Excerpt from The Juvenile Instructor, Vol. 22: October 1, 1887 The coloring substances which are used are anything but healthful, and the discovery of so many cases of adulteration in tea of late years has led investigators to believe that very little of the unadulterated article ever leaves the empire. Indeed in a skillful and minute analysis of an eminent chemist of several kinds of tea no single one was found to be pure. The fact that the Chinese themselves do not use any of the tea which is prepared for exportation would seem to indicate that it was not genuine. The value-of tea. Is determined by the tenderness and small ness of the leaf when picked. The early leaf-buds in Spring, are covered by a white silky down which is gathered to make Pekoe. A few days' longer growth produce black-le'aved Pekoe. The more mature leaves are Souchong; as they grow larger and coarser they form Cong-011; and the last pick ing is Bohea. These are varieties of the black tea. Congou tea, which the coolies in our engraving are engaged in making, was a few years ago the chief export, but finds at the present time very little sale as the strength it possesses is not sufficient to supply popular demand, and Bohea, which is really inferior in quality but somewhat stronger, has almost entirely taken its place. In the preparation of the finer grades of green tea the utmost care is used, the best leaves being selected previous to drying and they are afterwards curled or twisted by hand. Black teas are prepared mostly by the heat of a furnace, but in order to make them pack closer and also to assist in the curling process, coolies in their bare feet tramp upon them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.