TEA MAKING 127 
most important tea in the world’s markets to-day is 
black tea, and the manufacture of this variety will be first 
described. As is well known, the modern manufactur- 
ing process obtaining in India, Ceylon and Java are 
ultimately based upon the Chinese practice, but the 
genius of the engineer has virtually eliminated hand 
methods and produced a cleanly efficient system of tea 
making. There are four chief manufacturing processes 
between the plucking of the green leaf and the final 
appearance of the finished tea. They are— 
1. Withering.—The freshly plucked leaf is brought 
into the withering house, and spread in a thin layer on 
clean floors ; or, more commonly, on light shallow trays 
(made of hessian cloth, wire netting or bamboo) arranged 
on racks. The process is complete when the leaf is 
soft and wilted—‘‘ withered ”"—and at a temperature 
of 80° F. it occupies eighteen to twenty hours, though 
in the cooler hill districts of India a longer period 
is necessary. Since withering must in large measure 
depend upon uncertain conditions of weather, it is not 
surprising that special withering machinery affording 
regular conditions of temperature by means of currents 
of warm air is also in use. The next step is— 
2. Rolling, in which the flaccid leaf is partially bruised 
and crushed, becoming twisted in the process. Carried 
out by hand (and foot) methods, this process gave 
offence to the esthetic sense of the European, but in the 
modern rolling machine the leaf is untouched by hand. 
Fed from a hopper into the cylindrical metal ‘‘ jacket,” 
which travels eccentrically over the surface of the 
“ rolling-plate,” the leaf is rolled on the latter under 
adjustable pressure. The plate may be fixed, or itself 
a 
