HOW TEA LEAVES HOME 77 



any one fimi, an infusion of tea is prepared, to be judged 

 by experts called "tea-tasters," A tea-taster who is 

 going to act as buyer at the coming sale samples the 

 contentvS of numerous cups, which are put ready for 

 him on long tables ; from each cup he takes a mouthful, 

 submits the liquid to the test of his critical j)alate — 

 he does not swallow the liquid — and writes down in 

 hia catalogue the top price he is prepared to pay for 

 the tea, corresponding with the sample from which 

 the beverage he has just tasted was made. 



Once a week the brokers sell by auction at the Tea 

 Exchange. To the sale-room come the buyers, with 

 their marked catalogues ; in bidding, they never go 

 above the top prices jotted down by them at the 

 time of tasting, and, naturally, they try to get the teas 

 knocked down to them at a lower price. There is no 

 tea to be seen in the sale-room. 



After the auction, the cases of tea are transferred 

 from the agent's warehouses to the warehouses of the 

 merchants to whom they have been sold. 



Some of the tea purchased at the Public Sales in 

 Colombo is exported in the chests in which it is 

 despatched from the estates ; such exports are termed 

 " loose " teas. They go direct to the headquarters, 

 in New York and other large cities, of the merchants 

 who have purchased them. 



But a very great deal of the tea bought on the 

 Colombo Exchange is specially packed for export to 

 foreign markets. Well-known firms, such as Messrs. 

 Harrisons and Crosfield, of London fame, have large 

 mills in Colombo, where Ceylon tea is blended and 

 packed ; by the courtesy of this firm, we were able, when 

 in Colombo, to pay a visit to their famous Victoria 



