Bohea a kind of oolong

Oolong

Oolong is a traditional Chinese tea produced through a unique process including withering under the strong sun and oxidation before curling and twisting. Most oolong teas, especially those of fine quality, involve unique tea plant cultivars that are exclusively used for particular varieties...

, or, in the 18th and early 19th centuries, black tea generally, as in Pope

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...

's line, "So past her time 'twixt reading and bohea.", or from Frances Hodgson Burnett

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett was an English playwright and author. She is best known for her children's stories, in particular The Secret Garden , A Little Princess, and Little Lord Fauntleroy.Born Frances Eliza Hodgson, she lived in Cheetham Hill, Manchester...

's book 'A Lady Of Quality': "One may be sure that...many dishes of Bohea were drunk." Later the name 'bohea' has been applied to an inferior quality of tea grown late in the season.

The word is attested by Rev. Robert Morrison (1782-1834) in his Chinese dictionary (1819), as one of the seven sorts of black tea "commonly known by Europeans", along with pekoe and other varieties:

"The sorts commonly known to Europeans are these, Bohea, 武夷茶, now called 大茶 Ta-cha; ...; 4th, Pekoe, 白毫, Pih-haou; ..."

Wuyi oolong is characteristically strip shaped and heavily fermented. The dried leaf is almost black in colour.