TEA TREE. 
16*3 
of the tea, or electricity, was the cause of this event, 
is doubtful. In either view the case is worthy of 
attention # .” 
The Introduction of Tea into Europe. 
The first European writer who has alluded to 
the tea plant is Giovani Botero : this person pub- 
lished a treatise in I090, in which he does not im- 
mediately mention its name, but describes it in a 
manner which sufficiently explains what he meant. 
“ The Chinese,” says he, “ have an herb out of 
which they press a delicate juice, which serves them 
for drink instead of wine ; it also preserves their 
health, and frees them from all those evils which the 
immoderate use of wine produces among us.” 
About the year l6‘00, the dried leaves were seen, 
in Malacca, by one Texeira a Spaniard, who was 
told that the Chinese prepared an infusion from 
them. In 1633 the practice was noticed among 
the Persians; and in 1639 the Russian ambassador, 
at the court of the Mogul, partook of the infusion, 
and was offered a quantity of the leaves at his de- 
parture as a present for the emperor, which he re- 
fused as a useless article. 
* From these instances of the deleterious effects of tea, one 
might be led to suppose that the same unhappy consequences 
would frequently attend those who are employed in examining 
and mixing different kinds of tea in China : but there the teas 
are mixed under an open shed, through which the air has a free 
current, by which the odour and the dust are dissipated ; but in 
London this business is usually done in a back room, confined on 
every side. 
M 2 
