Before I left, the proprietor conducted me into his house, and treated me to a cup of tea prepared after the fashion in which it is usually drunk by rich and noble Chinese.  A small quantity was placed in a China cup, boiling water poured upon it, and the cup then closed with a tightly-fitting cover.  In a few seconds the tea is then drank and the leaves left at the bottom.  The Chinese take neither sugar, rum, nor milk with their tea; they say that anything added to it, and even the stirring of it, causes it to lose its aroma; in my cup, however, a little sugar was put.

The tea-plant, which I saw in the plantations round about Canton, was at most six feet high; it is not allowed to grow any higher, and is consequently cut at intervals.  Its leaves are used from the third to the eighth year; and the plant is then cut down, in order that it may send forth new shoots, or else it is rooted out.  There are three gatherings in the year; the first in March, the second in April, and the third, which lasts for three months, in May.  The leaves of the first gathering are so delicate and fine that they might easily be taken for the blossom, which has no doubt given rise to the error that the so-called “bloom or imperial tea” is supposed not to consist of the leaves but of the blossom itself. {114} This gathering is so hurtful to the plant that it often perishes.

I was informed that the tea which comes from the neighbourhood of Canton is the worst, and that from the provinces somewhat more to the north the best.  The tea manufacturers of Canton are said to possess the art of giving tea that has been frequently used, or spoiled by rain, the appearance of good tea.  They dry and roast the leaves, colour them yellow with powdered kurkumni, or light green with Prussian blue, and then roll them tightly up.  The price of the tea sent to Europe varies from fifteen to sixty dollars (3 to 12 pounds) a pikul, of 134 lb.  English weight.  The kind at sixty dollars does not find a very ready market; the greater part of it is exported to England.  The “bloom” is not met with in trade.

I must mention a sight which I accidentally saw, one evening, upon the Pearl stream.  It was, as I afterwards heard, a thanksgiving festival in honour of the gods, by the owners of two junks that had made a somewhat long sea voyage without being pillaged by pirates, or overtaken by the dangerous typhoon.

Two of the largest flower boats, splendidly illuminated, were floating gently down the stream.  Three rows of lamps were hung round the upper part of the vessels, forming perfect galleries of fire; all the cabins were full of chandeliers and lamps, and on the forecastle large fires were burning out of which rockets darted at intervals with a loud report, although they only attained the elevation of a few feet.  On the foremost vessel there was a large mast erected, and hung with myriads of coloured paper lamps up to its very top, forming a beautiful pyramid.  Two boats, abundantly furnished with torches and provided with boisterous music, preceded these two fiery masses.  Slowly did they float through the darkness of the night, appearing like the work of fairy hands.  Sometimes they stopped, when high flames, fed with holy perfumed paper, flickered upwards to the sky.