Ebook A Cup of Tea, Containing a History of the Tea Plant From Its Discovery to the Present Time, Including Its Botanical Characteristics and Embracing Mr. William Saunder

Taxiere also a native of Portugal, states that he saw the dried leaves of the tea-plant at Malacca, prior to the year A. D. 1600. The article is also mentioned in one of the earliest privileges or licenses accorded to the Portuguese for trad ing, in A. D. 1518; yet it was not until the expiration of more than a century from the beginning of that trade that we find a distinct account from a European pen of the use of tea as a beverage.