Fig. 38.—Picking Tea. "Pinehurst," South Carolina.
In one of the rooms you would see several Chinamen rolling and tossing balls about with their bare feet. The balls are about the size of footballs and are partly filled with tea. Although it looks like play, it is hard work. As the balls are tossed about, the tea leaves are given their rounded or twisted appearance. From time to time the workers stop and tie the bags up more closely at the neck. This method is used in making gunpowder tea.
Black and green teas are not different varieties, but are produced by different methods of handling.
In the great tea-hongs there are professional tasters,—that is, men who do nothing but sip tea from small cups, so as to grade it and fix its value. This is considered a very particular line of work and requires an educated taste.
The ocean atmosphere has a bad effect on tea, so that the very finest grades are seldom sent across the sea. When tea is to be shipped by water, it is placed in boxes lined with a sort of sheet lead. This protects the tea greatly. Most of the tea sent to the United States lands at San Francisco. Why? How does it get to other parts of our country?
Great quantities of tea are pressed into the form of bricks and sent over mountains and across deserts into Russia.
This is called "brick tea." The Russians are great tea drinkers, and whenever any one calls in Russia, tea is served. They call their teapot a samovar.
Better tea is obtained from Ceylon and India than from China. In these countries Europeans have charge of most of the tea farms, and they have carefully studied the cultivation and handling of tea.