CHAPTER XXIV. 



MANUFACTURE. MECHANICAL CONTRIVANCES. 



To manufacture your leaf into good Tea is certainly one of 

 the first conditions for success. It will avail little to have a 

 good productive garden if you make inferior Tea. The 

 difference of price between well and ill-manufactured Tea is 

 great, say 4 as. or 6d. a lb., and this alone will, during a 

 season, represent a large profit or none. 



Fortunately for Tea enterprise, the more manufacture is 

 studied the more does it appear that to make good Tea is 

 a very simple process. The many operations or processes 

 formerly considered necessary are now much reduced on all 

 gardens. As there was then, that is formerly, so there is 

 now, no one routine recognized by all, or even by the 

 majority ; still simplicity in manufacture is more and more 

 making its way everywhere ; and as the real fact is that to 

 make the best Tea, but very few, and very simple, processes 

 are necessary, it is only a question of time ere the fact shall 

 be universally recognised and followed out. 



For instance, panning the " roll " * was formerly 

 universally practised. Some panned once, some twice, 

 some even three times ! But, to-day, pans are not used in 

 most gardens at all ! ! Other processes, or rather in most 

 cases the repetition of them, have been also either discarded 

 or abridged. But a short statement of manufacture in old 



* In describing manufacture I shall call the leaf brought in " Leaf," until it 

 enters on the rolling process ; from that time until the drying over charcoal 

 is concluded, " Roll ; " and after that, " Tea." 



