name of the
plantation and the date of curing.

Beside the hongs in Canton, which I shall presently speak of, there are
large buildings, styled "pack-houses," containing all the apparatus for
curing. Into these establishments foreigners are not readily admitted.
Two or three rows of furnaces are built in a large, airy apartment,
having a number of hemispherical iron pans inserted into the brick-work,
two pans being heated by one fire. Into these pans the rolled leaves are
thrown and stirred with the arm until too hot for the flesh to bear,
when they are swept out and laid on a table covered with matting, where
they are again rolled. The firing and rolling are sometimes repeated
three or four times, according to the state of the leaves. The rolling
is attended with some pain, as an acrid juice exudes from the leaves,
which acts upon the hands; and the whole operation of tea-curing and
packing is somewhat unpleasant, from the fine dust arising, and entering
the nose and mouth,--to prevent which, the workmen often cover the lower
part of the face with a cloth. The leaves are frequently tested, during
the process of curing, by pouring boiling water upon them; and their
strength and quality are judged of by the number of infusions that can
be made from the same leaves, as many as fifteen drawings being obtained
from the richest kinds.

Many persons have imagined that the peculiar effects of green tea upon
the nerves after drinking it, as well as its color, are owing to its
having been fired in copper pans, which is not the case, as no copper
instruments are used in its manufacture; but these effects are probably
due to the partial curing of the leaf, and its consequent retention of
many of the peculiar properties of the growing plant. The bloom upon the
cheaper kinds of green tea is produced by gypsum or Prussian blue;
and perhaps the effects alluded to are in some degree caused by these
minerals. Such teas are prepared entirely for exportation, the Chinese
themselves never drinking them.

Each foreign house employs an inspector or taster, whose business it is
to examine samples of all the teas submitted to the firm for purchase.
When a taster has a lot of teas to examine, several samples, selected
from various chests, being placed before him, he first of all takes up
a large handful and smells it repeatedly, then chews some of it, and
records his opinion in a huge folio, wherein are chronicled the merits
of every lot ex