East India Company’s “Smoakey” Tea From 1785

If you pay enough attention to rare book collection blogs, you sometimes learn things like how the East India Company logged all the tea they brought in from China: “Quality ranges from “musty and mouldy” to “superfine”. Additional symbols noted the leaf size, smells and other conditions such as “woody” or “smoakey.” The Rare Book Division at Princeton recently acquired the catalog from 1785. Follow Vol. 1 Brooklyn on Twitter, Facebook, Google + our Tumblr, and sign up for our mailing list.

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