172 



The World's Commercial Products 



three or four days the bricks have become quite hard, and, after being stamped with the- 

 maker's name or device, are wrapped in paper and made into strong packages for transport to- 

 Tibet. 



Large quantities — some 20,000 tons per annum — of a brick tea are made at Hankow, and 

 the same town also manufactures " Tablet Tea," both for the Russian market. The bricks 

 are very different from the Tibetan article, for they are manufactured from tea dust of good 

 quality, the dust being either purchased as such by the factories (which are under Russian 

 control), or else tea is bought and ground to powder by machinery. The tea dust is carefully 

 sifted into grades and steamed for a few minutes, after which it is cast into bricks, in 

 separate moulds, by hydraulic pressure. The bricks are allowed to dry in the moulds for two 



COOLIES CARRYING BRICK TEA TO TIBET 



The Tablet Tea is 



or three weeks, when they are packed in bamboo baskets for transport, 

 prepared from the finer grades of tea destined for European Russia. 



OTHER "TEAS" 



The famous Paraguay Tea, or Yerba de Mate, is one of the most important economic 

 products of South America. The tea is derived principally from the leaves of Ilex 

 paraguariensis, although an investigation carried out at Kew a few years since showed that 

 several varieties of this species were concerned in the product, and that it was probable that 

 other species of the same genus were also used as a source of the tea. Further, there was evidence 

 to show that, in addition, the leaves of Symplocos lanceolata and Elaeodendron quadrangulatum, 

 plants belonging to quite different families, were also used for the same purpose. 



By far the greater bulk of mate, however, is prepared from Ilex paraguariensis. The 



