CHAPTER IX , 



DISCRIMINATING TASTING 



THE following hints are not new, and are, indeed, 

 fairly obvious to those experienced in. the tea trade, 

 but they may be useful for the information of youu^vr 

 grocers who are enthusiastic in their calling, and anxious 

 to know more than their fellows about the commodities 

 whirh are continually handled in the course of business. 

 Assuming that the aspiring student has not yet been 

 initiated into the mysteries of tea-tasting, it will be 

 desirable at the outset to learn how to discriminate 

 between the tea from India, Ceylon, Java, and China. 

 It is absolutely necessary that extreme care b taken 

 in weighing the small quantities of tea for each eup. 

 In some instances the leaf has been weighed by using 

 the ordinary shop scales, but such means can hardly be 

 accurate, and it will pay in the long run to purchase a 

 small pair of carefully balanced scales which are made 

 for the special purpose in view. 



The next undertaking is to provide a number of pots 

 and cups. These can be procured from a few firms who 

 make a speciality of this kind of ware, or any of the 

 wholesale houses will obtain them at a small cost. The 

 best kind to use are those without a spout ; they are 

 easier to keep clean and are not so likely to get broken. 

 In selecting the tea-tasting cups, an essential point to 

 bear in mind is, that each pot must be of an equal cubic 

 capacity. In the case of a pot being larger, more water 

 in proportion to the weight of tea would be added com- 

 pared with the others, and a misleading batch would be 



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