BY MR. FORTUNE. 147 



showed to me. Unhappily they were not marked 

 with the name of the province whence they were 

 procured ; but on comparison with the preceding 

 accounts, I should imagine that the green tea was 

 brought from the province of Chekiang and the 

 black from Fokien. The green tea had been much 

 injured by damp, and was somewhat mouldy ; but 

 the bluish or greyish colour of the leaf was suffi- 

 ciently indicated to prove the class to which the 

 tea belonged. It was a coarsely made tea, not 

 very suitable to our market. The black tea, how- 

 ever, seemed a sufficiently well made tea. Thus 

 there is every reason to believe that Mr. Fortune 

 saw black and green tea made from the same 

 species or variety, that variety being the Thea 

 viridis, as stated by him. 



But the fact of black and green tea being made 

 from the same leaves is not a novel discovery. Mr. 

 Bruce states, in his report on the cultivation of tea 

 at Assam*, " I am now plucking leaves for both 

 black and green tea from the same tract and from 

 the same plants ; the difference lies in the manu- 

 facture and nothing else." There are still more 

 early authorities on the same point, and so far 

 back as Dr. Abel's journey in China, 1818. 



In conclusion I may say, that the tubs containing 

 charcoal used in the final drying of black tea or 

 green tea, and the shifting of the iron pan and 



* Asiatic Journal, January, 1840, p. 26. 



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