BOTANICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND FORM. 43 



tea variety. While, again, it was erroneously held by 

 others that both were prepared at will from a single 

 species, the difference in color, flavor and effect was due 

 entirely to a disparity in soil, climate, age and process of 

 curing ; also, that Green teas were produced from plants 

 cultivated on the plains or low lands, in a soil enriched 

 with manure, and Black teas from those grown on hill 

 sides and mountain slopes. Later and more careful 

 investigation disprove these " opinions," the eminent 

 botanical traveler, Robert Fortune, having satisfactorily 

 and definitely set this much-vexed question at rest by 

 examining the subject on the spot, finding that in the 

 district of Woo-e-shan, where Black teas are principally 

 prepared, the species Bohea only is grown ; and that in 

 the province of Che-Kiang, where Green teas are exclu- 

 sively prepared, he found the species Viridis alone culti- 

 vated. But that the Green and Black teas of commerce 

 may be produced at will from either or both species he 

 found to be the case in the province of Fo-kien, where 

 the black tea-plant only is grown, but that both the 

 commercial varieties were prepared therefrom at the 

 pleasure of the manufacturer and according to the 

 demand. Yet while it is admitted now even by the 

 Chinese themselves, that both varieties may be prepared 

 at will from either species, it is a popular error to imagine 

 that China produces the two commercial kinds in all 

 districts, the preparation of the greater proportion of the 

 respective varieties being carried on in widely separated 

 districts of the empire, and from the corresponding 

 species of the tea-plant, different methods being pursued 

 in the process of curing; from the first stage, Green teas 

 being only distinguished from Black in such instances by 

 the fact that, the former are not fermented or terrified as 

 high by excessive heat, or fired as often as the latter. 



