204 MANUFACTURE OF TEA. [Cuar. XI. 
them all into round baskets made for the purpose 
out of split bamboo or rattan. In the beginning 
of May, when the principal gathering takes place, 
the young seed vessels are about as large as peas. 
These are also stripped off and dried with the 
leaves ; it is these seed-vessels, which we often see 
in our tea, and which have some slight resem- 
blance to young capers. When a sufficient quan- 
tity of leaves are gathered, they are carried home 
to the cottage or barn, where the operation of 
drying is performed. 
The Chinese cottages, amongst the tea hills, are 
simple and rude in their construction, and remind 
one of what we used to see in Scotland in former 
years, when the cow and pig lived and fed in the 
same house with the peasant. Scottish cottages, 
however, even in these days, were always better 
furnished and more comfortable than those of the 
Chinese are at the present time. Nevertheless, it 
is in these poor cottages that a large proportion of 
the teas, with their high-sounding names, are first 
prepared. Barns, sheds, and other outhouses, are 
also frequently used for the same purpose, par- 
ticularly about the temples and monasteries. 
The drying pans and furnaces in these places 
are very simply constructed. The pans, which are 
of iron, and are made as thin as possible, are 
round and shallow, and, in fact, are the same, or 
nearly the same, which the natives have in general 
use for cooking their rice. A row of these are 
built into brick work and chunam, having a flue 
