[Illustration:  RACK FOR DRYING RICE. p. 77]

[Illustration:  VILLAGE CREMATORIUM. p. 48]

[Illustration:  DOG HELPING TO PULL JINRIKISHA]

[Illustration:  AUTHOR, MR. YAMASAKI AND YOUNGEST INHABITANTS, p. 309]

The tea produced in Japan is principally green tea.  Most of this is of the kind called sencha—­cha means tea.  An inferior article made out of older and tougher leaves is called bancha.  The custom is for the maid who serves bancha to heat the leaves over the charcoal fire just before infusing.  This gives it an agreeable roasted flavour.  It is often served in a darker shade of porcelain than is used for ordinary tea.  There are also the finer teas, kikicha (powdered tea) and gyokuro (jewelled dewdrops), which is the best kind of sencha.  Black tea was being made experimentally when I first arrived in Japan.  Brick tea (pressed to the consistency and weight of wood) may be green or black.  Most of the exported tea, other than brick tea, goes to America.

[Illustration:  “TORII” AT FOX-GOD SHRINE. p. 325]

[Illustration:  RECORD OF GIFTS TO A TEMPLE. p. 311]

It is unnecessary to state that the Japanese tea-tray does not include a sugar basin, cream jug or spoons.  It does include, however, a squat oval jug into which the hot water from the kettle is poured in order to lower the temperature below boiling point.  Boiling water would bring out a bitter flavour from the tea.  Made with water just below boiling point the tea is deliciously soft, even oily, and has a flavour and aroma which cream and sugar would ruin.  It is certainly refreshing, and, when drunk newly infused, relatively harmless. Bancha is made with hotter water than other tea.  The handleless cups hold about half of what our teacups contain.[201] Tea is not the only plant used for making “tea.”  One drinks in some parts infusions of cherry, plum or peach blossom.

The processes of tea manufacture in farmers’ outhouses and in factories are described in school-books, and I need not transcribe my impressions.[202] But I may note that some of the money the tea farmer earns for the country is spent in his interests.  There is in Shidzuoka a well-directed prefectural experiment station which exercises itself over problems of tea production.  Every tea grower and tea dealer in the prefecture must belong to the prefectural tea guild.  He must also belong to his county tea guild.  The rules of the guilds—­there is a central guild in Tokyo—­have the force of law.  Evil doers in the tea industry have their product confiscated.  Tea dealers who do not carry their guild membership card are fined.  It is not difficult to discover colouring in tea if it is rubbed on white paper.  The Government’s part in subduing tea colouring was to seize all the dye stuff it could lay hold of which could be used for colouring tea.