not be supplied by arrivals from the provinces. The Americans, however, were obliged to sail with cargoes 
of green tea within the favourable season; they were determined to have these teas, and the Chinese were 
determined they should be supplied. Certain rumours being afloat concerning the manufacture of green tea 
from old black leaves, the writer of this became curious to ascertain the truth, and with some difficulty per- 
suaded 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 labora- 
tories of factitious hyson, the party 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 portions of a few pounds each to a great number of cast iron 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 turmeric in powder, which of course gave the leaves a 
yellowish or 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 yellowish 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 regarding 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 carefully 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 produced what 
was sold as hyson-skin, and the last bore the name of young hyson. As the party did not see the interme- 
diate 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 qualities, it can only be 
in consequence of the colouring matter existing in a small proportion to the leaf;+ and the Chinese seemed 
quite conscious of the real character of the occupation in which they were engaged, for, on attempting to 
enter several other places where the same process was going on, the doors were speedily closed upon the 
party. Indeed, had it not been for the influence of the Hongist who conducted them, there would have 
been little chance of their seeing as much as they did. Library of Entertaining Knowledge : The Chinese. 
In 1834, it was discovered that the real tea plant was indigenous to the Company’s territories in Upper 
Assam, bordering on the Chinese province of Yun-nan: and there now appears to be every reason for feeling 
certain that it may be cultivated, under proper management, with complete success for commercial purposes 
as well as for local consumption. In our works of more than a century back, as in the Spectator, Pope’s 
poems, &c. we may always find the term Bohea applied to the best tea. 
“Where none learn ombre, none e’er taste Bohea.” 
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, 
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, 
And, while the bubbling and loud hissing urn 
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, 
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, 
So let us welcome peaceful evening in. 
Coir. per. 
* Prussiate of iron, and sulphate of lime. 
t The turmeric and gypsum are perfectly innocuous; but the prussian blue is a poison. 
