-MONTHLY 
No.175.])  SEPTEMBE 
“-Inflyenge and Celebrity, the moft: extenfively circula 
*©Curiofity of thofe who read either for Amufement or 
ORIGINAL COM 
For the Monthly Magazine... 
LETTER II. 
’ ON-THE TEA PLANT, 
Néc vero terre ferre omnes’omnia ‘possunt. 
" Fluminibus salices, crassisque paludibus alni 
- Nascuntur, steriles saxosis montibus orni; 
Littora myrtetis letissima : denique apertos 
Bacchus amat colles: aquilonem et frigora 
taxi. Virgil, G; ii. 
1 my first letter, which you deemed 
worthy of a place in your Magazine 
- for August, I intimated my intention of 
resuming the History of Tea, with its in- 
" troduction into this kingdom. * sf 
__ So far as authentic accounts afford us 
' information, China and Japan are the 
only countries where it is cultivated for . 
_ tise, and hence we may conclude, that it 
is indigenous to one, if not to both, of 
~ them.*. whe Im 
__ About the year.1600 Texeira,t a-Spa- 
- Niard, saw the dried. tea-leaves “iti Ma- 
 Jacca, where he was informed the Chinese 
prepared a drink from this vegetable ; 
and, in 1633, Oleariust found this prac- 
- tice prevalent among the Persians, who 
procured the plant under the name of 
Cha Orchia, from China, by means of 
the Usbeck Tartars. In 1639, Starkaw, 
the Russian ambassador at the court of 
the Mogul, Chau Altyn, partook of the 
infusion of tea; and, at his departure, 
was offered a quantity of it, as a present 
to the Czar Michael Romanof, which the 
ambassador refused, as being an article 
for which he had no use. § 
| ~ * Some authors add Siam also. Vide Sim. 
Pauli, Comment. et Wilh. Leyl, Epist. apud. 
| Sim. Pauli Comment. Nich. Tulpii Observ.. 
- Medicin. libs iv. cap.1x. Lond. 1641. 
_ + Texeira, Relaciones del Origen de los” 
3 ibung, 1633, p. 325, lib. v. cap. xvii. p. 
- 599, fol. 1656:- Hamburg, 1698. Amstel. | 
1666, 4to. ' % 
| § Fischer, Sibirische Gesthichte, vol. ii. 
pp: 694, 697. 
| _.Montuiy Mac., No. 175.. 
THE 
MAGAZINE. 
R 1, 1808. [2 of Vou. 26. 
® As long as thofe who write are ambitious of making Converts, and of giving to their Opinions a Maximum of 
ted Mifcellany will repay with the grcateh& Effet the 
Infrution.” - JOHNSON, 
MUNICATIONS. 
__ It was first introduced into Europe by 
the Datch East India Company, early in 
the 17th century; and a quantity of it 
is said to have been brought_over froin 
Holland about the year 1666, by Lord 
Arlington and. Lord Ossory; and it soon 
afterwards became known among people 
of fashion, and its use, by degrees, has 
become general. Anderson,.in his Chro= 
nological Deduction of Commerce, re= 
marks, that the first European author 
that mentions tea,,wrote.in the year 
1590. But this .subject- had. certainly 
been considered much earlier.+ 
Tea must, I think, have been intro- 
duced into England prior to the time as- 
cribed to Lords Arlington and Ossory’s 
return from Holland ; for-drinking tea, 
even in public coffee-houses, was not un< 
common, as a duty of four-pence per gal- 
lon was laid on the liquor made and sold 
in all coffee-houses, so early as. 1660. By 
an act made this year, the duties of ex- 
cise on malt-liquor, cyder, perry, mead, 
spirits, oF strong waters, coffee, tea, sher= 
bet, and chocolate, were settled on the 
king during his life. . Then it was that 
coffee, tea, and chocolate, were first men- 
tioned in the statute-book.. On the 29th 
of October, 1675, Charles Ef, dined with 
the corporation of London at Guildhall. 
At this feast the king afforded the citi- 
zens cause. of animadversion, in which 
they indulged themselves so much to his 
dissatisfaction, and that of- his cabal mie 
bistry, that a proclamation was issued 
on the 20th of Deceinber. of the same 
year, fur shutting up and suppressing all 
coffee-houses ; “ because in such houses, 
! ‘ 2 
‘-* L. Baptista Ramusio, le Navigazioni e 
Viaggi nelli quali si concienne la Descrittione 
dell” Africa, del Paese del. Prete, Joanni del 
' Mar Rosso, Calicut, Isule Moluchese, la Navi« 
gazione intorno il Mondo Vinet, 1550, 
1563, 1588. 3-vols, folio, vol.-3, p..15. 
“In 1590, this was translated into English 
by Giovanhi Botaro, an eminent Italian au- 
thor, and it is probably to this that Anderson 
refere, way 
mes ~ and 
