5^6 Report on the manufacture of Tea, and on the [July 



be correct. Our season for Tea making generally commences about 

 the middle of March; the second crop in the middle of May ; the third 

 crop about the first of July ; but the time varies according to the rains 

 setting in sooner or later. As the manufacture of the Sychee and the 

 Mingehew Black-Teas has never been described, 1 will here attempt to 

 give some idea how it is performed. 



Sychee Black-Tea. The leaves of this are the Souchong and Pou- 

 chong. After they have been gathered and dried in the sun in the 

 usual way (see my former account of Black-Tea) they are beaten and 

 put away four different times; they are then put into baskets, pressed 

 down, and a cloth put over them. When the leaves become of a 

 brownish colour by the heat, they throw out and have a peculiar smell, 

 and are then ready for the pan, the bottom of which is made red hot. 

 This pan is fixed in masonry breast high, and in a sloping position, 

 forming an angle of forty degrees. Thus the pan being placed on an 

 inclined plane, the leaves, when tossed about in it cannot escape behind, 

 or on the sides, as it is built high up, but fall out near the edge close to 

 the manufacturer, and always into his hands, so as to be swept, out easi- 

 ly. When the bottom of this pan has been made red hot by a wood 

 fire, the operator puts a cloth to his mouth to prevent inhaling any of 

 the hot vapour. A man on the left of him stands ready with a basket 

 of prepared leaves; one or two men stand on his- right with dollahs, 

 or shallow baskets, to receive the leaves, from the pan, and another 

 keeps lifting the hot leaves thrown out of the pan into the dollah, that 

 they may quickly cool. At a given signal from the Chinaman, the per- 

 son with the basket of prepared leaves seizes a handful and dashes it as 

 quick as thought, into the red hot pan. The Chinaman tosses and turns 

 the crackling leaves in the pan for half a minute, then draws them all 

 out by seizing a few leaves in each hand, using them by way of a brush, 

 not one being left behind. They are all caught by the man with the 

 dullah or basket, who with his disengaged hand continues lifting the 

 leaves, and letting them fall again, that they may quickly cool. Should 

 a leaf be left behind in the pan by any accident, the cloth that is held 

 ready in the mouth is applied to brush it out; but all this is done as 

 quick as lightning. The man that holds the basket of leaves watches the 

 process sharply; for no sooner is the last leaf out of the pan, then he 

 dashes in another handful, so that to an observer at a little distance, it 

 appears as if one man was dashing the leaves in, and the other as fast 

 dashing them out again — so quickly and dexterously is this managed. 

 As soon as one basket has received about four handsful of the hot leaves 



