“True! but the sailors are not remarkable for skill in scientific cookery, and I think a decoction of any green plant must differ a good deal from that of a dry one.”
“Then why don’t you take some of the leaves from the arbor?”
“They are all bleached and washed to pieces. A horse would not eat hay that had been hung up in the rain and dew as they have. Go into the doctor’s office and get his Dispensatory, and we will prepare them as the Chinese do. The book must give the process for tea, for I was looking at ‘sweet potatoes’ the other day, and found accidentally that it is very full on the making of sugar.”
The lieutenant brought the book, turned to the article, and read:
“‘Tea.—The plant which furnishes tea. Thea Chinensis is an evergreen shrub, belonging to’”——
“Never mind the botany, we do not mean to grow tea, but cure it. Go over to the manufacture.”
He skipped over a page or two and proceeded:
“‘It is propagated from the seeds. In three years the plant yields leaves for collection, and in six attains the height of a man. When from seven to ten years old, it is cut down, in order that the numerous shoots which issue from the stumps may afford a large product of leaves. These are picked separately by the hand. Three harvests, according to Koempfer, are made during the year. As the youngest leaves are the best, the product of the first collection is most valuable, while that of the third, consisting of the oldest leaves, is comparatively little esteemed. After having been gathered, the leaves are dried by artificial heat in a shallow iron pan.’”
“That’s a shovel,” said Mr. Stratford, who generally manufactured the most of our small-wit, and who had just come in to take his shovel from the fire. “That’s a shovel—a shovel is a shallow iron pan.”
“‘From which,’” pursued Lieutenant Sherman, reading, “‘they are removed while still hot, and rolled with the fingers on the palm of the hands, to be brought into the form in which they are found in commerce.’”