210 LENGTH OF TIME REQUIRED. — [Cmap. XI. 
hand upon it for a second of time. In order to 
get a correct idea of the time required to complete 
this second part of the process, I referred to my 
watch on different occasions, and at different tea 
farms, and always found that it occupied about an 
hour; that is, from the time the leaves were put 
into the pan after exposure to the air, until ~~ 
were perfectly dry. 
When the operation of drying is going on 
largely, some of the pans in the range are used for 
finishing the process, while others, and the hottest 
ones, are heating and moistening the leaves before 
they are squeezed and rolled. Thus a considerable 
number of hands can be employed at once, and the 
work goes on rapidly without loss of time or heat, 
the latter of which is of some importance in a 
country so ill provided with fuel. 
The tea prepared in the manner which I have 
just described is greenish in colour, and of a most 
excellent quality. It is called by the Chinese in 
the province of Chekiang, Tsaou-tsing, or the tea 
which is dried in the pan, to distinguish it from 
the Hong-tsing, or that kind which is dried in flat 
bamboo baskets over a slow fire of charcoal. 
This latter kind —the Hong-tsing,—is prepared 
in the following manner:—The first process, up 
to the period of rolling and exposure to the air, 
is exactly the same as that which I have just 
described, but instead of being put into the drying- 
pan for the second heating like the Tsaou-tsing, the 
Hong-tsing is shaken out into flat baskets, which 
