CHAPTER XXIV. 



MANUFACTURE. MECHANICAL CONTRIVANCES. 



To manufacture your leaf into good Tea is certainly one of 

 the first conditions for success. It will avail little to have a 

 good productive garden if you make inferior Tea. The 

 difference of price between well- and ill-manufactured Tea is 

 great, say 4 as. or 6d. a lb., and this alone will, during a 

 season, represent a large profit or none. 



Fortunately for Tea enterprise, the more manufacture is 

 studied the more does it appear, that to make good Tea is a 

 very simple process. The many operations or processes 

 formerly considered necessary are now much reduced on all 

 gardens. As there was then, that is formerly, so there is 

 now, no one routine recognised by all, or even by the majority ; 

 still simplicity in manufacture is more and more making its 

 way everywhere ; and as the real fact is that to make the best 

 Tea, but very few, and very simple processes are necessary, it 

 is only a question of time, ere the fact shall be universally 

 recognised and followed out. 



For instance, panning the 'roll M was formerly universally 

 practised. Some panned once, some twice, some even three 

 times ! But, to-day, pans are not used in most gardens at 

 all ! ! Other processes, or rather in most cases the repetition 

 of them, have been also either discarded or abridged. But a 

 short statement of manufacture in old days, and the simplest 



1 In describing manufacture I shall call the leaf brought in 'leaf,' until it enters 

 on the rolling process; from that time until the drying over charcoal is concluded, 

 ' Roll j ' and after that, ' Tea.' 



