Oopack

English

Alternative forms

Oopak

Etymology

From romanization of Hokkien 湖北 (Ô͘-pak). The black tea is named from the district in China.

Noun

Oopack (countable and uncountable, plural Oopacks)

(dated) A kind of black tea.
(obsolete) Synonym of Hubei: the Hokkien-derived name.
- 1870 April, G. W. Caine, “Report on Trade at Hankow during 1868.”, in Commercial Reports from Her Majesty's Consuls in China and Siam. 1869., number 7, London: Harrison and Sons, →OCLC, page 82:
  Such eagerness and competition as this, regardless of quality and almost of price, is the fruitful encouragement to teamen of carelessness in the manufacture of both the tea and the packages. The result has proved that in all the Oopack (Hoopeh) districts, this carelessness had already commenced, and the competitive rush had been well anticipated by the teamen; for the teas turned out to have been hurriedly prepared; much mixed with old leaves of the previous year’s growth; quite unfit for the long journey before them; and packed in chests much too frail for their increased bulk. It was supposed here that the teas from one or two of the Oopack districts were superior, and of proper quality, but the result proved that from all the so-called Oopack districts (though one of them is in Hoonan) of Yang-low-tung, Yang-low-see, Nep-ka-see, Lung-yaong, and Chang-so-kiè, the yield has been inferior.
- 1877 June 18, “Monetary and Commercial.”, in The London and China Telegraph‎^[1], volume XIX, number 720, →OCLC, page 554, columns 1–2:
  The postal advices from Hankow relative to Season 1877-78 state that the Shensi traders (Chinese), who have hitherto packed teas in the Oopack Province for the overland trade, via Kiachta, to the great fair held annually at Nichni Novgorod, this season prepared them for shipment to Russia, via the Canal, and this doubtless accounts for the rumours of the full supply offering at Hankow, a large portion of which is evidently destined for immediate transhipment from hence to Russia.
- 1878 February, William M. Tileston, “A Trip to the Tea Country.”, in St. Nicholas, volume V, number 4, →OCLC, pages 248, 251:
  The last new "chop" had been carefully tasted and the leaf inspected, and I was wondering whether the price asked by the tea-man would show a profit over the latest quotations from London and New York, when my speculations were disturbed by the entrance of my friend Charley, followed by Akong, well known as the most influential tea-broker in the Oopack province. […]
  The cultivation of the tea-plant is by no means confined to any one district or spot, but is scattered about through the different provinces, each producing its peculiar description known to the trade by its distinctive name. We were now in the Hupeh or Oopack country, and the tea we saw being gathered and prepared was the heavy-liquored black-leafed description, known in England and to the trade as Congou.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Oopack.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “Oopack”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)