O TEA!

In the drama of the past
Thou art featured in the cast;
(O Tea!)
And thou hast played thy part
With never a change of heart,
(O Tea!)
For 'mid all the ding and dong
Waits a welcome--soothing song,
For fragrant Hyson and Oolong.
. . .
A song of peace, through all the years,
Of fireside fancies, devoid of fears,
Of mothers' talks and mothers' lays,
Of grandmothers' comforts--quiet ways.
Of gossip, perhaps--still and yet--
What of Johnson? Would we forget
The pictured cup; those merry times,
When round the board, with ready rhymes
Waller, Dryden, and Addison--Young,
Grave Pope to Gay, when Cowper sung?
Sydney Smith, too; gentle Lamb brew,
Tennyson, Dickens, Doctor Holmes knew.
The cup that cheered, those sober souls,
And tiny tea-trays, samovars, and bowls.
. . .
So here's a toast to the queen of plants,
The queen of plants--Bohea!
Good wife, ring for your maiden aunts,
We'll all have cups of tea.
--ARTHUR GRAY.

TEA TERMS

JAPANESE

Ori-mono-châ . . . Folded Tea
Giy-ôku-ro-châ . . . Dew Drop Tea
Usu-châ . . . Light Tea
Koi-châ . . . Dark Tea
Tô-bi-dashi-châ . . . Sifted Tea
Ban-châ . . . Common Tea
Yu-Shiyutsu-châ . . . Export Tea
Neri-châ . . . Brick Tea
Koku-châ . . . Black Tea
Ko-châ . . . Tea Dust Broken Leaves
Riyoku-châ . . . Green Tea

CHINESE

Bohea . . . "Happy Establishment"
So called after two ranges of hills, Fu-Kien or Fo-Kien
Congou . . . Labor
Named so at Amoy from the labor in preparing it.
Sou chong . . . Small Kind
Hyson . . . Flourishing Spring
Pe-koe . . . White Hair
So called because only the youngest leaves are gathered, which still
have the delicate down--white hair--on the surface.
Pou-chong . . . Folded Tea
So called at Canton after the manner of picking it.

Brick Tea--prepared in Central China from the commonest sorts of tea, by soaking the tea refuse, such as broken leaves, twigs, and dust, in boiling water and then pressing them into moulds. Used in Siberia and Mongolia, where it also serves as a medium of exchange. The Mongols place the bricks, when testing the quality, on the head, and try to pull downward over the eyes. They reject the brick as worthless if it breaks or bends.

TEA LEAVES

BY JOHN ERNEST MCCANN

According to Henry Thomas Buckle, the author of "The History of Civilization in England," who was the master of eighteen languages, and had a library of 22,000 volumes, with an income of $75,000 a year, at the age of twenty-nine, in 1850 (he died in 1860, at the age of thirty-nine), tea making and drinking were, or are, what Wendell Phillips would call lost arts. He thought that, when it came to brewing tea, the Chinese philosophers were not living in his vicinity. He distinctly wrote that, until he showed her how, no woman of his acquaintance could make a decent cup of tea. He insisted upon a warm cup, and even spoon, and saucer. Not that Mr. Buckle ever sipped tea from a saucer. Of course, he was right in insisting upon those above-mentioned things, for tea-things, like a tea-party, should be in sympathy with the tea, not antagonistic to it. Still, not always; for, on one memorable occasion, in the little town of Boston, the greatest tea-party in history was anything but sympathetic. But let that pass.

Emperor Kien Lung wrote, 200 years or more ago, for the benefit of his children, just before he left the Flowery Kingdom for a flowerier:

"Set a tea-pot over a slow fire; fill it with cold water; boil it long enough to turn a lobster red; pour it on the quantity of tea in a porcelain vessel; allow it to remain on the leaves until the vapor evaporates, then sip it slowly, and all your sorrows will follow the vapor."

He says nothing about milk or sugar. But, to me, tea without sugar is poison, as it is with milk. I can drink one cup of tea, or coffee, with sugar, but without milk, and feel no ill effects; but if I put milk in either tea or coffee, I am as sick as a defeated candidate for the Presidency. That little bit of fact is written as a hint to many who are ill without knowing why they are, after drinking tea, or coffee, with milk in it. I don't think that milk was ever intended for coffee or tea. Why should it be? Who was the first to color tea and coffee with milk? It may have been a mad prince, in the presence of his flatterers and imitators, to be odd; or just to see if his flatterers would adopt the act.