I20 AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY. 



country, the better variety is called Sen-cha and the poorer Ban- 

 cha. The latter is mostly the product of the second harvest. 

 Of each of these two sorts of Japanese tea the annual product is 

 now about fifteen million Japanese pounds, or nine million kilo- 

 grammes. According to the descriptions of Fortune, Williams, 

 and others, the production of green tea in China differs in several 

 respects from the Japanese method. The fresh leaves are not 

 steamed, but heated for four or five minutes in flat iron pans over 

 coal fires, with constant turning. The oil and water thus brought 

 out make them soft and flexible. In this condition they are 

 spread out on so-called rolling-tables. Each workman takes up 

 as many as he can comfortably hold and manipulate. By pressing 

 and rolling he forms a ball of them, which he works over and over, 

 somewhat as a baker does his dough. Frequently, in this process, 

 the ball goes from the hands of the first workman into those of a 

 second and third. These open it, form it anew, press and roll 

 it, and so it goes on till it reaches the head workman, who tests it 

 and decides whether its leaves have been rolled enough. Although 

 these operations last but a short time, they injure the hands of 

 even the most skilful workmen severely, chiefly in consequence of 

 the warmth of the tea-leaves and their juice. They diminish the 

 volume of the leaves considerably — to about one-fourth of the 

 original, and change yet more their shape and colour. These 

 are thereupon spread out thinly in sieves of bamboo sticks, and 

 slowly dried in the air. When the sky is overcast this takes several 

 days. A second heating and manipulation of the air-dried leaves 

 in the pans comes next, lasting about an hour. The leaves are 

 constantly tossed about, first by hand, and then, when the heat 

 increases, by a brush made from bamboo cane. In slipping down 

 on the hot sloping back^wall of the pan, the leaves dry and roll up 

 tight. Except sorting, the tea is now ready for home consumption. 

 For the foreign market it is further manipulated, as described 

 above, in the case of Japanese tea. 



China exports most of its green tea from the northern tea-ports, 

 Ningpo and Shanghai. It comes chiefly from the provinces di- 

 rectly south of the Yang-tse-kiang and west of Ningpo, from the 

 liill-country of the provinces Chekiang, Ngan-hui, Kiangsi, and 

 Hunan. It is customary to distinguish the sorts with the English 

 terms, as Imperial, Gimpowder, Young Hyson, Hyson, and Twankay. 

 The first two sorts also bear the name pearl tea. They are pre- 

 pared from young, undeveloped leaves, and rolled in pellets, like 

 the corresponding caper, which is included among the black sorts. 

 According to Fortune, the caper is thus produced in Canton : " A 

 parcel (20 to 30 pounds) of the tea as brought in from the country, 

 and not yet fully prepared, was thrown into a heated drying-pan, 

 then sprinkled with a bucketful of water, and quickly turned over. 

 The leaves, of course, absorbed the water at once, and became 

 thereby soft and pliable. They were now put in a strong canvas 



