a. and sb. Also 8 bohee. [ad. Chinese Wu-i(shan) the Wu-i hills in north of Fuhkien. Morrison gives ‘Bohea Tea, wu i cha’ (cha = tea), and Edkins, Mandarin Gram., 89, says that the Fuhkien dialect uses b for w or v. By some 18th-c. writers accented bo·hea.]
A. adj. Of the Wu-i hills, whence black tea was first brought to England; applied also to tea of similar quality grown elsewhere.
1704. Steele, Lying Lover, II. (1747), 36. Set Chairs, and the Bohea Tea, and leave us.
1718. Quincy, Compl. Disp., 116. Bohee Tea.—This is one of those things which Luxury has introduced into Diet.
1773. Gentl. Mag., XLIII. 607. The infusion of the leaves of the same plant, which … is like common bohea-tea.
B. sb.
1. = Bohea tea. The name was given in the beginning of the 18th c. to the finest kinds of black tea; but the quality now known as ‘Bohea’ is the lowest, being the last crop of the season.
1701. J. Cunningham, Voy. Chusan., ii. in Phil. Trans., XXIII. 1205. The Bohe (or Voiii, so call’d of some Mountains in the Province of Fokien) … is the very first bud gather’d in the beginning of March.
1727–8. Mrs. Delany, Life & Corr. (1861), I. 172. Tea of all prices—Bohea from thirteen to twenty shillings, and green from twelve to thirty.
1852. McCulloch, Dict. Comm., 1290. The black teas … beginning with the lowest qualities: Bohea, Congou, Souchong, and Pekoe.
2. An infusion of this tea taken as a beverage.
1706. Estcourt, Fair Examp., I. i. 10. To dine at my Lord Mayor’s, and after Dinner be entertain’d with a Dish of Bohea by my Lady Mayoress.
1714. Pope, Rape Lock, IV. 156. In some lone isle, or distant northern land … Where none learn ombre, none e’er taste bohea!
1728. Young, Love Fame, vi. (1757), 152. How two red lips affected Zephyrs blow, To cool the Bohea, and inflame the Beau.
1841. L. Hunt, Seer (1864), 19. Thy unsophisticated cup of bohea.
1851. Thackeray, Eng. Hum., v. (1858), 273. Richardson’s goddess was … fed on muffins and bohea.
