November 11,1871.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
337 
'gina pectoris, it is stated that the patient carries the 
xlrug about with him and smells directly from the bottle 
whenever he feels an attack coming on. Since the 26th 
of last January this person has used more than thirty 
• ounces of the nitrite, for which large quantity he accounts 
in the following way. He pours about half a teaspoon¬ 
ful into a small stoppered bottle, which he constantly 
keeps in his pocket. After he has used it for one or two 
attacks he finds that it gets “ flat,” and fails to produce 
■such good results as fresh amyl; so ho throws it away 
•and replenishes from his stock bottle. This result is 
corroborated by Dr. Jones. 
THE PREPARATION AND PROPERTIES OF THE 
VARIOUS KINDS OF CHINESE TEAS. 
BY F. PORTER SMITH, M.B. BOND. 
It is proposed to review the various stages and processes 
•of growth and manufacture of tea, as supplied by China 
io the civilized world, with reference to the medicinal 
.and dietetic properties of the various forms of this 
“ necessary of life.” It is to the credit of the Celestials 
rthat, whilst they do not live under the strict rule of 
Islam, they have elected to confine themselves chiefly 
lo the use of a drink which has commended itself to all 
-sorts and conditions of men. In no other country is 
such a store of wealth drawn from the very leaves of 
trees as in China, where the mulberry-leaf furnishes 
-silk for clothing, and the tea-leaf material for satisfying 
hunger and thirst. 
The tea-plant of China, the The a Cantoniensis or Thea 
mridis of botanists, is not the same as that used in very 
.remote periods by the people of the classical period. 
They probably used the leaf of the chicory, as well as 
•those of other plants still used in various parts of the 
-country, such as the willow, the holly, the Sageretia 
. thcezans , and other plants. 
Since the seventh century of the Christian era the 
.growth of the tea-shrub has been sufficiently extensive 
to invite taxation by the Emperor, though to a much 
less extent than cereal crops, the chief dependence of the 
people of the “ Middle Kingdom,” the name by which 
-China is known to its own people. The tea-shrub is met 
with in Hupeh province as a small, stunted evergreen 
bush, varying from one to three feet in height, and 
-covered with a precarious growth of young shoots, bear¬ 
ing shining, ovate-pointed and irregularly serrated 
leaves. It is grown on the hill-sides or terraces of such 
■districts as have a red and rapidly disintegrating sand¬ 
stone soil, where rice could not well be raised, from 
the difficulty of irrigation. The shrubs are renewed 
from young seedlings,- after some ten years or so, ac¬ 
cording to the enterprise of the peasant grower. For¬ 
merly the bushes were renewed every five years, but the 
•extraordinary and insatiable demand for tea has led to 
the exhaustion of the plants, as anything in the shape of 
lea is bought by the speculative and indiscreet foreign 
trader. The seeds are often abortive, from the damage 
done to the tree by the remorseless stripping of the 
leaves. The seeds require some peculiar treatment, 
-such as the soaking in a prepared liquid, or in an arti¬ 
ficial mould made of exhausted oilcake. Several seeds 
are placed together to ensure the growth of a single 
.seedling. The seeds yield a fixed oil, which is said to 
never turn rancid. The tea oil known to foreign resi¬ 
dents in China is the product of the seeds of the Camellia 
cleifera, a plant called by the same name ( Cti a ) as the 
lea-shrub. The various kinds of tea—namely, green, 
black, red, and brick tea—are all produced by the same 
kind of shrub, which shows some slight tendency to 
variation in some such simple characteristics as the 
length of the leaf, etc. The leaves are picked at three 
■or four periods of the year, commencing with the latter 
jpart of April. The bushes are finally clipped to make 
some of the brick tea, and to encourage the growth of 
young shoots in the coming spring. The raw leaves 
are. dried in the sun by spreading on mats, and the 
shrivelled product pressed and rolled by men, who 
stand in tubs, kneading the leaves into a ball with their 
naked feet. This operation gives the twist to the leaf, 
and removes superfluous watery juices. The tea is sel¬ 
dom dried by fire by the small tea-growers, unless the 
weather be wet and the tea liable to mould from the 
want of sunheat. It is stored in bags long enough to 
collect a quantity, and is then “fired” by placing it in 
thinnish layers on the convex diaphragm of a large 
hopper or basket, shaped like a dice-box, with both 
ends open, which is put over a charcoal fire. The leaf 
is exposed to this heat (which never exceeds 212°, and is 
moderated by placing a thick layer of wood ashes over 
the fire) for about two hours, being stirred up several 
times, so as to heat the whole of it gradually and tho¬ 
roughly. Processes of sifting, winnowing, mixing, and 
picking follow, and a final “firing,” to get rid of mois¬ 
ture acquired during the manufacture, fits it for packing- 
in chests. The stalks are usually rejected, as foreign 
tea-buyers do not like them. They contain all the pro¬ 
perties of the leaf, and are largely consumed by the 
Chinese. The tea ought to undergo no change in the 
chests, which are carefully closed by soldering. The 
flowers cf the Aglaia odorata , the Jasminum Sambac , 
the Chlorantkus , and perhaps other plants, such as the 
Gardenia , are used to scent the tea. Dried leaves of the 
Salix alba are used to adulterate tea sometimes, but in 
the interior of the country such practices are commen- 
dably rare. Black tea forms the bulk of the produce, 
and is preferred by the Chinese for ordinary drinking. 
Red tea is made from the same kind of tea-shrub, and is 
of a brownish-black, rather than a red, colour. The in¬ 
fusion is certainly of a deep-red colour, and this may be 
the origin of the name Hung-cti a, or “ red tea,” a name 
given to it by the Chinese. Green tea is made in Hupeh 
to some extent by picking at the very beginning of the 
season the fine hairy summits of the youngest branches 
of the shrubs. Brick tea is made from the clippings of 
the tea-bushes, the dust of black tea, and from any other 
description of leaf. Odd stories about blood and other 
substances being mixed with the tea-leaf and dust are 
perfectly unfounded. There are “large green bricks” 
of the coarsest sort, “small green bricks” made of a 
better kind of tea-leaf, and “small black bricks” made 
from good tea-dust. The shape of the tea which is used 
as a means of barter by the Mongol tribes is more like 
that of a tile than a brick. In making brick tea the 
leaves and dust are steamed, pressed in moulds of a uni¬ 
form size, and carefully dried without access of the sun, 
or any other direct source of heat. 
This tea goes to the Siberian, Buriat, Tungous, Kir- 
ghis, and Mongol tribes, who chop it up with salt and 
butter, or koumiss, after exhaustion of the leaf in the 
ordinary way. The people of Thibet wisely add a little 
carbonate of soda to the water used in brewing their 
tea from slices of the bricks. 
If two or three leaves be picked from a tea-shrub and 
chewed in the mouth, very little in the way of marked 
impression is made upon the sense of taste. A. grassy, 
slightly bitter, but scarcely astringent flavour is brought 
out in the mouth. The peasants picking the leaf or 
passing through the tea shrubberies are seldom seen to 
gather the leaf and partake of it, as schoolboys do of 
bramble leaves in English lanes. # 
Prepared tea-leaf is, in fact, a very different thing 
from the raw, growing leaf of the shrub. Chinese tea 
consumed in the country, and prepared by a single 
“ firing,” after drying in the sun, is also a very dinerent 
article from the Congou tea prepared for the English 
market. On this account, Chinese statements and expe¬ 
rience are of no great use in determining the effects ol 
tea as consumed in western countries. Russian tea, 
which undergoes no special preparation for the shoiu 
