Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/107

 labour required to produce the gunpowder leaf is the most curious and interesting of the many processes to which the plant is subjected. We are surprised to notice a troop of able- bodied coolies, each dressed only in a short pair of cotton trousers, tucked up so as to give free action to his naked limbs. One feels puzzled at first to conjecture what they are about. Can they be at work, or is it only play.?^ They each rest their arms on a cross beam, or against the wall, and with their feet busily roll and toss balls of about a foot in diameter (or the size of an ordinary football), up and down the floor of the room. Our guide assures us it is work, and very hard work too. The balls beneath their feet are the bags packed full of tea leaves, which by the constant rolling motion assume the pellet shape. As the leaves become more compact, the bag loosens and requires to be twisted up at the neck and again rolled ; the twisting and rolling being repeated until the leaf has become perfectly globose. It is then divided through selves into different sizes, or qualities, and the scent and bouquet is im- parted after the final drying or scorching. I feel convinced that the introduction of the best machinery for rolling, cooking and preparing the leaf is only a question of time, and will follow in the wake of railways and silk and cotton mills, after the manner of the Japanese.

Most of the tea shipped from Canton is now grown in the province of Kwang-tung ; formerly part of it used to be brought from the "Tung-ting" district, but that now finds its way to Hankow. Leaves from the Taishan district are mostly used in making "Canton District Pekoe" and " Long-Leaf Scented Orange Pekoe," while Loting leaf makes "Scented Caper and Gunpow- der" teas.

In order to see the foreign tea-tasters prosecuting a branch