150 Mr Bruce on the Manufacture of Tea, and on the 



has to make in this state a long journey by land and water, 

 and then to go one or two months in a boat by sea, before 

 it reaches Canton, where it is laid aside for one or two months 

 more, before it imdergoes the second process ; making in 

 all about five months from the time it was first prepared. 

 All that is required is to keep it dry. Noav if all this be 

 true, which I have no doubt it is, I see no reason why we 

 could not send it to England, and have it made up there. I 

 rather see every thing in favour of such a plan, and nothing 

 against it. After a year's insti'uction under Chinamen, it 

 might be left to the ingenuity of Englishmen to roll, sift, and 

 clean the tea by machinery, and, in fact, reduce the price of 

 the green tea nearly one-half, and thus enable the poor to 

 drink good unadulterated green tea, by throwing the indigo 

 and sulphate of lime overboard. At all events, the experi- 

 ment is worthy of a fair trial, and the first step towards it 

 would be to manufacture the tea at Calcutta ; or perhaps it 

 would be better to let the China green tea-makers go direct 

 to England along with it, and have it manufactured there at 

 once. 



Now for a word about the lead-canister maker, who is a very 

 important man in ovu' establishment ; for Avithout him we could 

 not pack our teas. — On two tiles about an inch thick'and six- 

 teen inches square, is pasted, on one side, a sheet of very fine 

 thick paper, said to have been made in Cochin-China, over 

 this another sheet is pasted only at the edges. The paper 

 must be very smooth, and Avithout any kind of hole, knob, or 

 blemish. To make it ansAver the purpose better, fine chalk is 

 rubbed over it. The tiles thus prepared are laid one over the 

 other, and moved backAvards and forAvards, to ascertain if they 

 work smoothly. The lower tile rests on tAVo pieces of Avood, 

 about four inches in thickness, and the exact length of the tile. 

 The room Avhere the sheets of lead are made must be very 

 smooth and level, as the tiles are apt to break Avhen there is 

 any unequal pressure on them. In the corner of the room there 

 is a sunken brick fire-place, the upper part of which rises just 

 a little above the floor ; into this fire-place is inserted one of 

 the cast-iron pans used for making tea, and in one corner of 

 the masonry is a vent hole, on Avhich in general a tea-kettle 



