MODE OF USING IT IN CHINA. 15 



tea as the common beverage of the country, even at 

 this early period ; and all recent travellers furnish 

 sufficient evidence of its general use in the present 

 day. The wealthy Chinese simply infuse the leaves 

 in an elegant porcelain cup, which has a cover of 

 the same material ; the leaves sink to the bottom 

 of the cup, and generally remain there without in- 

 convenience, though occasionally some may float or 

 rise to the surface. To prevent this inconvenience, 

 sometimes a thin piece of silver, of filagree or open 

 work, is placed immediately on them. Where 

 economy is necessary to be studied, the tea-pot is 

 used. The wealthy Japanese continue the ancient 

 mode of grinding the leaves to powder ; and after 

 infusion in a cup "it is whipped with a split 

 bamboo, or denticulated instrument, till it creams*, 

 when they drink both the infusion and powder, as 

 coffee is used in many parts of Asia." 



It may here be proper to remark that, on the 

 authority of certain Japanese authors, a doubt has 

 been raised by the Doctor Yon Siebold, an in- 

 telligent botanist some time resident at Japan, as 

 to the tea plant being indigenous in China. All 

 are agreed that it is of exotic growth in Japan ; 

 and was introduced into that country from China, 

 in the sixth century, agreeably to Kaempferf, or 



* Kasmpfer's Japan, Appendix, p. 15. ; also, Manners and 

 Customs of the Japanese in the Nineteenth Century, p. 187. 



f Kaempfer states (Japan, Appendix, p. 2.), that the tea plant 

 was introduced into Japan from China in the year A.D. 519, by a 

 prince of the name of Darma. It is remarkable that the Chinese 



