335 
be better preserved, the above process is repeated several times with the 
same leaves, but less heat is employed than at first. The tea thus 
manufactured is afterwards sorted according to its kind or goodness. Some 
of the young tender leaves are never rolled, and these are immersed in hot 
water before they are dried. 
After the tea has been kept for some months, it is taken out of the 
vessels in which it was stored, and dried again over a very gentle fire, that 
it may be deprived of any humidity which remained, or it might have since 
contracted. 
The common tea is kept in earthen pots with narrow mouths; but the 
best sort used by the emperor and nobility is put into porcelane or. china 
vessels. The coarsest tea is kept by the country people in straw baskets, 
made in the shape of barrels, which they place under the roofs of their 
houses, near the hole that lets out the smoke.* 
Thunberg declares, that the older the leaves' are , and the later in the 
season they are gathered, the greater is the abundance; but then the tea is so 
much the worse: the smaller leaves , and those which have just shot forth , 
furnish the finest and most valuable . Young shrubs always yield better tea 
than old ones ; and some places produce it in greater perfection and more 
delicious than others f 
According to the accurate account of Sir George Staunton, the largest 
and oldest leaves , which are the least esteemed, and destined for the use of 
the lowest classes of the people, are often exposed to sale with little previous 
manipulation, and still retaining that kind of vegetable taste which is 
common to most fresh plants, but which vanishes in a little time, whilst the 
more essential flavour, characteristic of each particular vegetable, remains 
long without diminution. But the young leaves undergo no inconsiderable 
preparation before they are delivered to the purchaser: every leaf passes 
through the fingers of a female, who rolls it up almost to the form it had 
assumed before it became expanded in the progress of its growth. It is 
afterwards placed upon thin plates of earthen ware or iron, made much 
thinner than is executed by artists out of China. It is confidently said in 
the country, that no plates of copper £ are ever employed for that purpose. 
* Kempf. amoen. & jap. Thunb. jap. Woodv. Letts. 29 —35. 
f Travels, Yol. IV. p. 42, 43. Engl. Edit. 
+ This is a prevailing prejudice; and green tea is vulgarly supposed to acquire its colour by 
means of verdigris, as some pickles have their colour heightened by putting into the vinegar a 
