For "firing," the tea is spread thinly upon wire trays and placed in the Sirocco or Desiccator, where a current of hot air, from 190° to 240° Fahr., passes through it. It emerges thoroughly dry and brittle—the finished tea, requiring only sorting and packing to be ready for the market. About 4,200 pounds of green shoots are required to make 1,000 pounds of the prepared article.
After cooling over night, the tea goes to the Sifter, a machine with a series of slop ing sieves, one above the other.
The sieves are shaken, by engine or motor power, at a very high speed, and the tea falls through from one sieve to another, each sieve retaining a different size and emptying itself into a chest through a spout at the low end.
The leaves and stems retained by the top sieve—i. e., the largest—form the "ordinary" grades of tea. Each size smaller is correspondingly choicer—excepting the last, known as "Dust," or "Dust and Siftings," or "Fannings," sold at low prices.
The second sieve retains (in Black Teas) Pekoe or Pekoe-Souchong, according to the crop or estate policy; the third, Pekoe or Orange Pekoe; and the fourth, Orange Pekoe or Broken Orange Pekoe or "Flowery Pekoe" (so-called because of its cup qual ity). The term "Pekoe" refers to the downy appearance of the under-sides and ends of the young leaves, and "Orange" to the color of the ends of the still newer leaves and to the "tips" or leaf-buds, which look like little chips of wood and are also commer cially classed as "Golden Tips." The Tips give the tea a good appearance and add greatly to its strength and flavor. They are sometimes separated and offered as Pure Golden Tips, selling in London for as high as fifty dollars a pound.
When the sorting is done largely by hand, as in China and Japan, the size grades are much more numerous.
Caper is a Black Tea resembling the green Gunpowder in shape.
In the Green Teas, the sorting produces the different sizes of Gunpowder, Young llyson, etc. (see sub-head of CHINA GREEN TEAS) . Uncolored green tea varies in tint from yellow to a greenish brown. The gray-green of the China and Japan teas imported prior to May 1, 1911, was due to the addition of a minute quantity of color ing powder during the firing.
The various grades—after, frequently, a supplementary picking over by hand— are day by day stored away in their separate bins, until there is enough to make what is technically known as a "break"-5,000 pounds and upward.
The next operation is Bulking. The whole contents of the bins of one grade are thrown together and agitated by scoops or shovels until so thoroughly mixed that each pound of tea will be the same as another in flavor and appearance. Finally comes the packing in chests, cans and packages—the tea in the first two cases being shaken down to make it lie close. The numerous processes of preparation are respon sible for the broken condition of most of the leaves in the product finally marketed.
Much of the Tea Dust which accumulates in manufacture and as the result of trans portation and commercial handling, is of very fine quality. If protected from con tamination and properly cared for in other respects, it makes good liquor. There is a strong prejudice against its use in America—partly, perhaps, because it lends itself so readily to adulteration—but in England it commands a ready sale, as, used in the correct proportions, it improves the blend, adding to its strength and pun gency. In tea-growing countries it is a common practice to pulverize the leaves by rubbing in the hand, dropping the powder into the drinking-cups in which it is steeped.
The foregoing description gives a general idea of the method now employed in making India and Ceylon teas, both Black and Green, but the principles employed are those also used in the preparation of China and Japan teas, the chief difference being that in the two latter countries machinery plays a comparatively unimportant part— much of the Firing is done in pots, bowls or baskets over charcoal fires, and the Twist ing by placing the leaves in bags and rolling them with the hands.
In China there is a strong contrast between the busy season and the slack time which follows it. In an interesting article, published prior to the recent introduc tion of modern methods, the Foochow Herald said : "A tea-packing house at this sea son presents a very different scene from that of two months before. Then, one found long lines of fifteen-catty boxes waiting to be soldered up. Now, none. Next, one found fat bags stacked up eight or ten feet high, bursting with tea that escaped here and there through holes temporarily stopped with bamboo leaves ; the bottom of the bags mostly stained from contact with wet flights of mountain stairs upon which the exhausted coolies had set them down on the passage. Now, one finds but empty chests, hundreds in num ber.