Amoy at one time was the greatest Tea mart in the world, exporting as much as 500,000 half-chests per annum, but which has now fallen to less than 50,000, due in part to careless cultivation and indifferent curing. The lower grades are stemmy, dusty and frequently adulterated with spurious or exhausted leaves. Many of the finer grades, however, still turn out splendidly in the cup, rivalling the lower grades of Foochow and Formosa, being frequently faced and sold for the latter when these grades are scarce or high. It does not require an expert, however, to detect the substitution, as they are totally devoid of the fragrant and “nosey” flavor that so distinguish the latter. =Foochow Oolongs=—Are produced in the province of Fo-kien, and are, without exception, the truest and finest variety of the genus tea grown in any country, China not excepted. They are usually put up in “chops,” quantities bearing the brand or chop-mark of the grower or packer, which are again divided. “Lines,” termed in trade, “Firsts,” “Seconds,” “Thirds,” “Fourths,” and sometimes “Fifths,” denoting the various pickings and grading in the order named. The dried leaf of the “Firsts” or finer grades is black and almost “silky” in texture, exceedingly well twisted and crispy, but not brittle, yielding rather than breaking when pressed in the hand. While the infusion is dark-golden in color, rich, round and full bodied, very mellow and fragrant in flavor, the infused leaf medium in size, very regular in form and of a rich brown color. The “Seconds” are somewhat larger in leaf, looser in make, not being quite as finely or evenly twisted but possessing excellent “cup qualities,” being the favorite with consumers who prefer full body, to delicate flavor. The “Thirds” are still looser in make, bolder in style and darker in liquor, heavier in body, and though not near as high or fragrant in flavor are, nevertheless useful and serviceable, particularly when they are composed of what is known as “high district teas.” The “Fourths and Fifths,” when there are any, are correspondingly inferior in quality, the dried leaf of the latter being especially large, coarse and rough in appearance, brittle and chaffy in the hand, and frequently dusty or stemmy, dark in draw but thin in body, lacking in flavor, deteriorating rapidly after infusion, and devoid of the high character that so distinguishes the former grades of this variety. The principal “chops” now known to trade comprise the “Tong-mow,” “Tong-lee,” “Tong-shing,” “Chun-fah,” “Chun-fat,” “Sun-kee,” “Cheong-kee,” “Com-we” and “Com-wo-kut chops.”