What is "tea"

Tea \Tea\ (t[=e]), n. [Chin. tsh[=a], Prov. Chin. te: cf. F. th['e].]

1. The prepared leaves of a shrub, or small tree ( Thea Chinensis or Camellia Chinensis). The shrub is a native of China, but has been introduced to some extent into some other countries.

   Note: Teas are classed as green or black, according to their color or appearance, the kinds being distinguished also by various other characteristic differences, as of taste, odor, and the like. The color, flavor, and quality are dependent upon the treatment which the leaves receive after being gathered. The leaves for green tea are heated, or roasted slightly, in shallow pans over a wood fire, almost immediately after being gathered, after which they are rolled with the hands upon a table, to free them from a portion of their moisture, and to twist them, and are then quickly dried. Those intended for black tea are spread out in the air for some time after being gathered, and then tossed about with the hands until they become soft and flaccid, when they are roasted for a few minutes, and rolled, and having then been exposed to the air for a few hours in a soft and moist state, are finally dried slowly over a charcoal fire. The operation of roasting and rolling is sometimes repeated several times, until the leaves have become of the proper color. The principal sorts of green tea are Twankay, the poorest kind; Hyson skin, the refuse of Hyson; Hyson, Imperial, and Gunpowder, fine varieties; and Young Hyson, a choice kind made from young leaves gathered early in the spring. Those of black tea are Bohea, the poorest kind; Congou; Oolong; Souchong, one of the finest varieties; and Pekoe, a fine-flavored kind, made chiefly from young spring buds. See Bohea, Congou, Gunpowder tea, under Gunpowder, Hyson, Oolong, and Souchong.
   --K. Johnson.
   --Tomlinson.

   Note: ``No knowledge of . . . [tea] appears to have reached Europe till after the establishment of intercourse between Portugal and China in 1517. The Portuguese, however, did little towards the introduction of the herb into Europe, and it was not till the Dutch established themselves at Bantam early in 17th century, that these adventurers learned from the Chinese the habit of tea drinking, and brought it to Europe.''
   --Encyc. Brit.

2. A decoction or infusion of tea leaves in boiling water; as, tea is a common beverage.

3. Any infusion or decoction, especially when made of the dried leaves of plants; as, sage tea; chamomile tea; catnip tea.

4. The evening meal, at which tea is usually served; supper. Arabian tea, the leaves of Catha edulis; also (Bot.), the plant itself. See Kat. Assam tea, tea grown in Assam, in India, originally brought there from China about the year 1850. Australian tea, or Botany Bay tea (Bot.), a woody climbing plant ( Smilax glycyphylla). Brazilian tea.

   1. The dried leaves of Lantana pseodothea, used in Brazil as a substitute for tea.

   2. The dried leaves of Stachytarpheta mutabilis, used for adulterating tea, and also, in Austria, for preparing a beverage.

      Labrador tea. (Bot.) See under Labrador.

      New Jersey tea (Bot.), an American shrub, the leaves of which were formerly used as a substitute for tea; redroot. See Redroot.

      New Zealand tea. (Bot.) See under New Zealand.

      Oswego tea. (Bot.) See Oswego tea.

      Paraguay tea, mate. See 1st Mate.

      Tea board, a board or tray for holding a tea set.

      Tea bug (Zo["o]l.), an hemipterous insect which injures the tea plant by sucking the juice of the tender leaves.

      Tea caddy, a small box for holding tea.

      Tea chest, a small, square wooden case, usually lined with sheet lead or tin, in which tea is imported from China.

      Tea clam (Zo["o]l.), a small quahaug. [Local, U. S.]

      Tea garden, a public garden where tea and other refreshments are served.

      Tea plant (Bot.), any plant, the leaves of which are used in making a beverage by infusion; specifically, Thea Chinensis, from which the tea of commerce is obtained.

      Tea rose (Bot.), a delicate and graceful variety of the rose ( Rosa Indica, var. odorata), introduced from China, and so named from its scent. Many varieties are now cultivated.

      Tea service, the appurtenances or utensils required for a tea table, -- when of silver, usually comprising only the teapot, milk pitcher, and sugar dish.

      Tea set, a tea service.

      Tea table, a table on which tea furniture is set, or at which tea is drunk.

      Tea taster, one who tests or ascertains the quality of tea by tasting.

      Tea tree (Bot.), the tea plant of China. See Tea plant, above.

      Tea urn, a vessel generally in the form of an urn or vase, for supplying hot water for steeping, or infusing, tea.

Tea \Tea\, v. i. To take or drink tea. [Colloq.]

1650s, tay, also in early spellings thea, tey, tee and at first pronounced so as to rhyme with obey; the modern pronunciation predominates from mid-18c. But earlier in English as chaa (1590s), also cha, tcha, chia, cia. The two forms of the word reflect two paths of transmission: chaa is from Portuguese cha, attested in Portuguese from 1550s, via Macao, from Mandarin (Chinese) ch'a (cf chai). The later form, which became Modern English tea, is via Dutch, from Malay teh and directly from Chinese (Amoy dialect) t'e, which corresponds to Mandarin ch'a.\n

\nThe distribution of the different forms of the word in Europe reflects the spread of use of the beverage. The modern English form, along with French thé, Spanish te, German Tee, etc., derive via Dutch thee from the Amoy form, reflecting the role of the Dutch as the chief importers of the leaves (through the Dutch East India Company, from 1610). Meanwhile, Russian chai, Persian cha, Greek tsai, Arabic shay, and Turkish çay all came overland from the Mandarin form.\n

\nFirst known in Paris 1635, the practice of drinking tea was first introduced to England 1644. Meaning "afternoon meal at which tea is served" is from 1738. Slang meaning "marijuana" (which sometimes was brewed in hot water) is attested from 1935, felt as obsolete by late 1960s. Tea ball is from 1895.

n. 1 (context uncountable English) The dried leaves or buds of the tea plant, ''http://en.wikipedi

1. org/wiki/Camellia%20sinensis''. 2 (context uncountable English) The drink made by infuse these dried leaves or buds in hot water. v

2. 1 To drink tea. 2 To take afternoon tea (the light meal).

1. n. a beverage made by steeping tea leaves in water; "iced tea is a cooling drink"

2. a light midafternoon meal of tea and sandwiches or cakes; "an Englishman would interrupt a war to have his afternoon tea" [syn: afternoon tea, teatime]

3. dried leaves of the tea shrub; used to make tea; "the store shelves held many different kinds of tea"; "they threw the tea into Boston harbor" [syn: tea leaf]

4. a reception or party at which tea is served; "we met at the Dean's tea for newcomers"

5. a tropical evergreen shrub or small tree extensively cultivated in e.g. China and Japan and India; source of tea leaves; "tea has fragrant white flowers" [syn: Camellia sinensis]

Tea is an aromatic beverage commonly prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis, an evergreen shrub native to Asia. After water, it is the most widely consumed drink in the world. There are many different types of tea; some teas, like Darjeeling and Chinese greens, have a cooling, slightly bitter, and astringent flavour, while others have vastly different profiles that include sweet, nutty, floral or grassy notes.

Tea originated in southwestern China, where it was used as a medicinal drink. It was popularized as a recreational drink during the Chinese Tang dynasty, and tea drinking spread to other East Asian countries. Portuguese priests and merchants introduced it to the West during the 16th century. During the 17th century, drinking tea became fashionable among Britons, who started large-scale production and commercialization of the plant in India to bypass a Chinese monopoly at that time.

The phrase herbal tea usually refers to infusions of fruit or herbs made without the tea plant, such as steeps of rosehip, chamomile, or rooibos. These are also known as tisanes or herbal infusions to distinguish them from "tea" as it is commonly construed.

Téa is a female given name of French origin.

Téa can refer to:

• Téa Gardner, the alternative name for Yu-Gi-Oh! character Anzu Mazaki
• Téa Leoni, American actress
• Téa Henry, French footballer, daughter of Thierry Henry
• Téa Delgado, a character on One Life to Live

Tea is a high level scripting language for the Java environment. It combines features of Scheme, Tcl and Java.

• Integrated support for all major programming paradigms.
  • Functional programming language.
  • Functions are first class objects.
  • Scheme-like closures are intrinsic to the language.
  • Support for object oriented programming.
• Modular libraries with autoloading on demand facilities.
• Large base of core functions and classes.
  • String and list processing.
  • Regular expressions.
  • File and network I/O.
  • Database access.
  • XML processing.
• 100% Pure Java.
  • The Tea interpreter is implemented in Java.
  • Tea runs anywhere with a Java 1.6 JVM or higher.
  • Java reflection features allow the use of Java libraries directly from Tea code.
• Intended to be easily extended in Java. For example, Tea supports relational database access through JDBC, regular expressions through GNU Regexp, and an XML parser through a SAX parser (XML4J for example).

Tea (in reference to food, rather than the drink) has long been used as an umbrella term for several different meals. Isabella Beeton, whose books on home economics were widely read in the 19th century, describes afternoon teas of various kinds, and provides menus for the old-fashioned tea, the at-home tea, the family tea and the high tea. Teatime is the time at which the tea meal is usually eaten, which is late afternoon to early evening. Tea as a meal is associated with Britain, Ireland, and some Commonwealth countries.

Tea is a feminine given name which is cognate to the name Theia.

Tea a genus of the spider hunting wasps belonging to the family Pompilidae. Tea may be a subgenus of Eoferreola Arnold 1935

TEA is a graphical text editor. Its name is an acronym for Text Editor of the Atomic Era. It is designed for low resource consumption, a wide range of functions and adaptability, and is available for all desktop operating systems supported by Qt 5 or 4.6+, thus also OS/2. Its user interface is localized in several languages.

Tea or TEA can mean:

• Tea, a traditional beverage made from steeping the processed leaves, buds, or twigs of the tea bush ( Camellia sinensis) in water.

"Tea" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. It was first published in 1915 in the journal Rogue, so it is in the public domain.

Eleanor Cook observes that "Tea" is one of two "seemingly (but far from) slight poems that close both editions of Harmonium," adding that this "eight-line, one-sentence, free-verse virtuoso performance" offers a very effective implicit leave-taking. (The other poem she is referring to is "To the Roaring Wind", quoted at the bottom of the main Harmonium essay.)

Cook compares "Tea" to Domination of Black, as being representative of "all the troping of leaves through the collection". She suggests that the reference to Java may be significant not only because it was a center of tea-trade, but also because its sophisticated court culture at one time, notable for its subtleties and appreciation of artists, "made it the kind of culture that Stevens especially liked". She also suggests that the poem expresses "Stevens's delicately implicit trope of drinking tea as a metaphor for reading (ingesting a drink from leaves)." She notes that Stevens was a tea-fancier.

Robert Buttel characterizes this poem as light, witty, and rococo, and as displaying compression, concentration, and precision. "The last four lines set the world of civilized order against the outdoor coldness," he writes, "ending on a note of exotic beauty, color, and elegance...." He suggests that the experience or feeling of being civilized is presented symbolically in "Tea". It is one of the two earliest Stevens poems to combine wit and elegance, according to Buttel, the other being " Cy est Pourtraicte, Madame Ste Ursule, et les Unze Mille Vierges", also published in 1915. The two poems are proofs that by 1915 Stevens had mastered the tools in the workshop of nineteenth-century poetry that he had set himself to learn, including imagism, impressionism, and symbolism.

As mentioned in the main Harmonium essay (see the section "The Mind of China"), the poem shows the influence of orientalism on Stevens's work.