ITS 



Report on the manufacture of Tea, and on the 



[J tJLY 



and quite methodical, every one knowing his station, and the part he 

 has to perform. The baskets are then arranged on shelves to air; the 

 contents are afterwards tatched the same as our Black-Teas, and fired in 

 the drying baskets, but with this difference, that each division is placed 

 on paper and dried. When it is half dry (the same as our Teas) it is 

 put away for the night, and the i!Qfj.t morning ii is picked, and put into 

 the drying baskets over gentle deadened fires, and gradually dried there; 

 it is then packed hot. This T<°a is a difficult sort to make. 



Shung- Paho Black-Tea. Pluck the young (Paho) leaf that has not 

 yet blown or expanded, aid has the down on i ; and the next one that 

 has blown with a part of the stalk ; put it into the sun for half an hour, 

 then into the shade ; tatch over a gentle fire, and in latching roll the 

 leaves occasionally in the pan, and spread them all round the sides of 

 the same ; again roll them until they begin to have a withered and soft 

 appearance ; then spread them on large sieves, and put them in the 

 shade to air for the night ; next morning pick, and then fire them well. 

 Some Tea makers do not keep them all night, but manufacture and pack 

 the Tea the same day. This Tea is valued in China, as it is very 

 scarce ; but the Chinamen acknowledge that it is not a good sort. They 

 prefer the Teas, the leaves of which have come to maturity. 



The China Black-Tea plants which were brought into Muttuck in 

 1837, amounted in all to 1609 — healthy and sickly. A few of the lat- 

 ter died, but the remainder are healthy, and flourish as well, as if they 

 had been reared in China. The leaves of these plants were plucked in 

 the beginning of March, and weighed sixteen seers or thirty -two pounds. 

 Many of the plants were then in flower, and had small seeds. They 

 are about three feet high, and w r ere loaded with fruit last year, but the 

 greater part of it decayed when it had come to maturity, as was the 

 case with the Assam Tea-seeds, and almost every seed of these wilds, 

 in the past year. The seeds should, I think, be plucked from the plant 

 when thought ripe, and not be permitted to drop or fall to the ground. 

 I collected about twenty-four pounds of the China seeds, and sowed 

 some on the little hill of Tipum in my Tea garden, and some in the 

 Nursery-ground at Jaipore ; above three thousand of which have come 

 up, are looking beautiful, and doing very well. I have since found 

 out that all the China seedlings on Tipum hill have been destroyed by 

 some insect. 



The Assam and China seedlings are near each other; the latter have 

 a much darker appearance. I have made but few nurseries, or raised 

 plants from seed, as abundance of young plants can be procured, of 

 any age or size, from our Tea tracts. There may be about 6,000 



