The natural history of the tea-tree, with observations on the medical qualities of tea, and on the effects of tea-drinking / by John Coakley Lettsom.

Lettsom, John Coakley, 1744-1815.

Date:: 1799

Credit: The natural history of the tea-tree, with observations on the medical qualities of tea, and on the effects of tea-drinking / by John Coakley Lettsom. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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$' ( 43 ) / different kinds of Tea, and drying it in the lun, with feveral bafkets flanding near them filled with a very white fubflancc, and in confiderable quantity. To what ufe this may be applied is uncertain, as well as what the fubflance is ; yet there is no • doubt, he thinks, that it is ufed in the manufacturing of Tea, as the Chinefe feldom bring any-thing into their pieces but fuch as relate in fome refpect to the bufinefs before them. We are better acquainted with a vegetable fubflance which has been employed by the Afiatics in giving a flavour to Tea. This is the Olea Fragrans, whofe flowers are frequently to be met with in Teas exported from China: and as the plant is now not unfrequent in the gardens near the metropolis, I am enabled to give an engraving of the plant and its botanical hiftory \ Olea Fragrans.—Sweet-fcented Olive. Clafs and Order. Diandria Monogynia. Generic Character* Cor. 4. fida : laciniis fubova- Corot. 4. cleft: fegments tis. Drupa monofperma. fomewhat ovate. Drupe, one- feeded. See Thunberg’s Flora Japonic a, from which work the Botanic Hiftory of the Olea Fragrans is chiefly taken. Specific$