[Sca-cooks] Tea

[Johnna Holloway]

http://www.gol27.com/HistoryTea.html
The earliest mention of tea in the literature of Europe was in 1559. It 
appears as "Chai Catai'(Tea of China) in the book 'Delle Navigatione et 
Viaggi (Voyages and Travels) by Giambattista Ramusio (1485-1557).....
Ramusio's book was a collection of narratives of voyages and discoveries 
in ancient and modern times, including those of the Persian merchant 
Hajji Mahommed, who visited Venice, who is credited with first bringing 
tea to Europe. The reference describing tea says, 'One or two cups of 
this decoction taken on an empty stomach removes fever, headache, 
stomach ache, pain in the side or in the joints . . . besides that, it 
is good for no end of other ailments, which he could not remember, but 
gout was one of them. He said 'it is so highly valued and esteemed that 
everyone going on a journey takes it with him, and those people would 
gladly give a sack of rhubarb for one ounce of Chai Catai'. The beverage 
was first called Cha, from the Cantonese slang for tea. The name changed 
later to Tay, or Tee, when the British trading post moved from * 
Canton(Guangzhou) 
<http://www.ibiblio.org/chinesehistory/geo.html#guangdong> to * 
Amoy(Xiamen) <http://www.ibiblio.org/chinesehistory/geo.html#xiamen>, 
where the word for tea is T'e.

Johnnae