APPENDIX. 285 



mine, which produces a white, deliciously fragrant blossom. A 

 layer of tea is placed in the bottom of a large basket and a few 

 flowers scattered upon it, then another layer of tea and another 

 layer of flowers, and so on, until the basket is fuU. The flowers 

 are generally placed in the tea in the afternoon, and allowed to 

 remain there over night, .when it is found that the tea has ab- 

 sorbed most of their fragrance, and is certainly very much im- 

 proved. The flowers are then removed by sifting, and the tea 

 refired to drive off the moisture that it may have gathered from 

 the blossoms; it is then ready for packing. This scenting is 

 done with both black and green teas, but probably to a greater 

 extent with the varieties known as " Scented Caper " and " Flowery 

 Pekoe," which go mostly to England, where they are used for 

 mixing purposes. 



During my stay here I have been favored with an inspection 

 of the Chinese customs statistics for the past ten years, and have 

 collected some interesting facts. Although tea has been a principal 

 item in the business of my firm, and I have kept a general run of 

 the quantities exported each year to the United States, I never 

 had seen an analysis of the total exports, and it therefore proved 

 a most interesting study. I found that of the 1,818,000 piculs (a 

 picul is 133|- pounds) exported in 1875, 1,438,000 piculs were 

 black, 210,000 piculs green, 167,000 piculs "brick," and about 

 3,000 piculs " dust." Brick tea goes entirely to Kussia, overland, 

 by camel-trains, and instead of being, as I had always supposed, 

 a very superior article, it is very inferior in quality, being com- 

 posed largely of the dust and siftings from all sorts, kinds, and 

 qualities of tea, together with more or less tea of ordinary quality, 

 which is also ground up into dust, moistened and compressed into 

 shapes somewhat larger than our ordinary building brick. In ad- 

 dition to this, Eussia takes about 90,000 piculs of black tea, consist- 

 ing almost entirely of Congous, of which about 38,000 piculs go 

 overland and 52,000 by sea, principally to Odessa. There are 

 also considerable quantities of both leaf and brick taken overland 

 to Siberia and Mongolia, the quantity of this exported being esti- 

 mated for the year 1875 at 22,000 piculs of leaf tea, and 125,000 

 of brick tea. I had always supposed that Eussia took considerable 

 quantities of green tea, but I find that all of the leaf teas imported 



