CHILLI VINEGAR.
Tarragon Vinegar
Mint Vinegar
Eschallot Vinegar
Burnet Vinegar
Put an ounce of red chillies, (capsicum) cut into small pieces, into a bottle containing a pint of vinegar, stop the bottle close, and suffer the chillies to macerate for eight or ten days, and then strain off the clear infusion. Tarragon, mint, or burnet vinegar may be made in a similar way, by suffering four ounces of fresh gathered tarragon, mint, or burnet, (or three ounces) eschallots, to macerate for eight or ten days in a quart of vinegar.
Tea.
The dried leaves of the tea plant, a commodity with which we are so well acquainted, and which affords a beverage so generally used in this country, must excite curiosity to know something of its natural history, or the nature of the plant from which it is obtained.
The precise period when tea was first made known in Europe cannot be ascertained; it is said that some Dutch adventurers, seeking for such objects as might fetch a high price in China, and hearing of the general use there of a beverage from a plant of that country, made them fall upon the idea of trying whether not an European plant might be relished by the Chinese, and become an article of commerce among them, and accordingly they introduced to them the herb Sage, the adventurers accepting in return the Chinese tea, which they brought to Europe. The European herb did not continue long in use in China, but the consumption of tea has been amazingly increasing in Europe ever since. It is generally said, that it was first imported from Holland into England, about 1666, by lord Arlington and lord Ossory, who brought it into fashion among people of quality. But it was used in coffee-houses before this period, as it appears by an act of parliament made in 1660, in which a duty of 8d. was laid on every gallon of the infusion sold in these places. In 1666 it was sold in London for 60s. per pound, though it did not cost more than 2s. 6d. or 3s. 6d. at Batavia. It continued at this price till 1700. In 1715 green tea began to be used; and as great quantities were then imported, the price was lessened, and the practice of drinking tea descended to the lower ranks. In 1720, the French began to send tea to us by a clandestine commerce. Since that period the demand has been increasing yearly, and it has become almost a necessary of life in several parts of Europe, even among the lowest as well as the highest ranks.