"Chinese never have teapot. That's all an English mistake. Chinese always make tea in a cup."
She took as she spoke a pinch of tea between her tiny fingers and dropped it into one of the cups, immediately filling it up with boiling water. Then she took the saucer from underneath and set it on the top, its rim exactly enclosed the edge of the cup. Raising the saucer a trifle at one side, she poured the infusion into one of the other little bowls, keeping her finger on the saucer to hold it in place. The tea leaves, kept back by the saucer, remained in the first cup. The tea, a clear, pale-amber liquid, filled the second.
"Now it is ready to drink," she said, lifting the tiny egg-shell bowl and handing it to me.
"Don't you have any milk or sugar?" I said, taking the hot basin in my hand and holding it by a little rim at the bottom, the only place one could hold it for the heat.
"No, anything else spoil it. You drink that and I make you another."
She threw away the first leaves, put a fresh pinch of tea in, filled up the bowl and strained it off into another as before, then picked up the second by the bottom rim, drained it, and repeated the process with marvellous rapidity. I watched her, sipping my own.
"Do you like it?" she asked. "It is real gold-tipped Orange Pekoe.
Very good tea, indeed!"
I drank it. It had a wonderful flavour. I told her so and took another cup, to her great delight.
The waiter came in, laid our supper on the table, put the champagne in ice, and departed. I offered Suzee the wine, but she said she had all the tea she could drink. She was willing to eat, however, and we sat down to the table.
"I want you to tell me all about what happened at Sitka," I said. "How did poor old Hop Lee die?"