336 
Indeed, scarcely any utensil used in China is of that metal, the chief applica¬ 
tion of which is for coin. The earthen or iron plates are placed over a charcoal 
fire, which draws all remaining moisture from the leaves, rendering them 
dry and crisp. The colour and astringency of Green Tea is derived from the 
early period at which the leaves are plucked, and which, like unripe fruit , 
are generally green and acrid. For exportation, the tea, as is well known, 
is packed in large chests lined with very thin plates of lead; and it is pressed 
down into these chests by the naked feet of Chinese labourers.* 
Chinese drawings, though somewhat rudely executed, exhibit a faithful 
picture of what they are intended to represent. From a set of these giving the 
whole process of gathering and manufacturing the tea, we learn that the tree, 
or rather shrub, grows for the most part in hilly countries, often on their rocky 
summits and steep declivities. Accordingly Sir George Staunton informs 
us, that vast tracts of hilly land are planted with it, particularly in the 
province of Fo-chen: and Chevalier Thunherg says, that he met with it 
frequently in Japan, both on the borders of cultivated lands, and upon such 
mountains and downs as did not well answer the trouble of cultivation. It 
appears also from these drawings, that the shrubs are not much taller than 
a man’s middle: the gatherers are never represented climbing, they 
sometimes make use of hooked sticks, but these seem rather intended to 
draw the branches towards them, when they hang over places difficult of 
access. They pick the leaves first in a basket, which are soon after gathered 
into different sorts, and cured by drying them in iron kettles placed upon 
a range of stoves, like those in a chemist’s laboratory, after which the women 
chiefly work, and curl the leaves one by one. They likewise dry it by 
spreading it abroad in shallow baskets in the sun; and by means of sieves, 
copper halfpenny. But Kempfer positively says, that the tea is torritied on plates of iron. The 
writer of Lord Macartney’s Voyage asserts the same thing: nor could I discover the smallest quantity 
of copper, which is easily detected by means of chemistry. Pigou, who writes on the Tea tree in 
the Asiatic Annual Register, says, the Chinese all agree there is but one sort, or species, of the tea 
tree; and that the difference in tea arises from the soil and manner of curing. As the malt is either 
brown, producing our porter, or pale, forming our amber-coloured ale, from the manner of drying, 
so the tea is supposed to be made brown by a quick heat, and the green is produced by a slack heat’ 
and more careful drying, which in consequence is obliged to be oftener repeated, the black teas 
being dried but twice, and the green as often as six or seven times. Some doubts about the two 
kinds of shrubs, or tea trees, making the distinctions, likewise are detailed in other places of this 
long article. 
* Embassy, Vol. II. page 465. The practice of employing iron or earthen plates to dry the 
tea upon is, perhaps, a mistake, as the process is called latching, and a tatche exactly resembles 
our pitch kettle. • 
