Gli/ton College Scientific Society. 33 



J. E. Jose, O.C. C. B. Brownlow read a paper on ' Printing,' and 

 Messrs Ward, Brown, Ogle, and J. Stone, added some remarks at 

 the close. 



J. F. M. H. Stone next read the following paper on 



TEA. 

 The English name ' Tea ' is borrowed from the common lan- 

 guage of the province Fukian in China, where this article is called 

 iid m their patois. At Canton it is called tsclia or tscliai; 

 black tea being named Jie-tscha, green tea lo-tscha. Ch is 

 always pronounced t, and hence the difference between cha and lea 

 for the great staple production of 

 China; the former name for tea 

 being adopted by the Portuguese 

 from Macao, and the latter by the 

 English from Amoy. 



The annexed woodcut represents 

 the Chinese character for * tea.' 

 It is written in ten strokes, be- 

 ginning at the top on the left- 

 hand side. The character is pro- 

 nounced dm, the a as in French. 

 The Portuguese writer Maffei, in 

 his ' Historise Indiese,' calls tea cUa. Other authors have termed 

 it chaw. In Persian works in use in India, tea is called clia- 

 khutai or tea of Cathay. In our own works of more than a cen- 

 tury back, as in the Sioectator and Pope's poems, we always find 

 the term 'bohea' applied to the best tea. In the ' Rape of the 

 Lock,' canto iv.. Pope says — 



' Where none learn ombre, none e'er taste Boliea.' 



Tea is more or less cultivated for local consumption in almost 

 every province of China, but very little black tea is exported of 

 other growth than either of Fokien or of the Canton district, and 

 very little green tea of other growth than that of Kiang-nan, or 

 of the adjacent province Che-kiang. 



The districts which supply the greater portion of the teas ex- 

 ported to Eiirope and America, lie between the 25th and the 31st 

 degrees of north latitude ; and the best district — that is, the one 

 in which the finest tea is grown — lies between the 27th and 

 31st parallels of north latitude, on a low range of hills, which is 

 an offshoot of the great chain Pe-ling. 



The attempts which have been repeatedly made to cultivate it 

 in Ceylon (both by Dutch and English colonists) have had but 

 little success. 



