Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1886-07-14
Groom aud Blek Teas.

Paul Mall Gazette: The principal
market for green tea is the United
States. Having fallen rather into dis
repute in the Old World, it has estab-
lished itself. in New World, where it
is largely consumed and known as
''tea" simply, in contradistinction to
''En glish breakfast tea. China tea"
or "Oolong" by which names the black
teas are designated. The reason for
its popularity is no doubt in a great
mersure due to the intercourse with
Japan, where green tea alone is man
ufactured, and which every year sends
enormous cargoes across the Pacific
In the making of tea, as in everything
which this curious people do, the Jap
anese have way of their own. It
would startle an Assam planter to see
them in picking time squatting down
before the trees and stripping the
branches of the leaves, instead of
scientifically selecting only the young,
undeveloped leaf, the first leaf below
that, and half the second, from which
would be evolved, respectively, sBrok-
en- Tips" or ''OranSe Pekoe, '':Pekoe,"
and "Souchong,'
Any one accustomed to the elabor-
ate machines for 'rolling' and ''fir-
ing" the leaves which are in use on
European plantations might be amused
at the Japanese method, where the
workers roll, and squeeze, and twist the
leaves in their hands on a parchment
stretched over charcoal fire. Very
fine teas are, nevertheless, manufact-
urcd by the Japanese, and in the cele-
brated district of Vii rumor tells of
tea worth $16 per pound, though
it is not definitely stated whether
whether has ever actually been
paid for it. Moreover, in the
case of teas intended for export, only
so much work is done upon them as
will enable them to be sent to the ''tea-
firing godowns' OF Yokohama, where
4hey are worked up for the market be-
fore being shipped.
AS is now we'll known, the difference
between green tea and black lies in
the fact that in the former fermenta-
ton has been arrested by ''iring," the
color of the leaf being in this way par
TALLY preserved and fixed; with the
latter, by much longer process, fer
mentatiou up to certain point is per-
mitted, and the leaves are not ''fred"
until they have become oxidized by
exposure to the air. In Japan the
leaves, after being picked and with
ered'' by short exposure, are fixed in
the way described above sufficiently to
stop fermentation, and in this partially
cured state are sent to the European
tea merchants, by whom they are
again "ired'', In the ''godowns'' of
Yokohama hundreds of women can be
seen at work turning the leaves over
and round and round in large basins
built over a charcoal fire.
The coloring or ''painting' is also
done at this period by means of a
spoonful of indigo and powdered
soapstone put into each basin, and
thus disseminated through its con-
tents. But in Japan tea is not grown
for export only, but is the chief article
of home consumption; and these
domestic teas as procured in the
country are probably the only samples
OF unadnlterated green tea which
Europeans are likely to meet with.
They produce a beverage which is re-
freshing, quite harmless, and which,
Notwithstanding the way in which it is
prepared, can. after only a short
residence in the country, be readily
distinguished from hot water.