Tea. 249 



ailed the green tea district, and the black tea district, and 

 hat the varieties grown in the one district differ from those of 



t he other. 

 The tea leaves being gathered, are cured in houses which 

 ontain from five to ten or twenty small furnaces, each having 

 t the top a large flat iron pan. There is also, a long, low 

 table covered with mats, on which the leaves are laid, and 

 rolled by workmen who sit around it. The iron pan being 

 heated to a certain degree, by a little fire made in the furnaqe 

 underneath, a few pounds of the fresh gathered leaves are 

 placed upon it ; being fresh and juicy, they crack when thev 

 touch the pan, and it is the business of the operator to shift 

 them as quickly as possible with his bare hands until they be- 

 come too hot to be touched. At this instant, he takes off the 

 leaves with a kind of fan-shaped shovel, and pours them on 

 the mats, before the rollers, who, taking small quantities at a 

 time, roll them in their hands, while others fan them so that 

 they may cool the sooner, and return their curl the longer. 

 This process is repeated several times, before the tea is 

 packed, so that the moisture maybe more thoroughly dissipated 

 and the cure more completely preserved. On every repetition 

 the pan is less heated, and the operation performed more 

 slowly and carefully. The tea is then separated into the dif- 

 ferent kinds, and deposited in the store for domestic use, or 

 exportation. As more select sorts of tea, the blossoms and 

 buds are used, and the strongest kind, which is called yulicn, 

 and is only used on occasions of ceremony, scarcely colors the 

 water, and consists of buds and half expanded leaves. 



Tea was first imported into Europe by the Dutch East 

 India Company, in the early part of the seventeenth century, 

 but It does not appear to have found its way to England until 

 about the year 1660. The first historical notice of it is in an 

 Act of Parliament of that year, in which it was enumerated 

 as one of the beverages sold in coffee houses, on which a duty 

 was to be laid. That it was not then a common drink is evi- 

 dent from an entry in the private Journal of Mr. Pepys, Sec- 

 retary to the Admiralty, who says, Sept. 25, 1661, " I sent for 

 a cup of tea, (a China drink,) of which I had never drunk 

 before." In 1664, the British East India Company sent ttoo 



