AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 



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capsules, bits of stems, etc. All these processes being at length 

 over, the product is packed in new wooden chests, each of which 

 holds a half picul (30 kilo), and is sent to one of the treaty-ports 

 for sale. Native middle-men attend to its transference from the 

 producer's hands to those of the foreign merchant and exporter. 



To render the tea fit for the sea-voyage and marketable, the 

 exporter subjects it for one or two hours to another drying, and 

 finally to colouring. With reference to the former, two methods 

 are employed — pan firing and basket firing. Iron pans, more or 

 less hemispherical, each 40 to 50 cm. across, and a little more than 

 half as deep, are set in a row in low brick walls, in large, airy 

 halls (tea-firing godovvns). Each pan has its own little charcoal 

 fire underneath. Many merchants have 500 persons, mostly wo- 

 men and girls, to serve the same number of pans, in one room. 

 When the fresh tea is brought in from the country, it is lively 

 enough here, from early morning till sunset, and the joking and 

 nasal singing can be heard from afar. Upon a given signal from 

 the Chinaman in charge, each pan, previously warmed, receives the 

 contents of the basket which stands ready — about five pounds of 

 tea. This is now, for the last time, industriously worked between 

 the hands and kept in continual motion, till the overseer deems it 

 perfectly dry. Colouring, in so far as it is still practised, comes 

 next (of which more in detail belowj, and then the tea that is ready 

 to be shipped is taken into the pack-room. Here it is packed while 

 yet warm in so-called half-chests, each containing forty English 

 pounds, and lined with sheets of lead. In this shape it reaches the 

 dealers in the United States and the Dominion of Canada, these 

 being the almost exclusive customers. 



In basket-firing woven baskets of split bamboo are used, open 

 at both ends. They are shaped like dice-boxes. The basket is 

 tilted with one end over a pan in which are glowing coals sur- 

 rounded by ashes. Into the other end is fitted a thick-meshed 

 bamboo basket, round and fiat, in which is strewn the tea which is 

 to be heated. This method has only a limited application as com- 

 pared with the other. These tea-drying establishments, and the 

 processes gone through in them, certainly increase very consider- 

 ably the price of export tea, but no plan has yet been discovered 

 whereby the work could be done better and more cheaply. 



The Ten-cha or Hiki-cha, or powder- tea, was named even by 

 Kaempfer as the prime sort of Japanese tea. It is prepared from the 

 most delicate leaves of older and very carefully tended bushes, in 

 the same way as green tea, then put away with care, and ground 

 before use with a hand-mill. It is the costliest sort, is not ex- 

 ported, and as a rule is served only on great occasions, e.g. the Cha- 

 no-yu^ or tea-parties. 



Next in price to Hiki-cha comes Giyokuro or pearl tea, of which 

 likewise little is exported. 



Of the great mass of Japanese tea that finds its way out of the 



