DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BLACK AND GREEN TEAS. 299 



soon after infusion, the flavour of the green tea is 

 hardly perceptible. 



Thus it does not appear, either from analysis or 

 otherwise, that there are any sufficient grounds for 

 believing that black tea is roasted and dried at a 

 higher temperature than green ; or that the cha- 

 racteristic peculiarities of black tea are due to any 

 condition or management of heat. They obviously 

 arise from no such cause : no more than the con- 

 version of barley into malt depends on high or low 

 drying. Without previous germination there could 

 be no malt. So black tea is here supposed to undergo, 

 previously to roasting, a change analogous to what 

 takes place in hay, during which a loss of tannin 

 occurs, and a saccharine principle is set in action. 

 On this change, its darker colour and mixture of 

 red and brown leaves, its redness of infusion, and 

 mildness of flavour, seem to depend ; independently 

 of the temperature employed, or any management of 

 heat. The manipulation of the leaves previously to 

 roasting, as already described, is indispensably ne- 

 cessary to constitute black tea of good quality. 

 Analogous effects may be produced by other means, 

 but they must be considered as inferior methods. 



i 



But green tea seems to derive the better preserva- 

 tion of its natural colour and peculiar flavour from 

 what approaches nearer to simple desiccation. 

 Whatever decomposition here takes place, it must 

 be sought for exclusively in the processes of roasting 

 and drying. The light bluish colour of the dried 



