Tar-asun, extracted from barley or wheat, is the beer of China. It is sweet, and commonly drunk warm, before distillation. The mixed liquor from which it is prepared is called tchoo, or wine; after that, sam or san is prefixed, to show its hot nature. Samtchoo - the word is spelt in many ways - may, says Barrow (Travels, p. 304), be considered the basis of the best arrack, itself a mere rectification of the above spirit with the addition of molasses and the juice of the cocoa-nut tree. Bell's Travels, ii. 9.

1 According to Kotzebue, old woman chew, as in the South American chica - let us hope this cannot be correct - and little girls spit on it to thin the paste. Kotzebue's New Voyage Round the World, vol. ii., p. 170.