But to the subject in hand. The sloe, or black thorn, leaves are first boiled; then, when the water is squeezed from them in a press, they are baked on a flat iron plate; and, when dry, rubbed between the hands to produce the curl of the genuine tea. The colour is then produced by the application of Dutch pink, and a small quantity of logwood; when, “_mirabile dictu!_” “_good, wholesome, nutritious_ black tea” is produced equal to, and probably surpassing the specimens of the monopolists of Leadenhall-street. The process is equally rapid and efficacious in the fabrication of green tea; the leaves being boiled, pressed, and dried in the same manner as I have described, takes place with the black imitation-tea, only that the drying process is performed on plates of copper. The blueish hue or bloom observable on genuine tea is produced by mixing with the leaves Prussian blue or Dutch pink, in fine powder, while the leaves are heating upon the plates, and verdigris is added to complete the operation. The leaves are then sifted, to separate them from the thorns and stalks; and should there not be a “quantum sufficit” of the fine green bloom (the indubitable criterion of genuineness in the estimation of our “fair countrywomen,”—the ancient, as well as “the bewitching;”) the operator kindly and generously adds, more verdigris and Dutch pink or Prussian blue. And again “_pure, genuine, exhilarating_” green tea is produced as quick as thought, and that even in the darkness of a town cellar, some few feet under ground. The profits on these transmutations are enormous; Mr. Accum, at p. 205 of his useful book, says that it has been stated to be from £300 to £600 per cent. And the extent to which the nefarious traffic is carried is still more surprising. According to a report of the Committee of the House of Commons in the year 1783, it is stated that “the quantity of fictitious tea which was annually manufactured from sloe and ash-tree leaves, in different parts of England, to be mixed with genuine teas, was computed at more than _Four Millions of Pounds_.” This computation was made when the genuine teas, sold by the East-India Company, at their sales, amounted to only six millions of pounds annually. What then must be the amount of the illicit traffic now, when the Company’s sales are about thirty millions of pounds annually! This proves that the ingenious author of the following lines, which appeared in the Literary Journal, vol. 1, p. 14, cannot be supposed to be “much out in his reckoning:” “_China_ and _Porto_, now farewell; Let others buy what you’ve to sell, Your Port and your Bohea; For we’ve our native sloe divine, Whose _fruit_ yields all our _Porto wine_, Whose _leaves_ make all our _Tea_.”