The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1881-01-12
TEA LEAVES.
Interesting Description Of the Process Of
Tea-Making, by an Anglioized
Chinaman.
IFOochoW Herald

IA Gag 81 tSo-HdChiuS AOAoS PASGSAtp - VIZ
different scene from that two months ago.
Then, at the door one found lines Of fifteen
catty boxes and waiting to be soldered up.
Now, none. Next, one found fat bags stacked
up eight or ten feet, bursting with Pehling tea
that escaped here and there through holes
temporarily stopped with bamboo leaves; the
bottom Of the bags mostly stained from con-
tact with wet fights Of mountain stairs upon
which the exhausted coolie had set them down
on the passage.
Now, one finds but empty chests, hundreds
in number, square, deep, and oblong, used
for handling the tea in the factory. Ordinary
tea-chests would not stand the rough usage.
Farther on, one came to the dozen long
double row Of sitters facing each other, forty
in a row, the mesh of some taking a pencil
that of others refusing a pencil ~point-sifting
tea leaf rough and bold, that after a persua-
sive grasp or two in the hand broke, and con-
sented, after a few shakes in the sieve, to be
stripped of some Of the sappy leaf edges and
to appear below, the even and uniform leaf
which tea the dIinker insists he must have
(plus the dust due to the persuadlng.) The
transformation in q rough leaf on passing the
meshes of q coarse sieve, with a gentle crush
from the %sifter's hands, enhances q rough,
bold tea much in value.
In the place of the rows of men thus seen
tilting and jerking their sleeves in q monotony
only broken by the Cantonese taskmakers'
roll-call twice q day, before the general meal
Of fish and rice, there is now to be seen only
the bare floor Of hardened earth, piles Of
empty benches stacked in a corner, and the
sieves of the twelve different sizes used, each
in its division ID the threestory stands.
The dozen or score of fannjng.mills are
still now. The trained hands are gone that
turned the cranks with a uniform motion,
sending the heavy tea, light tea, and f1aky
dust each down its respective spout separated
never again to meet, unless, baphazard, mixed
in a Whitechapel grocer's window.
The tea leaf separated in these tanning
mills has been parted with at the smart loss
of Tis. 5000 on $500 piculs to the foreign
buyer, and has been let go by the latter to the
London dealer or a~uction-room habitue. The
mills now stand still. The tea-growers in the
hills who waited through June and July for
their money have now been paid. The losses
TO the packers here, however, have been SO
smart that there is little third-crop tea now
being packed In F'oochow, and the mills will
rest until another May shall bring the physi-
cial courage bred Of hot blood back to the
pale and dispirited native teamen. There are
stacked up in this huge godoWn a few hun
dred packages of native makers black tea,
wrapped in plated bamboo strips, bound in
half bamboo, and triply rattanned. Aside
here, the Chinese upper milestone is being
turned upon the neither by a Chinese who is
grinding the tea seeds left by the tanning
mill.
In these sycee-boxes sharp spades are fall
ing upon tea stems, chopping them fine
enough to go into the stemmy, dust mixture
to which the seed-dust gives the strength,
while the chopped stems vouch for It's being
tea.
In the i%ring-house, four Chinese rice-ket-
ties, two feet across the mouth, set obliquely
upon edge. turn the tea back in a shower
over the hand of the %stirrer, a wood fire being
kept up in the brickWork underneath. Fire
holes, scores in number, follow in roWs the
walls of the fring-house, in each an iron pan
placed, now filed aud rounded with charcoal
ready to be lit. Placed over each Of these
fires is a huge our-glass-shaped basket-hood
or muller that shuts in all the heat Of each
fire to but one outlet-that through the tea
sieve that chokes the throat of each basket.
In these baskets is dried off the tea that
comes il from the hills wet from constant
down-pours and from the first fermentation
Of the leaf. These fires are out and all is
still
Here, too, on the floor above, the benches
are empty where girls and women came
some too often to throw out the stems from
the leaf, getting half q cent for removing
those from the two caddies Of tea given them
in wound bamboo-woven trays.
The floor is now bare where we then saw
the Ningteh tea brought to a uniform shade,
by shaking in bags with q few %spoonfuls Of
lamp-black then baked upon the floor, only
to be streWn white as a grave in spring with
the pure muhli blossoms ; then blossoms, in
turn, buried under another avalanche of
funeral tea, and this again with blossoms, life
upon death: then both were rudely ming
led together and put away in boxes for a
night till the fragrance should have been
robbed by the dead tea, and the faded flowers
~ ~ -n -. c~on+n~ 49, rr1~th1occ # 4