Tea 



171 



firing process is to remove all the moisture without driving off the essential oil and other 

 constituents, upon which the value of the manufactured article largely depends. The firing is 

 ■effected by one or more of many types of machines, all of which act by passing a current of 

 hot, dry air through the damp fermented leaf until it is dry and brittle. A commonly 

 used type of machine is the " Sirocco," to the illustration of which the reader is referred. 

 The tea is then taken to the sorting room, where it is sifted into grades by a machine con- 

 sisting of a series of moving sieves of different sizes of mesh. The resulting sittings are classed 

 as Flowery Orange Pekoe, Orange Pekoe, and Pekoe No. 1, and are known as " unbroken teas." 

 The first mentioned is the least coarse and finest tea, but the coarser tea which does not 

 sift through the meshes is transferred to " breaking machines," and broken up and again 

 sifted, the products being known as Broken Orange Pekoe, Pekoe No. 2, etc. The tea dust 

 which accumulates during these processes is kept separate from the better qualities, and is 

 shipped as " dust " and " tannings." 



The processes in the manufacture of green tea in India and Ceylon are similar in most 

 respects to those employed for black tea. The various grades resulting from the sifting receive 

 names different from those applied to black teas, the principal varieties in descending order of 

 quality being Young Hyson, Hyson No. 1, Hyson No. 2, Gunpowder, and Dust. The tea is 

 then packed into lead-lined chests, stamped with the name of the garden or factory, and 

 transported to the quay at Colombo, Calcutta, or Chittagong, whence it is shipped to 

 England. r \ 



BRICK TEA 



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A most interesting variety of tea is that so extensively used in Tibet and some parts of 

 Russia, and known as " Brick Tea." The product may be briefly described as very cheap 

 and coarse teas which, with the small twigs, have been compressed into blocks. The chief 

 •centre of the industry is at Ssu-chuan, in Western China, and it has been estimated that the 

 Tibetans annually import the tea to the extent of from twenty to thirty million pounds. 

 Very little care is exercised in the plucking process. The main object of the cultivator is to 

 obtain a good weight of the product with as little trouble as possible, and hence the first six 

 or seven leaves are roughly stripped from the twigs or, as is more generally the case, the twigs, 

 to a length of perhaps twelve inches, are literally reaped from the plant. There is no withering 

 or regular fermentation pro- 

 cess ; the twigs and leaves 

 are at once heated in thin 

 iron pans for a few minutes, 

 and then tied up into bun- 

 dles and sacks and taken 

 away to the factories or 

 "hongs," where the material 

 is piled in heaps and allowed 

 to ferment. After being 

 •dried in the sun, the tea is 

 sorted into grades, when it 

 is steamed and finally 

 pressed into a shallow brick- 

 shaped mould by means of a 

 heavy rammer ; it is often 

 necessary to mix the chopped 

 twigs with a paste made from 

 glutinous rice in order to 

 make them adhesive. In sifting the tea with sieves 



