called Vu-e, as we might say of Wine, Burgundy, &c. The teas first brought to England were black and the produce of this district, and hence the name. It was, at first, given to the finest kinds of black, as we find from the writers of the time of Queen Anne. Thus Pope makes the fashionable heroine of the Rape of the Lock to talk of Bohea, which we now ascribe only to washerwomen
- Where the gilt chariot never marks the way
- Where none learn ombre, none e'er taste Bohea.
I do not know how the word Bohea came to be degraded from the highest to the lowest place, but it probably arose out of the introduction of many new varieties, recommended to use by their novelty, as the consumption of tea began to spread. The London tea-brokers have treated Bohea still worse, for of late they have expelled it altogether from their price-currents; yet they still sell it under the name of inferior Congou.
(Congou.} Is a corruption of the Chinese word Kung-fu, "labour" or "assiduity." The bulk of tea consumed in this country comes under this designation, and from this Chinese labour or assiduity the British exchequer gets yearly some £3,000,000.
(Hyson.} This is the corruption of two Chinese words Hy-san, meaning "flourishing spring." The finest tea consists, whether black or green, of the youngest leaves, and hence the name.
(Mandarin.) Obviously not a Chinese word, since the Chinese have never acquired the art of joining even two syllables together and this has three. The word is from "Mandar," in Portuguese to "command" from which to express a Chinese chief in authority the Portuguese themselves, for the word occurs in their Dictionaries, have coined the word Mandarin or Mandarim.
(Nankin.) From the city of Nanking in the province of Kangnan.
(Tea.) Chinese, Cha. Malay, Te. The first tea imported into England was brought from Holland, end then from Bantam, and not improbably both the Dutch and English obtained their earliest supplies from Java, and not direct from China. If this be so, then probably the name came to us through the Malay in which it has long existed nearly in the form, which we, the French, and the Dutch have adopted. In Chinese, the name of the plant is Cha, which has been adopted by the Portuguese and by the Oriental nations. The Malay pronounce the word, as the uneducated Irish do, and it may even be suspected, that people of fashion once did the same thing. Thus Pope makes it rhyme with obey in the following couplet of the Rape of the Lock:—
- Here thou, great Anna, whom three realms obey,
- Dost sometimes counsel take, and sometimes tea.
Tea was first introduced into England about the same time as Coffee, or 1650, and ten years later an excise duty was levied on every gallon of the decoction. It was a rarity in 1664, for in that
