WHERE BEST BLACK TEAS ARE FOUND, 45 



"The district of Kien Yang, adjoining Csong 

 Ngan, produces much tea. Some of the leaves are 

 fleshy and large, others thin and small. This is 

 coarse tea. At Geu Mng, adjoining Kien Yang, 

 the leaf is thin and small. This is coarse tea. At 

 Ta Ping Lu, and other adjacent places, the leaf 

 is thin and large, and no labour can make it good. 

 Among the infused leaves very few will be found red, 

 and the dried leaves are open, yellow, and dull. 

 But all these teas serve as coarse, or ordinary tea." 



The Vu-ye Shan Chy, a statistical account of 

 the black tea districts, enumerates several places 

 in the neighbourhood which produce good tea, but 

 observes that Vu-ye Shan is the best. In this work 

 the qualities of the Vu-ye tea are divided into Yen 

 and Cheu tea. " The rugged sides and terraces of 

 the mountains are called Yen, and the low grounds 

 Cheu. Yen tea is of superior, and Cheu tea of in- 

 ferior quality. The mountains are divided into 

 the northern and southern ran°;e. The tea from 

 the northern division of these mountains is excel- 

 lent ; that from the southern is not so good. The 

 mountains beyond Yen Shan are called Way Shan ; 

 and the tea produced there is of indhTerent quality. 

 The plantations require sun and wind ; yet not too 

 much wind, and if much sun, the tea loses its de- 

 licacy of flavour." 



Thus the situation the most favourable for tea, 

 agreeably to the foregoing accounts, is on the Yen, 

 or terraces, of rocky hills or mountains ; not, how- 



