To make Flowery Pekoe the closed bud and the one open leaf of the shoot are alone taken, and these are manufactured alone. It does not, as a rule, pay to make this Tea at all, though it fetches a long price. It does not pay for the following reasons:—
1. After the head of the flush is taken the pickers that follow do not readily recognise the remainder of the shoot, and consequently omit to pick many of them. A heavy loss in the yield is thus entailed.
2. The after Teas, made without these small leaves, are very inferior, as they are much weaker, and totally devoid of Pekoe tips.
3. The labour, and ergo the expense of picking the flush, is double.
The manufacture of Flowery Pekoe is simple enough. When the two leaves from each shoot of which it is made are collected they are exposed to the sun, spread out very thin, until they have well shrivelled. They are then placed over small and slow charcoal fires, and so roasted very slowly. If the above is well done, the Pekoe tips (and there is little else) come out a whitish orange colour. The whiter they are the better. If the leaf is rolled very lightly by the hand before sunning, the liquor will be darker and stronger, but the colour of the tips will not be so good.
Flowery Pekoe is quite a fancy Tea, and for the reasons given above it can never pay to make it.
Green Tea.
The pans for this should be 2ft. 9in. diameter and 11in. in depth. They should be thick pans, which will not, therefore, cool quickly. Many are required for this manufacture, four or five for every maund of Tea to be made daily. They should be set up in a sloping position, and the arrangement of the fireplaces such that the wood to burn under them can be put in through apertures leading into the verandah. One chimney will do for every two pans, and it should be built high so as to give a good draught, for hot fires are necessary.
Flat-bladed sticks are used to stir both the leaf and the Tea in the pans, for the hand cannot bear the heat.