Japan and the Japanese

TEA. 313
leaves are laid upon the dish for ornament, and sometimes thin
slices of fine ginger and lemon-peel.
Sometimes they put powdered
ginger, sansio, or the powder of some root growing in the country,
into the soup. They are also provided with sweet-meats, of several
different colors and sorts, which, generally speaking, are far more
agreeable to the eye than pleasing to the taste, being but indiffer-
ently sweetened with sugar, and so tough that one must have good
teeth to chew them. Foot travellers find it set down in their
printed road-books, which they always carry about them, where,
and at what price, the best victuals of the kind are to be got.
" Tea (since most travellers drink scarce anything else upon the
road) is sold at all the inns and cook-shops, besides many tea-booths
set up for this trade alone, in the midst of fields and woods, and at
the tops of mountains. The tea sold at all these places is but a
coarse sort, being only the largest leaves, which remain upon the
shrub after the youngest and tenderest have been plucked off, at
two different times, for the use of people of fashion, who constantly
drink it, before or after their meals. These larger leaves are not
rolled up and curled, as the better sort of tea is, but simply roasted
in a pan, and continually stirred whilst they are roasting, lest they
should get a burnt taste. When they are done enough, they put
them by in straw baskets, under the roof of the house, near the
place wThere
the smoke comes out. They are not a bit nicer in pre-
handful of
paring it for drinking, for they commonly take a good
the tea leaves, and boil them in a
large iron kettle full of water.
The leaves are sometimes put into a small bag ; but, if not, they have
a little basket swimming in the kettle, which they make use of to
keep the leaves down, when they have a mind to take out some of
the clear decoction. Half a cup of this decoction is mixed with
cold water, when travellers ask for it. Tea thus prepared smells
and tastes like lye the leaves it is made of, besides that they are
of a very bad sort, being seldom less than a year old ; and yet the
Japanese esteem it much more healthful for daily use than the
young, tender leaves, prepared after the Chinese manner, which
they say affect the head too strongly, though even these lose a great
part of their narcotic quality when boiled."*
* The most recent visitors to Japan all agree in representing the common
tea o''the country as an inferior article, not suited for exportation.
27