CLASSIFICATION AND DESCRIPTION. 73 



appearance. The infusion is dark and muddy in the cup, 

 flat and frequently "earthy" in taste, the infused leaf 

 being large, coarse, dark and irregular. 



Pingsueys Termed by the Chinese Mien-pan-cha 

 or " Bastard tea," possess no intrinsic value really 

 as a tea, many experts contending that they are not 

 even allied to the tea plant, but prepared from the 

 leaves of some shrub remotely resembling it. The dry 

 leaf is very stylish and firmly made, but of a leaden-blue 

 color and " greasy " in appearance, gypsum and Prussian 

 blue being extensively used in their manipulation. 

 The liquor is dark and heavy, bitterly astringent and 

 "brassy" or metallic in flavor, while the infused leaf 

 is large, coarse and irregular in shape, dark-brown in 

 color, and recognizable from its dissimilarity to the true 

 tea-leaf. 



Canton Called by the Chinese Tchaw-cha or " Lie- 

 tea," is another spurious variety, manufactured in that 

 city from " spent " or exhausted tea leaves, that is, from 

 leaves once used and from which the vital properties 

 have been extracted. They are made by first grinding 

 and mixing them with a gluey compound to make them 

 adhere, and then rolled into the form of Imperials and 

 Gunpowders, as they cannot be curled or twisted, after 

 which they are artificially colored or faced with a prepa- 

 ration of Prussian blue, kaolin and tumeric. They are 

 smoothly rolled and leaden-blue in color, having a 

 peculiar greasy external appearance in the hand, due 

 to the mineral matter used in their preparation. They 

 do not possess a single physiological property of tea, 

 yielding only a greenish viscid substance, dark and 

 muddy in color, the so-called leaves disintegrating and 

 settling in a pasty consistency at the bottom of the cup, 

 the liquor being devoid of every semblance of tea. 



