Extent and Produce of tlie Tea-Plantations in Assam- 13§ 



will do so, unless necessity requires it. Some pretend to dis- 

 tinguish the tea made on a rainy and on a sunny day, much 

 in the same manner as they can distinguish the shady from 

 the sunny teas — by their inferiority. If the large leaves for 

 the black tea were collected on a rainy day, about seven 

 seers, or fourteen pounds, of green leaves would be required 

 to make one seer, or two pounds, of tea; but if collected on 

 a sunny day, about four seers, or eight pounds, of green leaves, 

 would make one seer, or two pounds, of tea ; — so the China- 

 men sa3^ I tried the experiment, and found it to be coiTect. 

 Our season for tea-making generally commences about the 

 middle of March ; the second crop in the middle of May ; the 

 third crop about the first of July ; but the time varies accord- 

 ing to the rains setting in sooner or later. As the manufac- 

 ture of the Sychee and Mingehew black teas has never been 

 described, I will here attempt to give some idea how it is per- 

 formed. 



Sychee Black Tea. — The leaves of this are the Souchong 

 and Pomchong. After they have been gathered and dried in 

 the sun in the usual way (see my former account of black 

 tea), they are beaten and put away four different times ; they 

 are then put into baskets, pressed down, and a cloth put over 

 them. When the leaves become of a brownish colour by the 

 heat, they throw out and have a peculiar smell, and are then 

 ready for the pan, the bottom of which is made red-hot. This 

 pan is fixed in masonry breast high, and in a sloping position, 

 forming an angle of forty degrees. Thus the pan being placed 

 on an inclined plane, the leaves when tossed about in it can- 

 not escape behind, or on the sides, as it is built high up, but 

 fall out near the edge close to the manufactm-er, and always 

 into his hands, so as to be swept out easily. When the bot- 

 tom of this pan has been made red-hot by a wood fire, the 

 operator puts a cloth to his mouth, to prevent inhaling any of 

 the hot vapour. A man on the left of him stands ready with 

 a basket of prepared leaves ; one or two men stand on his 

 right with dollahs, or shallow baskets, to receive the leaves 

 from the pan, and another keeps lifting the hot leaves thrown 

 out of the pan into the dollah, that they may quickly cool. 

 At a given signal from the Chinaman, the person with the 



