So much for simplicity, and I affirm that no more than the five operations detailed are necessary. I shall try to show this further on.
In studying Tea manufacture I first tried, in order to get reliable data to go on, to ascertain the effect of each and every operation, and not only that, but the effect on the made Tea of each operation exaggerated and diminished. It would be tedious, and of no use, to set out in detail all the experiments I conducted, the results only I will try to give.
I began at the beginning. Why wither at all? I made Tea (following out in each case all the other processes detailed in the old plan) of 1st, totally unwithered leaves; 2nd, of leaves but little withered; 3rd, of leaves medium-withered; and 4th, of leaves over-withered.
I arrived at the following results:—Unwithered or under-withered leaves break in the rolling and give out large quantities of a light green coloured juice during the same process. The Tea is much broken and of a reddish grey colour. The liquor is very pale in colour, cloudy, weak, soft, and tasteless.
Over-withered leaf on the other hand takes a good twist in the rolling, gives out but little juice, which is of a thick kind, and of reddish yellow colour. The tea is well twisted, “chubby” in appearance, and blacker than ordinary. The liquor of an ordinary depth of colour, clear, with a mawkish taste.
The medium-withered leaves make good Tea, but I found the withering should be rather in excess of what is generally done to ensure strength. I will show later to what extent I think leaf should be withered.
The next point was rolling. I knew some planters rolled the leaf hard, others lightly. That is, some rolled with force till much juice was expressed, others with a light hand, allowing little or no juice to be pressed out. Which was the better?
After many experiments I arrived at the following:—Hard rolling gives darker coloured and stronger liquor than light rolling. Hard rolling destroys Pekoe tips,[37] inasmuch as the juice expressed stains them black.
Light rolled Tea has therefore many more Pekoe tips than hard rolled.
Hard rolled Tea is somewhat blacker than light rolled.