hay tea

noun

noun

The juice of hay extracted by boiling, used as food for cattle, etc.

Hay tea has been used for a great number of years to feed calves with, after they have lost their mothers. A Birmingham gentleman, who travels into various parts of the Kingdom, tells me, that hay tea is used by many families in different parts of the country: and that it is preferred, for its wholesomeness, to Indian tea.1819, “On the substitution of hay tea for China tea”, in The Black Dwarf:

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