How Americans Drank and Drink Tea

choi

Heller McAlpin, When Japan Filled Our Teacup; Green tea—not today's ubiquitous orange pekoe—dominated America's 'teaways' for nearly a century, from the 1860s through the early 1940s.. Wall Street Journal, Dec 14, 2021, at page A17
https://www.wsj.com/articles/gre ... teacups-11639437911
https://www.5gnewsroom.com/2021/ ... filled-our-teacups/
(book review on Robert Hellyer, Green with Milk and Sugar; When Japan filled America's tea cups. Columbia University Press, 2021)

Note:
(a) Yes, the title of the book review and the subtitle in the book use "teacup" and "teacup," respectively.

(b) "Mr Hellyer, an associate professor of history at Wake Forest University * * * [His] great-great grandfather Frederick Hellyer * * * came to divide his time between Riverside, Ill., and the family's tea-processing factories in the Japanese port cities of Kobe and Shizuoka [静岡県静岡市 (capital)]. * * * Young hyson is the highest grade of green tea, followed by sencha. Souchong, which means 'small' or 'scarce,' is the choicest grade of black tea.
(i) Riverside, Illinois
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside,_Illinois
(ii)
(A) 熙春. Cantonese Wiki
https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%86%99%E6%98%A5
("熙春，又叫熙春茶，英名hyson，唐茶一種，產於中國安徽，亦帶出另外兩種茶，皮茶（hyson skin），以及 雨前（young hyson）。  英名hyson，原自英國茶商菲臘希臣（Philip Hyson）。  
英名又叫Lucky Dragon Tea")
(B) 印象大唐贡茶院（散文）. 舒曼茶话, Aug 22, 2018
https://capturable61.rssing.com/chan-43672765/all_p26.html
(" '熙春' 这个名字，源于晋代文学家潘岳(247~300)的作品，在其《闲居赋》中有 '于是凛秋暑退，熙春寒往' 之句;意思是冬去春来、茶芽初发于早春采制而成。人们用形容春天的词语来描写熙春茶，是因为春天既是 '熙春' 茶的采摘季节，更因为春天的新绿也是 '熙春' 茶的颜色。至于后来 '熙春' 茶被称为 '贡熙' 茶，是为了夸耀 '熙春' 茶的名贵，也是因为 '熙春' 茶是进贡给皇室的 '贡品。'还有一种附会的说法是，'熙春' 茶曾进贡给康熙皇帝，所以就有了 '贡熙' 之名")
(C) Hyson Tea. Oliver Pluff & Co, undated
https://oliverpluff.com/collections/hyson-tea
("Named for tea merchant Philip Hyson, Young Hyson was imported to colonial America by the British East India Company. Young Hyson tea was highly prized and the tea tax was higher for Hyson than for other teas. It is created from green tea leaves, picked in Spring, then thinly rolled to have a long twisted appearance")
(D) hyson
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hyson
(pronunciation)
(iii)
(A) sencha  煎茶
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sencha
("is a type of Japanese ryokucha (緑茶, green tea) which is prepared by infusing the processed whole tea leaves in hot water. This is as opposed to matcha (抹茶), powdered Japanese green tea, where the green tea powder is mixed with hot water and therefore the leaf itself is included in the beverage [and imbibed]. Sencha is the most popular tea in Japan")
• The kanji 緑 has two Chinese pronunciations: ryoku abnd roku. The cha is Chinese pronunciationof kanji 茶.
• The ja.wikipedia.org for 抹茶 says it was invented in Tang Dynasty in China.
• You may wonder about "煎"in 煎茶. This is because the same kanji 煎 has a different definition in Japanese. See next.
(B) Japanese-English dictionary:
* senjiru 煎じる 【せんじる】 (v): "to boil; to decoct; to infuse"
(C) English dictonary:
* decoct (v)
https://www.lexico.com/definition/decoct
(iv) souchong  小種
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/souchong   (pronunciation)

I fail to find out how 小種 became souchong.


(c) "The Great American Tea Company—later expanded to the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., better known as A&P—was another prominent early trader [in tea]."

A&P
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%26P   
(1859 to 2015; In 1859 "Gilman & Company entered the tea and coffee business from that storefront" at 98 Gold Street in Manhattan)
(d) "Black teas, especially the ubiquitous orange pekoe, accounted for 87% of American tea consumption, much of it in sweet iced teas."
(i) Oxford pronounces pekoe "pēkō."
(ii) For orange pekoe, see tea leaf grading
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_leaf_grading
(section 1.3 Orange pekoe, section 1.3.1 Etymology)