"That tea was an evergreen plant, something like the myrtle," Sybil said, laughing; and all laughed with her.
GATHERING TEA-LEAVES.
SIFTING TEA.
"Then I have it all to do, it seems. Well, the tea-plant yields a crop after it has been planted three years, and there are three gatherings during the year: one in the middle of April, the second at midsummer, and the third in August and September. I suppose it will do if we begin here. The plant requires very careful plucking, only one leaf being allowed to be gathered at a time; and then a tree must never be plucked too bare. Women and children, who are generally, though not always, the tea gatherers, are obliged to wash their hands before they begin their work, and have to understand that it is the medium-sized leaves which they have to pick, leaving the larger ones to gather the dew. When the baskets are full, into which the leaves have been dropped, they are carried away hanging to a bamboo slung across the shoulders, which is a very usual way of carrying things in China. The tea-plant is the most important vegetable production of the 'Flowery Land.' But as there are, you know, several kinds of tea, I think I had better tell you how that called Congou, which, I suppose, you generally drink yourselves, is prepared. The leaves are first spread out in the air to dry, after which they are trodden by labourers, so that any moisture remaining in them, after they have been exposed to the air or sun, may be pressed out; after this they are again heaped together, and covered for the night with cloths. In this state they remain all night, when a strange thing happens to them, spontaneous heating changing the green leaves to black or brown. They are now more fragrant and the taste has changed.
"The next process is to twist and crumple the leaves, by rubbing them between the palms of the hands. In this crumpled state they are again put in the sun, or if the day be wet, or the sky threatening, they are baked over a charcoal fire.
"Leaves, arranged in a sieve, are placed in the middle of a basket-frame, over a grate in which are hot embers of charcoal. After some one has so stirred the leaves that they have all become heated alike, they are ready to be sold to proprietors of tea-hongs in the towns, when the proprietor has the leaves again put over the fire and sifted.
"After this, women and girls separate all the bad leaves and stems from the good ones; sitting, in order to do so, with baskets of leaves before them, and very carefully picking out with both their hands all the bad leaves and stems that the sieve has not got rid of. The light and useless leaves are then divided from those that are heavy and good, when the good are put into boxes lined with paper."
"What is scented Caper Tea?" Mr Graham asked.