1781.—"Les Nations Européennes retirent de la Chine des thés connus sous les noms de thé bouy, thé vert, et thé saothon."—Sonnerat, ii. 249.
9. TWANKAY (green tea). From T'un-k'i, the name of a mart about 15 m. S.W. of Hwei-chau-fu in Ngan-hwei. Bp. Moule says (perhaps after W. Williams?) from T'un-k'i, name of a stream near Yen-shau-fu in Chi-kiang. [Mr. Pratt (loc. cit.) writes; "The Amoy Tun-ke is nearer, and the Cantonese Tun-kei nearer still, its second syllable being absolutely the same in sound as the English. The Twankay is a stream in the E. of the province of Nganhwui, where Twankay tea grows.">[ Twankay is used by Theodore Hook as a sort of slang for 'tea.'
10. YOUNG HYSON. This is called by the Chinese Yü-t'sien, 'rain-before,' or 'Yu-before,' because picked before Kuh-yu, a term falling about 20th April (see [HYSON] above). According to Giles it was formerly called, in trade, Uchain, which seems to represent the Chinese name. In an "Account of the Prices at which Teas have been put up to Sale, that arrived in England in 1784, 1785" (MS. India Office Records) the Teas are (from cheaper to dearer):—
"Bohea Tea,
Congou,
Souchong,
Singlo (?),
Hyson."
TEA-CADDY, s. This name, in common English use for a box to contain tea for the daily expenditure of the household, is probably corrupted, as Crawfurd suggests, from [catty], a weight of 1⅓ lb. (q.v.). A 'catty-box,' meaning a box holding a catty, might easily serve this purpose and lead to the name. This view is corroborated by a quotation which we have given under [caddy] (q.v.) A friend adds the remark that in his youth 'Tea-caddy' was a Londoner's name for Harley Street, due to the number of E.I. Directors and proprietors supposed to inhabit that district.
TEAPOY, s. A small tripod table. This word is often in England imagined to have some connection with tea, and hence, in London shops for japanned ware and the like, a teapoy means a tea-chest fixed on legs. But this is quite erroneous. Tipāī is a Hindustāni, or perhaps rather an Anglo-Hindustāni word for a tripod, from Hind. tīn, 3, and Pers. pāē, 'foot.' The legitimate word from the Persian is sipāī (properly sihpāya), and the legitimate Hindi word tirpad or tripad, but tipāī or tepoy was probably originated by some European in analogy with the familiar [charpoy] (q.v.) or 'four-legs,' possibly from inaccuracy, possibly from the desire to avoid confusion with another very familiar word [sepoy], seapoy. [Platts, however, gives tipāī as a regular Hind. word, Skt. tri-pād-ikā.] The word is applied in India not only to a three-legged table (or any very small table, whatever number of legs it has), but to any tripod, as to the tripod-stands of surveying instruments, or to trestles in carpentry. Sihpāya occurs in 'Ali of Yezd's history of Timur, as applied to the trestles used by Timur in bridging over the Indus (Elliot, iii. 482). A teapoy is called in Chinese by a name having reference to tea: viz. Ch'a-chi'rh. It has 4 legs.