Page:Illustrations of China and Its People vol. I. 2ed edition.pdf/62

 A TEA HOUSE, CANTON.

THE native tea-firing establishments of Canton adjoin the river, or the banks of a creek, and a granite or wooden wharf is one of their most indispensable accessories.

A number of men may be seen during the tea season in the front of the house, employed, as shown in the photograph, in picking, sampling, and sorting the tea, or in preparing the chests for its reception. Just within the entrance are one or two offices, where the partners, treasurer, and book-keeper pursue their various avocations ; while, out of doors, are a number of forms and chairs, and a small table bespread with hot tea and cups, set in readiness for the accommodation of visitors. Beyond is a large apartment for storing the tea ; it is here also it is weighed and prepared for exportation. After this we enter an open court, and pass into a firing, picking, sorting, and packing department. Above this chamber there is usually a loft where women and children are engaged in removing the stalks and refuse from the bamboo trays on which the tea is spread out. These trays are ranged in rows on long narrow tables, round which a closely packed throng of pickers and sorters ply unceasingly their busy occupation. This room presents the most animated scene in the house. Many of the women are pretty or attractive-looking, and move their small well-formed hands with a marvellous celerity, pouncing upon and tossing aside the smallest fragments of foreign matter which may chance to have become admixed with the tea, and which none but a thoroughly trained eye could ever have discovered at all. It is impossible to visit an establishment of this kind and not be impressed with the orderly habits and business-like atmosphere of the place, where a thoroughly organized system of divided labour has produced from the leaf of a single shrub so many varieties of one of the most delicate and salutary of the luxuries we possess.

A TEA-TASTING ROOM, CANTON.

THIS photograph represents two Chinese tea merchants in a foreign taster's room, awaiting an offer for their samples. Every foreign house in Canton that does any trade in tea has a room specially fitted up for the accommodation of the taster. The windows of the room have a northern aspect, and are screened off, so as to admit only a steady sky-light, which falls directly on the tea-board beneath. Upon this board the samples are spread in square wooden trays, and it is under the uniform light above described that the minute inspection of colour, make, and external appearance of the leaves takes place. On the shelves around the room stand rows of tin boxes, identical in size and shape, containing registered samples of the teas of former years. These are used for reference. Even the cups, uniform in pattern, and regularly ranged in rows along the numerous tables required, have been manufactured especially for the business of tasting tea. The samples are placed in these cups, and hot water of a given temperature is then poured upon them. The time the tea rests in the cups is measured by a sand-glass, and when this is accomplished all is ready for the tasting. All these tests are made by assistants who have gone through a special course of training, which fits them for the mysteries of their art. The knowledge -which these experts thus acquire is of great importance to the merchants, as the profitable outcome of the crops selected for the home market depends, to a great extent, on the judgment and ability of the taster.