Cnar. XL] ON TEAS SOLD AT CANTON. 223 
with some difficulty persuaded a Hong merchant to conduct 
him, accompanied by one of the inspectors, to the place where 
the operation was carried on. Upon reaching the opposite side 
of the river, and entering one of these laboratories of factitious 
Hyson, the parties were witnesses to a strange scene. 
“In the first place, large quantities of black tea, which had 
been damaged in consequence of the floods of the previous 
autumn, were drying in baskets with sieve bottoms, placed over 
pans of charcoal. The dried leaves were then transferred in 
pans, imbedded in chunam or mortar, over furnaces. At each 
pan stood a workman stirring the tea rapidly round with his 
hand, having previously added a small quantity of ¢urmerie in 
powder, which of course gave the leaves a yellowish er orange 
tinge ; but they were still to be made green. For this purpose 
some lumps of a fine blue were produced, together with a white 
substance in powder, which from the names given to them by 
the workmen, as well as their appearance, were known at once 
to be prussian blue and gypsum.' These were triturated finely 
together with a small pestle, in such proportion as reduced the 
dark colour of the blue to a light shade; and a quantity equal 
to a small tea-spoonful of the powder being added to the yel- 
lowish leaves, these were stirred as before over the fire, until 
the tea had taken the fine bloom colour of Hyson, with very 
much the same scent. To prevent all possibility of error re- 
garding the substances employed, samples of them, together 
with specimens of the leaves in each stage of the process were 
carried away from the place. 
“The tea was then handed in small quantities, on broad 
shallow baskets, to a number of women and children, who care- 
fully picked out the stalks, and coarse or uncurled leaves ; and, 
when this had been done, it was passed in succession through 
sieves of different degrees of fineness. The first sifting pro- 
duced what was sold as Hyson-skin, and the last bore the name 
of Young Hyson. As the party did not see the intermediate 
step between the picking and sifting, there is reason to believe 
that the size of the leaves was first reduced by chopping or 
cutting with shears. If the tea has not highly deleterious qua- 
lities, it can only be in consequence of the colouring matter 
1 Prussiate of iron, and sulphate of lime. 
