Akong joined us at breakfast, and partook of our curry and rice with
great gusto, for tea-brokers as a rule are by no means averse to
foreign chow-chow, and handle a knife and fork with almost as much ease
as they do the native chop-sticks. Charley plied us both with questions
regarding tea in general, and probably the following summary will
pretty well represent the result of his queries:
The cultivation of the tea-plant is by no means confined to any one
district or spot, but is scattered about through the different
provinces, each producing its peculiar description known to the trade
by its distinctive name. We were now in the Hupeh or Oopack country,
and the tea we saw being gathered and prepared was the heavy-liquored
black-leafed description, known in England and to the trade as Congou.
This Congou forms the staple of the mixture known in that country under
the generic name of "black," and sometimes finds its way to us under
the guise of "English breakfast tea." From Foo-chow-foo, on the coast,
half-way between Shanghae and Hong Kong, is shipped another description
known as red-leaf Congou, the bulk of which goes to England also,
although we are gradually absorbing an increasing quantity.
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