File:ROLLING SCENTED CAPER AND GUNPOWDER TEAS.jpg

English: John Thomson: GUNPOWDER TEAS. THE manipulation required to produce Gunpowder Tea is one of the most curious and interesting of all the processes to which the leaf is submitted. The visitor, upon entering the Gunpowder department of a Tea House, is surprised to find a number of able-bodied coolies, each dressed in a short pair of cotton drawers, tucked up so as to give free action to the naked limbs. It is puzzling, at first, to conjecture what these men are about. Can they be at work, or is it only play ? They rest their arms on a cross beam, or against the wall, and with their feet busily roll and toss balls, of perhaps a foot in diameter, up and down the floor of the room. One soon perceives, however, that it is work they are after, and hard work too. The balls beneath their feet consist of canvas 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 tightly at the neck, and again rolled ; the twisting and rolling being repeated until the leaf has become perfectly globose. It is afterwards divided through sieves into different sizes or qualities. The scent or bouquet of the tea is imparted after the final drying and scorching, and before the leaves have become quite cool, by intermixing them with the chloranthus, olea, aglaia, and other flowers. These flowers are left in the baskets of tea until it is ready for packing, and are then removed by passing the tea through a sieve.