TEA-CULTURE, A PROBABLE AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 257 



excellence in the countries of growth, and then only before 

 they have been submitted to the severity of all the home 

 processes which they have to undergo previous to being 

 packed in the lead-lined chests for the long voyages in 

 the holds of vessels. This superior article is entirely 

 unknown in the consuming countries, and is one of the 

 luxuries in store for us when tea-culture becomes one 

 of our industries. Thus, seeing that much of the care 

 bestowed upon the manufacture of tea is merely for 

 the purpose of meeting these commercial exactions, 

 both in regard to protecting its flavor as well as to its 

 appearance on arrival, it may be that by ignoring mere 

 appearance and style, as equally good a beverage may 

 be produced by an entirely different system of prepara- 

 tion of the leaf for the home market. What has 

 already been accomplished by modern tea-manufacturers 

 in the way of improvements in India and Ceylon for 

 instance, upon the older pessimistic Chinese methods 

 only too aptly suggests that still further innovations 

 are yet possible. We secure the essential virtues 

 of other herbs and leaves without subjecting them 

 to such complicated and intricate processes, which, 

 after all, are mainly for the purpose of preventing the 

 leaves from moulding and decomposition in transit, and 

 there is no valid reason why tea should differ from the 

 leaves of other plants in this respect. 



Yet while admitting that the manufacture of tea as at 

 present conducted is, no doubt, a very particular and 

 tedious one, and that much of its supposed value is 

 dependent upon the uniform accuracy with which the 

 various processes are performed, this is more particularly 

 true of China tea where the difficulty is largely attribut- 

 able to the primitive nature of the methods employed 

 there, as contrasted with the more modern specific and 



