CAMELLIA 



THBA 



Manufacture 



200 



THE TEA PLANT 



Pungency 

 Destroyed. 



Grading. 



Broken Leaf. 



Tea-dust. 



Tablets. 



Assortment. 



Tea Boxes. 



' Venesta ' 

 ' Acme." 



and 



F. It is essential that the whole drying should be carried out as 

 rapidly as possible, since if protracted, much of the pungency of the tea 

 is lost. 



Grading. After drying, the tea is graded. The marks known on 

 the market are " Orange Pekoe," " Pekoe," " Souchong," " Congou," 

 etc. These are old Chinese terms, but now used somewhat loosely on 

 the supposition that certain leaves on the shoot form the bulk of the 

 grade named. Thus the unopened tip (bud) and the first opened leaf 

 are generally supposed to constitute the " Orange Pekoe," the next in 

 descent is the " Pekoe " leaf, and still lower the " Souchong " leaf. The 

 grades, however, are now merely commercial terms which have little 

 relationship to any particular leaves. There is a corresponding class for 

 the fine particles or so-called " Broken " leaf of each grade, which 

 generally gives a stronger tea than the grade itself, and is hence higher in 

 price. The principal market names in use at present are : 



5. Broken Pekoe Souchong. 



6. Pekoe Souchong. 



7. Broken Tea. 



8. Souchong. 



as " Fannings," composed of the 



Lead Lining. 



1. Broken Orange Pekoe. 



2. Orange Pekoe. 



3. Broken Pekoe. 



4. Pekoe. 



In addition there is a grade known 



very small and light fragments of leaf not capable of being placed under 

 any of these names, and " Dust," the extremely fine portions got out by 

 sieving through a fine-mesh sieve, but even this has still a market value. 

 In the Kew Bulletin (June 1890, 109-2) will be found particulars of the 

 Hankow manufacture of the compressed tablets of the common tea-dust. 

 These are said to be used throughout Russian Siberia. 



These various grades are obtained from the tea just after being fired 

 and by systematic sieving through sieves of various sizes, generally 

 machine driven, coupled with the passage of the tea through " breakers " 

 or " equalisers " in which the coarser leaf is broken down to a uniform 

 length. After sorting in this way, each grade is packed separately in 

 wooden boxes lined with sheet lead. 



Packing and Tea Boxes. Almost all the woods found in the tea districts 

 have been used at one time or another for making tea boxes. Teak 

 has even been imported from Burma for that purpose. For a long 

 time toon or poma (Cedrela Toona) was the favourite, but as this became 

 scarcer inferior woods have had to be employed. In the Brahmaputra 

 valley practically the only timber now used locally for box-making is 

 semul (Bombaw vnalabaricuni) ; in Sylhet and Cachar a greater variety 

 is still employed, most being cut in the forests of the Lushai and Manipur 

 hills and floated down the rivers to the saw-mills. There is, however, 

 an increasing tendency to import boxes from other countries, even from 

 China, Japan and Sweden chiefly pine. Some patent boxes, made of 

 Russian pine in three layers cemented together in opposite directions to the 

 grain, have in recent years become popular under the name " Venesta," 

 " Acme," " Columbia," etc. Their chief objection is their high price. 

 Steel chests were introduced some years ago, but have been abandoned. 

 It may be mentioned that the wood of which the chest is made is by no 

 means a matter of indifference. Some timbers have the reputation of 

 tainting the tea placed in them, giving it a so-called " cheesy " flavour, 

 and quite a large number of timbers can only be used after long seasoning 

 under water. Chests are always lined with thin sheet -lead, carefully 



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