128 Olservafions on Tea.. 



part of its quality, and that he never found in it that agree- 

 able taste and delicate fiavour which it has in the country 

 where it grows. The Japanese keep it in vesselsmade of tin, 

 and, wlu-n lanic, they are put into boxes of fir to support 

 them and cive^them more strength, and the joints of the 

 boxes arc closed both inside and outside with paper. That 

 destined for the emperor and grandees is put into valuable 

 vessels of porcelain, or of some other substance. It keeps 

 them exceedingly well, and, as is asserted, even improves. 

 The third sort of tea is that least susceptible of alteration. 

 The peasants preserve it in vessels made of straw, which 

 they suspend from the roofs of their houses. The author of 

 Lord Macartney's Voyage says, that in China the tea is 

 heaped up, and trod with the feet in large boxes of wood 

 lined with sheets of lead. 



Tea is perfumed with the flowers of a kind of mugwort, 

 those of the scented olive, the camtjlki usanqua, the Arabian 

 jasmin, the curcuma, or Indian saffron, &c. 



Some authors have advanced that tea is torrified on plates 

 of copper, and that its colour arises particularly from verdi- 

 gris; but Kempt'er savs, positively, that it is torrified on 

 plates of iron. The vriter of Lord Macartney's Voyage 

 asserts the same thing; and Dr. Lcttsoni was never able to 

 discover a particle of copper, notwithstanding the number of 

 trials he made with a great number of kinds of tea j so that 

 this imputation is void of foundation. 



Some drink tea in inlusiun : others pulverise it in small 

 mills made of stone, turned by means of the hand. It is 

 oround on the evening before it is to be used. This custom 

 is comihon among the rich. Boiling water is poured into 

 the cups, and a certain quantity of pulverised tea, taken up 

 with a spoon, is thrown into them : it is then mixed with a 

 wooden instrument, like a chocolate-stick, which is moved 

 in a circular direction with the hand. 



The third manner of taking tea is in decoction, which is 

 used onlv among the coimtiy people. Thev boil water in a 

 pot, then throw in a few haiRllnls, more or less according to 

 the com])aiiv, of tea-lea%-es of the third quality, and drinlc it 

 prepared in this manner to quench their thirst. Sometimes 

 thev boil the tea-lcavcs in a bag, in order that they may not 

 become mixed with the water. That which has lost its 

 \irtiie iscniplovcd indveing silk, towhich they communicate 

 a brown colour. 



Fresh tea has an intoxicating quality, which attacks and 

 irritates the ntrvcs, and which it docs not entirely lose by 

 torrifactiou : it is even asf:encd that it is not completely 



freed 



