another, where the plants meet with a 

 marked change of climate, and especially of soil, is enough to 

 produce the very considerable differences which have been ob- 

 served. Thus it has been ascertained beyond doubt that the 

 transfer of such plants as are cultivated for green tea in the 

 Moyuen district, where there is little or no oxide of iron in the 

 soil, to the highly ferruginous localities which produce the 

 Moning and Kaisou teas of commerce, so modifies the tissues of 

 the shrub that the better qualities of green tea could no longer 

 be produced from it. On the other hand, it is well known that 

 extensive areas, which formerly were devoted to the growth and 

 preparation of very ordinary green tea, for the same reason now^ 

 produce choice qualities of black. The plant itself seems to have 

 very little to do with the result, that depending chiefly on the 

 locality where grown aud the style of manipulation, consequently 

 this short explanation may serve to prepare the reader for a brief 

 account of the preparation of green tea. 



As soon as the pluckers arrive w4th their baskets of leaves, 

 the yield is immediately spread out on bamboo trays in the sun 

 for two hours. In this position the leaves are frequently agitated 

 and turned over by children, and are then borne off to the curing 

 house. Should this establishment be some miles away — the 

 farmers seldom being also manipulators — the contents of the 

 trays are emptied into deep baskets, each containing about fifty 

 pounds weight, and are carried by coolies ; or, packed loosely into 

 cotton bags are taken by canal or river to their destination. But 

 the further the leaves are removed, and the longer they remain 

 in an unmanufactured condition, the more likely are they to 

 deteriorate or to ferment, which last is a fatal occurrence to any 

 crop intended for green tea. Under favourable circumstances 

 the leaves should reach the hot pans in about two hours after 

 they have been plucked, where the workman keeps them in 

 motion for five minutes, then scoops out the whole contents 

 and transfers them to the rolling table, around which a 

 number of manipulators are seated. The first grasps as many 



