Chinese tea Longevity Sprout, Eternal Spring Jade Leaf, Dragon in the Clouds, Longevity Dragon Sprout, Dragon Phoenix and Flower, and Eternal Spring Silver Sprout. The Ming Dynasty scholar Wen Zhenheng's encyclopedic book "Zhang Wu Zhi" (; Treatise on Superfluous Things), volume 12, contains the following descriptions of several famous Ming Dynasty teas: During this time, Huqiu tea (; lit. "Tiger Hill tea"), not to be confused with the black tea of the same name from the Nilgiris District in what is now Tamil Nadu, India) was purportedly developed as the finest tea in the world; however, the production quantity was rather small,
Language and overseas Chinese communities as Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket, Chumphon, Ratchaburi, Chon Buri, Hat Yai and Nakhon Sawan, with Chinatowns in these cities still featuring signage in both Chinese and Thai. As of the 2000s, only a little over 2% (200,000) of Thai Chinese still speak a variant of Chinese at home. A little over half speak Teochew, the largest variant group, followed by Hakka, Hokkien, Hainanese, Cantonese and Shanghainese. In commerce, Teochew, Cantonese and Thai are used as common languages and Chinese-language schools often use Cantonese as the medium of instruction due to its "lingua franca" status among most ethnic Chinese in Southeast