Aug.  I,  1896,] 
THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST. 
95 
designed  and  supplied  specially  for  sifting,  disen- 
tangling the  halls,  and  aerating  the  rolled  leaf.  The 
withered  leaf  is  fed  into  the  hopper  of  the  roller 
from  the  loft  above  by  me.urs  of  a canvas  shoot, 
and  the  rolled  leaf  is  discharged  through  a trap  under- 
neath into  a trolly  which  conveys  it  to  and  from 
the  sifter,  and  finally  to  the  fermenting  room.  It 
must  here  bo  noted  that  the  leaf  on  leaving  the 
rolling  machine  has  had  its  cellular  tissues  broken, 
has  received  a twist  or  “roll,”  and  is  a wet  pulpy 
mass  but  still  green. 
Now  follows  the  “oxidation,”  commonly  termed 
“ fermentation,”  without  exception  the  most  impor- 
tant process  of  manufacture.  The  rolled  loaf  having 
been  sifted  as  referred  to  admits  of  the  fine  and 
coarser  being  oxidised  separately,  thus  securing  a 
greater  uniformity  of  result.  The  f rmentiug  room 
should  be  in  the  most  shaded  situation,  and  might 
in  fact  be  partially — in  some  instances  entirely — 
underground  in  the  hills.  The  leaf  is  spread  upon 
tables,  or  it  may  be  on  tiers,  of  lodged  shelves 
resembling  snallow  empty  bunks  in  a passenger 
steamer  but  at  convenient  heiglit,  in  layers  3 to 
4g  inches  in  thickness  according  to  the  temper- 
ature of  the  day  and  other  conditions.  Every 
means  should  be  used  to  keep  the  leaf  cool.  It 
is  kept  covered  with  wet  cloths,  and  surrounded  by 
screens  kept  wet  by  constant  syringing.  The  floors 
and  surroundings  are  also  syringed  with  water.  I 
am  unable  to  say  how'  far  refrigerating  apparatus 
might  be  adopted  in  the  fermenting  rooms  with  good 
results.  This  has  been  thought  of  by  a Darjeeling 
manager,  long  a fellow- worker  with  me.  I am,  how- 
ever, enabled  to  testify  as  to  the  best  quality 
having  been  obtained  at  the  coldest  season,  and 
when  the  oxidation  occupied  an  unusually  long 
time.  The  great  secret  is  to  be  able  to  check  the 
“oxidation,”  or  incipient  fermentation  at  exactly 
the  right  stage,  as  quality  w'ill  be  unfavourably 
affected  by  under  doing  it  or  over  doing  it.  The 
time  occupied  varies  generally  from  3^  to  .5  hours, 
but  5 or  eveu  6 hours  tow'ards  the  close  of  the 
season  and  at  high  elevations  is  nothing  unusual. 
A great  test  of  the  result  is  when  a bright  salmon 
colour  resembling  that  of  a new  penny  is  obtained 
in  the  mass.  It  is  important  here  to  observe  that 
the  leaf  entered  upon  the  “oxidation”  process, 
green  and  wet,  but  leaves  it  for  the  next,  which 
is  drying,  a bright  salmon-colour  and  slightly  less 
moist. 
In  former  times  the  leaf  at  this  stage  underwent 
a process  called  “panning,”  which  for  many  years 
has  been  entirely  dispensed  with.  In  this  the  leaf 
was  tuaied  over  and  tossed  about  in  highly-heated 
iron  pans  by  the  operators’  hands,  aided  by  a forked 
stick.  This  was  the  most  trying  process  of  all  for 
the  “ teamen,”  and  unless  it  had  some  advantages 
in  regard  to  the  keeping  or  other  properties  of 
the  tea — and  it  would  seem  impossible  for  any  one 
positively  to  assert  that  it  had  not — it  is  well  it 
has  been  abandoned,  as  it  was  a dirly,  troublesome, 
risky  process,  calling  for  the  consumption  of  no 
little  fuel.  After  the  panning  (which  occupied  the 
position  of  the  sifting  referred  to)  the  leaf  received 
a second  and  linal  rolling. 
There  are  several  tea-drying  machines.  The  best 
known  are  those  patented  by  Jackson  and  by  David- 
son. But  each  machine  finds  its  own  ardent  advocates 
among  producers  and  their  mangers.  Jackson’s 
“ paragons,”  his  latest  inventions  in  this  line,  are  like 
some  of  his  others  automatic  in  their  action,  and, 
as  their  name  indicates,  work  to  very  consider- 
able perfection.  By  these  machines  the  leaf  is  passed 
through  a chamber  filled— by  means  of  a fan — with 
a current  of  air  heated  to  a temperature  of  2 tO  deg. 
to  250 deg.  (reduced  to,  say  200 dog,  for  finishing), 
on  a travelling  endless  web  of  perforated  zinc  sheets 
or  “flappers,”  which  convey  the  leaf  backwards  and 
forwards  through  the  drying  chamber,  turning  it  over 
at  eiiher  end,  in  all,  seven  times  through  its  entire 
journey.  The  wet  leaf  is  fed  in  at  the  top,  and  there 
is  a continuous  discharge  of  the  dried  tea  at  one  of 
the  lower  end,s  of  the  machine.  Davidson’s  dryers 
are  worked  by  means  of  wire  mesh  tray  drawers, 
containing  the  leaf,  which  are  pulled  out  to  have  the 
leaf  turned  over,  and  are  pushed  back  again  into  the 
heated  chamber,  and  this  process  repeated  by  hand, 
to  meet  requirements  and  the  views  of  the  manu- 
facture, his  “ dosvn-draft  sirocco”  being  worked  with 
the  “ up-drafe  sirocco”  with  a fan.  'The  mode  of 
desiccation  just  superseded  by  machines,  and  Which 
has  all  but  disappeaied,  was  that  over  charcoal  fires 
in  brick-w'ork  furnaces,  with  wire  mesh  trays 
worked  by  hand.  The  original  method  of 
drying,  as  practised  by  the  Chinese,  and  for 
years  in  India,  was  still  more  primitive.  It 
was  l)y  bamboo  mesh  trays,  placed  on  the  top 
of  light  wicker-work  cylinders  of  the  same  mate- 
rial, encircling  small  charcoal  fires  placed  in 
holes  in  the  floor.  'These  cylinders  stood  about  three 
feet  high,  and  were  narrower  in  the  middle  than  at 
lop  or  bottom,  resembling  in  shape  some  wooden 
egg-cups  of  the  olden  time.  The  leaf  goes  into  the 
dryers  a salmon  colour,  but  in  the  process  of  drying 
it  changes  colour,  and  is  discharged  from  the 
machine  (or  other  process)  dry,  crisp,  and  black, 
and  its  twist  has  become  more  perfect  and  wirv  ; 
in  fact,  it  is  now  practically  the  tea  of  commerce,; 
“ unassorted,”  only  requiring  to  bo  sifted  into 
“ classes.” 
The  classification  of  the  tea  is  performed  by 
machines,  by  means  of  wire  mesh  of  different 
gauges,  receiving  the  unassorted  tea  above,  and 
discharging  it  as  “broken  pekoe,”  “orange  pekoe,” 
and  “pckoe-souchoug  ” from  .shoots  into  their  res- 
pective compartments  below,  in  which  boxes  or  other 
receptacles  may  be  placed  to  receive  the  different 
classes.  The  long  reciprocating  sieves,  though  cum- 
bersome, have  no  other  fault  I know  of,  and  are 
simplicity  itself,  consisting  merely  of  a succession  of 
webs  of  the  required  mesh  placed  end  to  end,  dis- 
charging the  various  classes  into  receptacles  placed 
underneath,  the  large  leaf  being  dropped  over 
the  end. 
From  some  of  the  classes  thus  obtained,  especially 
the  lower  grades,  a few  coarse  leaves,  stalks,  or 
stray  foreign  substances  may  have  to  bo  picked  out 
— the  operation  being  impracticable  by  ma.chinery. 
But  a to  . V bright,  tidy  Nepali  girls  soon  give  those 
light  finishing  touches,  which  hardly  amount  to 
handling  in  any  degree.  For  this  the  tea  is  placed 
upon  bamboo  trays  by  an  expert  jerk,  of  which  the 
contents  are  turned  over  from  time  to  time  for 
examination,  and  the  required  sorting  out  very 
deftly  performed  with  delicate  ]iliar3,  simply  formed 
of  two  slim  springy  splints  of  bamboo  ingeniously 
joined  together. 
'The  fiuai  process  is  packing.  'To  do  this  daily  as 
the  tea  is  made  has  but  little  to  recommend  it,  but 
if  it  u’cre  otherwise,  it  is  not  always  practicable. 
The  imsuperable  objection  to  this  arrangement 
however  is,  that  one  day’s  ma'.ufacture,  even  when 
the  same  in  appearance,  differs  unaccountably  in 
quality  and  character  from  that  of  another,  and  the 
contents  of  one  chest,  must,  as  a rule,  be  different 
from  that  of  another  in  the  same  break,  entailing 
bulking  at  homo  with  its  consequent  damage  to  the 
tea,  and  extra  expense.  All  tea.  I hold,  ought  to  be 
bulked  at  the  factories,  where  alone  the  opera- 
tions can  be  performed  to  perfection.  For  this 
purpose  each  class,  011  being  assorted  as  just 
referred  to,  should  be  put  away  in  a separate 
“bin”  daily,  and  retained  there  till  thirty,  forty, 
sixty,  or  more  chestfuls,  according  to  the  size  of 
the  factory,  accumulate.  Those  bins,  of  course,  must 
be  in  a dry  situation,  zinc  lined,  with  closoiy -fitting 
hatches  above  and  doors  below,  and  perfectly  air- 
tight all  over.  'The  bins  should  also  bo  all  carefully 
cleaned  and  dried  for  the  reception  of  the  tea  to 
be  poured  in  through  the  hatches.  It  may  be  ac- 
cepted as  an  axiom  that  well-cured  tea,  perfectly 
stored,  will  improve  by  keeping,  and  the  larger  tiie 
quantity  the  greater  the  improvement.  Poured  in 
and  kept  as  referred  to,  the  tea  will  not  only  get 
well  mixed,  but  one  day’s  make  will  got  blended 
with  the  others,  without  which  no  bulking  can  be 
complete.  For  factory  bulking  uuiformity  of  tares  is 
imperative.  To  secure  this  the  chests  must  bo  made 
from  evenly  sawn,  clean,  and  perfectly  seasoned 
boards ; and  to  more  perfectly  equalise  the  tares. 
