bohea

Bohea (Chinese: 武夷茶, a word derived from the Wuyi Mountains in northern Fujian, China), a kind of black tea, or, in the 18th and early 19th centuries, tea generally, as in Pope's line, "So past her time 'twixt reading and bohea.", or from Francis Hodgson Burnett's book 'A Lady Of Quality': "One may be sure that...many dishes of Bohea were drunk." Later the name "bohea" has been applied to an inferior quality of tea grown late in the season.

The word is attested by Rev. Robert Morrison (1782-1834) in his Chinese dictionary (1819), as one of the seven sorts of black tea "commonly known by Europeans", along with pekoe and other varieties:

"The sorts commonly known to Europeans are these, Bohea, 武夷茶, now called 大茶 Ta-cha; ...; 4th, Pekoe, 白毫, Pih-haou; ..."^[1]

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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