APPENDIX. 309 



All the tea made here is black (Congou, Souchong, and a little 

 Pekoe), and the culture and preparation are essentially the same 

 as in China. The plants are grown at intervals of two feet, in 

 rows, which are four feet apart ; the spaces between are carefully 

 kept free from weeds, and the earth loose and moist. There is 

 also one feature which I did not see either in Japan or China, viz.: 

 the digging of holes at short intervals between the rows, for the 

 purpose of allowing the air to reach the subsoil, and to catch and 

 hold the rain, so that it may gradually percolate through the soil, 

 affording at aU times sufficient moisture to the roots of the plants. 

 The leaves, when picked, are iirst spread out on large, circular, 

 shallow baskets, and exposed to the sun until wilted. They are 

 then, for a few minutes, placed in firing-pans and stirred until 

 thoroughly heated. They are next thrown on tables surrounded 

 by operators, each of whom grasps a mass of the tea as large as 

 he can hold in his hands and rolls it over and over, in order to curl 

 the leaves and make them compact. They are then shaken out 

 and again placed on the baskets in the sun for the balance of the 

 day. When the sun goes down, the baskets, together with the 

 tea which they hold, are placed in a drying-room, through which 

 the heated air from a furnace is driven by a blower, which in ten 

 hours completes the drying process, leaving the leaf much shrunken 

 in size, and close, wiry, and black. It is a curious fact that at 

 this time the leaf has scarcely any odor, and does not appear to 

 have nearly as much taste as it has after it has lain a few days in 

 bulk, when it acquires a marked fragrant odor, somewhat the 

 same as new-mown hay, although nothing is used to scent it or 

 otherwise add to its flavor. To some extent this is the case also 

 in China and Japan, although the tea which I saw in those coun- 

 tries seemed to possess much more flavor immediately after firing 

 than the Java leaf. In China it is also sometimes scented, in the 

 manner previously described. At the time of picking, the differ- 

 ent sizes of leaf are kept separate, and from these are made dif- 

 ferent kinds of tea, the smallest and tenderest leaf being made 

 into Pekoe, the next size into Souchong, and the larger leaves into 

 Congou. These teas, however, seemed to me to have a strong, 

 peculiar flavor, much like the Assam teas, of which we occasion- 

 ally get a shipment in America. After the completion of the 



