Tea and Tea Drinking

by Arthur Reade

"Where thousand hills the vale enclose, our little hut is there,

And on the sloping sides around the tea grows everywhere,

And I must rise at early dawn, as busy as can be,

To get my daily labour done, and pluck the leafy tea.

"The pretty birds upon the boughs sing songs so sweet to hear,

And the sky is so delicious now, half drowsy and half clear;

While bending o'er her work each maid will prattle of her woe,

And we talk till our hearts are sorely hurt and tears unstinted flow."

The method of curing is thus described:—

"When the leaves are brought in to the curers they are thinly spread on shallow trays to dry off all moisture by two or three hours' exposure. Meanwhile the roasting-pans are heating, and when properly warmed some handfuls of leaves are thrown on them, and rapidly moved and shaken up for four or five minutes. The leaves make a slight crackling noise, become moist and flaccid as the juice is expelled, and give off even a sensible vapour. The whole is then poured out upon the rolling-table, when each workman takes up a handful and makes it into a manageable ball, which he rolls back and forth on the rattan table to get rid of the sap and moisture as the leaves are twisted. This operation chafes the hands even with great precaution. The balls are opened and shaken out, and then passed on to other workmen, who go through the same operation till they reach the head-man, who examines the leaves, to see if they have become curled. When properly done, and cooled, they are returned to the iron pans, under which a low charcoal fire is burning in the brickwork which supports them, and there kept in motion by the hand. If they need another rolling on the table it is now given them. An hour or more is spent in this manipulation, when they are dried to a dull-green colour, and can be put away for sifting and sorting. This colour becomes brighter after the exposure in sifting the cured leaves through sieves of various sizes; they are also winnowed to separate the dust, and afterwards sorted into the various descriptions of green tea. Finally, the finer kinds are again fired three or four times, and the coarser kinds, as Twankay, Hyson, and Hyson-skin, once. The others furnish the young Hyson, gunpowder, imperial, &c. Tea cured in this way is called luh cha, or 'green tea,' by the Chinese, while the other, or black tea, is termed hung cha, or 'red tea,' each name being taken from the tint of the infusion. After the fresh leaves are allowed to lie exposed to the air on the bamboo trays over night or several hours, they are thrown into the air and tossed about and patted till they become soft; a heap is made of these wilted leaves, and left to lie for an hour or more, when they have become moist and dark in colour. They are then thrown on the hot pans for five minutes and rolled on the rattan table, previous to exposure out of doors for three or four hours on sieves, during which time they are turned over and opened out. After this they get a second roasting and rolling, to give them their final curl. When the charcoal fire is ready, a basket, shaped something like an hour-glass, is placed end-wise over it, having a sieve in the middle, on which the leaves are thinly spread. When dried five minutes in this way they undergo another rolling, and are then thrown into a heap, until all the lot has passed over the fire. When this firing is finished, the leaves are opened out and are again thinly spread on the sieve in the basket for a few minutes, which finishes the drying and rolling for most of the heap, and makes the leaves a uniform black. They are now replaced in the basket in greater mass, and pushed against its sides by the hands, in order to allow the heat to come up through the sieve and the vapour to escape; a basket over all retains the heat, but the contents are turned over until perfectly dry and the leaves become uniformly dark."