it was a fashionable curiosity

来源：百度知道 编辑：UC知道 时间：2024/05/16 11:10:09
It could not be bought in shops and even those people who could afford to have it sent from Holland did so only because it was a fashionable curiosity.

不懂。全文如下:

Tea drinking was common in China for nearly one thousand years before anyone in Europe had ever heard about tea. People in Britain were much slower in finding out what tea was like, mainly because tea was very expensive. It could not be bought in shops and even those people who could afford to have it sent from Holland did so only because it was a fashionable curiosity. Some of them were not sure how to use it. They thought it was a vegetable and tried cooking the leaves. Then they served them mixed with butter and salt. They soon discovered their mistake but many people used to spread the used tea leaves on bread and give them to their children as sandwiches.

Tea remained scarce and very expensive in England until the ships of the East India Company began to bring it direct from China early in

It could not be bought in shops and even those people who could afford to have it sent from Holland did so only because it was a fashionable curiosity.
在（英国）的商店里买不到茶叶。即便有人花得起钱从荷兰邮购，也只是因为这是时髦的好奇。（意思是他们想知道茶叶是什么样，就从荷兰邮购。这在当时的有钱人中很时髦。下文接着说到他们并不知道该怎么泡茶。）。