WEIGHING AND BULKING OF INDIAN TEAS. 283 



brief description of the two systems as we lately saw them in operation 

 at the warehouses of the company in Crutched Friars, which we may 

 mention are nearer than any others to Mincing-lane, an advantage 

 securing to planters and importers the certainty that their Teas will be 

 sampled by the trade generally. 



Under the old system, then, each chest of a break, after having been 

 subjected to; certain preliminary formalities, is opened, and the Tea 

 turned out in a heap on the floor of the warehouse. When this is 

 done the Tea is bulked by means of wooden spades, each spadeful 

 being thrown to the top of the central heap, so that it falls over and 

 on all sides. Here the Tea lies until it is placed back again in the 

 chests after they are tared, there being a considerable interval at some 

 of the London warehouses between the bulking and refilling. The 

 refilling is thus accomplished. The Tea is first put into bags and 

 weighed on a machine at the side of the bulk. The bag and chest are 

 then taken off the weighing machine and the contents of the bag are 

 emptied into the chest. The Tea, however, requires some pressure to 

 force it into the chest, and this pressure is obtained by an expedient 

 of a very primitive kind. When the chest is partly filled a man gets 

 in and presses down the Tea by treading on it. So soon as the Tea is 

 all in the chest the package is properly secured, and the operation is 

 completed. 



Now the serious faults of this plan are at once apparent. In the 

 first place the Tea, being in heaps on the floor of the warehouse with a 

 large surface exposed to the atmosphere, runs the risk of losing a great 

 deal of its freshness and aroma, this risk being largely increased by 

 the doors of the warehouse being kept open in order to discharge or to 

 receive merchandise in all weathers. No atmospheric influences are 

 calculated to benefit Tea. Then, again, the shovelling of the Tea by 

 means of wooden spades, and the treading into the chests, can hardly 

 do otherwise than injure the Tea the filling in a minor degree and the 

 treading to a more serious extent, the result being, of course, that the 

 Tea is depreciated. 



The East and West India Dock Company have made the best of 

 this primitive method of Tea bulking. In the first place it is insisted on 

 in their warehouses that previous to trampling the Tea into the chests, 

 a cloth shall be placed over it to preserve it from the dirt of the man's 

 boots, and to some extent from injury a precaution which, strange as 

 it may seem, is not taken in every bonded warehouse. Then, again, 



