188 



Report on the manufacture of Tea, and on the [July 



half work. Thus the difference between Black and Green is, that the 

 *ormer requires six manufacturers less; and that when the Black-Tea is 

 finished, boxed, and ready for exportation, the Green has only under- 

 gone the first process, and is bnt half finished ; although it is ready for 

 exportation to any appointed place to receive the final and troublesome^ 

 as well as most expensive part of the process. Nevertheless the first 

 part of the Green-Tea preparation is easily learnt by the natives of this 

 place in about two or three months. In speaking of the trouble and ex- 

 pense attending the second process of the Green-Tea making, I beg to 

 observe that it appears to me, from what little I have seen of it, that 

 machinery might easily be brought to bear; and as Assam is about to 

 become a great Tea country, it behoves us to look to this. The Tea 

 half made, as above described, I am informed by the Green-Tea China- 

 men now with me, is put either into boxes or baskets, with bamboo 

 leaves between ; it has to make in this state a long journey by land 

 and water, and then to go one or more months in a boat by sea, be- 

 fore it reaches Canton, where it is laid aside for one or two months 

 more, before it undergoes the second process; making in all about 

 five months from the time it was first prepared. All that is required 

 is to keep it dry. Now if all this be true, which I have no doubt it is, 

 I see no reason why we could not send it to England, and have it 

 made up there. I rather see every thing in favour of such a plan, 

 and nothing against it. After a year's instruction under Chinamen, it 

 might be left to the ingenuity of Englishmen to roll, sift, and clean the 

 Tea by machinery, and, in fact, reduce the price of the Green-Tea nearly 

 one-half, and thus enable the poor to drink good unadulterated Green- 

 Tea, by throwing the indigo and sulphate of lime overboard. At all 

 events the experiment is worthy of a fair trial, and the first step to- 

 wards it would be to manufacture the Tea at Calcutta ; or perhaps it 

 would be better to let the China Green-Tea makers go direct to Eng- 

 land along with it, and have it manufactured there at once. 



Now for a word about the Lead-canister maker, who is a very impor- 

 tant man in our establishment ; for without him, we could not pack our 

 Teas. — On two tiles about an inch thick and sixteen inches square, is 

 pasted, on one side, a sheet of very fine thick paper, said to have been 

 made in Cochin-China, over this another sheet is pasted only at the 

 edges. The paper must be very smooth, and without any kind of hole, 

 knob, or blemish. To make it answer the purpose better, fine chalk is 

 rubbed over it. The tiles thus prepared are laid one over the other 

 aHd moved backwards and forwards, to ascertain if they work smoothly. 



