Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/368

 green tea, its fermentation being limited to three or five days only, while the richly-flavored black teas of North China, from the Hangkow, Ningchow, and Keemung districts, are allowed to ferment for twice that period to prepare them for the Russian and English markets. The choicest of these black teas go to Russia, a part of the crop still being carried by camel trains from the end of the Grand Canal near Pekin to the terminus of the trans-Siberian railway. It is also shipped by steamers to Odessa; and as the tea is thoroughly fired and sealed in air-tight packages, it makes no difference in the quality of the infusion afterwards whether the tea-chests were jolted by camel caravans from Tungchow to Irkutsk, or pitched about in a ship’s hold—much as caravan tea is celebrated in advertisements for the American public. The Japanese Government made experiments in the manufacture of black tea in the province of Ise, but the results were not satisfactory, and no further efforts have been made to compete in that line with China. Japan will continue to furnish the world’s supply of green tea, but as the demand for such stimulants declines, a great problem will confront its tea-farmers.

Kobé and Yokohama are the great tea ports, each one draining wide districts, and their streets being fragrant with the peculiarly sweet odor of toasting tea-leaves all summer long.

At Kobé thirteen firms, of which only two are American, are engaged in the tea-trade. In Yokohama there are twenty-eight firms, thirteen being English, eleven American, two German, and two Japanese. One American firm has invented machinery for firing and coloring the tea, the leaves being tossed and turned by inanimate iron instead of by perspiring coolies. As there are no patent laws in Japan, and as the Japanese are very quick at copying, this machinery has to be very carefully watched, taken apart, and locked up every night. Several 352