SC - Question on tea

[Jenne Heise]

> In the vast majority of period sources that I've read for the time
> period, "tansy" as a term for herbal infusion is not used. I've not
> read all of them. Yet. :) But I've never come across the word tansy
> in the sense to which you refer in anything late period (i.e post 1450).
> Can you point me to a reference?
> 
> The link in usage to the herb doesn't come up in any of the dictionaries,
> old or new, that I own, but perhaps someone with a copy of the OED
> handy can  check.

Um, in the OED, tansy is not mentioned as a synonym for infusion.

The definition does mention tansy puddings:
"3. a. A pudding, omelet, or the like, flavoured with juice of
tansy: see also 5. arch. or dial.
  Said to have been eaten at Easter in memory of the ‘bitter herbs’ of the
Passover.
 
  c1450 Two Cookery-bks. 86 Tansey. Take faire Tansey, and grinde it in a
morter; And take eyren, yolkes and white, And drawe hem thorgh a
streynour, and streyne also e Iuse of e Tansey..; and medle the egges and
the Iuse togidre [etc.]. 1513 Bk. Keruynge Avjb, A tansye fryed, & other
bake metes. c1530 Caroll in Anglia XII. 588 At Easter commeth alleluya
With butter cheese and a tansay. 1561 HOLLYBUSH Hom. Apoth. 18 Let him
take Neppe that cattes delite in..and make a taunsey thereof. a1601 ?
MARSTON Pasquil & Kath. I. 154 There's but two Lambs,..three tartes, and
foure tansies, for supper. 1621 FLETCHER Pilgrim III. vi, They [eggs]
shall be all addle, And make an admirable tanzey for the devil. 1634-5
BRERETON Trav. (Chetham Soc.) 69 A dainty tansy of gooseberries. 1652
CULPEPPER Eng. Physic. 17 A Tansie or Caudle made with eggs and the juyce
thereof while it is young, putting to it some Sugar and Rose~water. 1666
PEPYS Diary 20 Apr., And there spent an houre or two with pleasure with
her, and eat a tansy. 1748 MRS. SARAH HARRISON Housekpr.'s Pocket-Bk. iii.
(ed. 4) 11 Trotters, To be served up as a Tanzey. 1754-6 Connoisseur No.
48 (1767) II. 95 Mince-pie..is as essential to Christmas, as..tansy to
Easter. 1787 BEST Angling (ed. 2) 60 If you can catch enough of them they
make an excellent tansy, their heads and tails being cut off; and fried in
eggs. 1837 DISRAELI Venetia I. iv, A Florentine tourte, or tansy."

And the etymology of the word is: "[a. OF. tanesie (13th c.), tanoisie,
tenasie, mod.F. tanaisie, aphetic form of athanasie ‘the hearbe Tansie’
(Cotgr.), ad. med.L. athanasia tansy, a. Gr.  immortality. Cf. also It.
atanási ‘Tansie or siluerwort’ (Florio 1611), atanásia the herb tansy
(Baretti 1824), Pg. atanasia or athanasia, the herb tansy. Hatz.-Darm.
mention also a med.L. tanasia, but without reference. But apart from this
it seems clear that OF. tanesie was aphetic for atanesie, the name prob.
referring to the long persistence of the flowers: cf. quot. 1597; also
EVERLASTING and F. immortelle. "

However, the OED also mentions that the use of 'tisane' for tea is a
modern re-adoption of a French word...

 -- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise
jenne at tulgey.browser.net disclaimer: i speak for no-one and no-one speaks
for me. "I do my job. I refuse to be responsible for other people's
managerial hallucinations." -- Lady Jemina Starker