INTO HYSON 1EA. 227 



make. It obviously follows, also, that no tea of 

 this description can be brought to market, without 

 increasing, at the same time, the middling and 

 common Hysons, so that if an extensive sale did 

 not exist for middling teas, none of the superior 

 kinds could be made ; for it is difficult to conceive 

 of any price which foreigners would be willing to 

 pay, which would afford an adequate compensation 

 for the labour of making the fine teas only. In- 

 deed, if any reliance can be placed on the reports 

 of the Hyson merchants, the Hyson tea grown in 

 garden soil is much affected by the fluctuations of 

 the foreign markets ; so that the shrubs are rooted 

 up and planted again just as the demand increases 

 or diminishes, which may have some foundation, in 

 truth, when it is considered that these teas are 

 principally made for foreign consumption ; and 

 that these shrubs occupy a rich and fertile soil, 

 easily convertible to other purposes, and too valu- 

 able to be permitted to remain idle. 



The tea in question yielded very few knobby 

 skin leaves, and nothing that could properly be 

 termed gunpowder. There were a few round 

 leaves, closely rolled up and knitted together, re- 

 sembling that tea, but so small and flat as to be 

 useless. This inferiority was ascribed, as in the 

 leaves made into black tea, to the general smallness 

 and want of substance of the Honan leaves. It 

 must also be observed, that the colour was greatly 

 inferior in brightness to the tea usually imported 



q 2 



