of B/ack ami Green Tea. 203 



brown transparent extract, highly astringent and bitter, and 

 having a peculiar flavour unlike that of the original tea. 



B 



The residuary leaves of the last experiment were transferred 

 to alcohol, with which they formed a green tincture ; when the 

 whole of their soluble matter was thus withdrawn, they were 

 dried, and were then of a pale straw colour, brittle, and quite 

 insipid. They had sustained a further loss of ten parts. 



The alcoholic solution being evaporated to dryness, yielded 

 a highly fragrant olive-coloured resinous extract, scarcely acted 

 upon by cold water, but perfectly redissoluble in alcohol. Its 

 solution diluted with water became turbid, and deposited a pale 

 olive-green precipitate of a slightly bitter flavour, and smelling 

 very strongly of green tea. 



One hundred parts, therefore, of the best green tea contain 

 fifty-one parts of soluble matter, forty-one of which, having the 

 properties of tan and extractive, are imparted to water; and ten 

 subsequently abstracted by alcohol, of a resinous nature, 



C 



An aqueous infusion of one-hundred grains of the same tea 

 was mixed with solution of isinglass ; the precipitate, when ren- 

 dered as dry as possible by a temperature not exceeding 212°, 

 weighed thirty-one grains. 



D 



A series of similar experiments were made upon a very in- 

 ferior sample of green tea, sold at 7s. per lb. This only im- 

 parted to water thirty-six per cent, of soluble matter ; but the 

 leaves, subsequently digested in alcohol, lost eleven grains ; so 

 that the entire soluble contents of the good and bad tea, are to 

 each other as 51 to 47 ; but as far as the mere agency of water 

 is concerned as 41 to 36. 



E 



Green tea was mixed with water and submitted to slow distil- 

 lation ; the liquid which passed over had acquired a little of tiic 

 fragrancy of the tea, especially of the Hiicr samples, but not the 

 P 2 



