Store clothes are opposed to homespun; store tea to decoctions of herbs.
[1818. We had furnished our travelling pack with a quantity of choice young hyson-tea, and this morning [Dec. 18] made a pot of it, and invited Mrs. Fisher to partake, presuming it would be highly relished, but were surprised to hear her declare it was bitter, and unpalatable stuff. She could not drink it. She preferred dittany, sassafras, and spice-wood tea, to our hyson.—H. R. Schoolcraft, ‘Tour into Missouri,’ p. 46; Lond., 1821.]
1843. ’Tisn’t nun of your spice-wood or yarb stuff, but the rele gineine store tea.—B. R. Hall (‘Robert Carlton’), ‘The New Purchase,’ i. 64. (Italics in the original.)
1843. Our professor, although dressed in store cloth and rather dandy-looking, betrayed no emotion, and never altered his half-recumbent attitude.—Id., ii. 191.
1856. A country fellow at a Georgia hotel was asked what kind of tea he would take:—“Why, store tea of course; I don’t want any of your sassafras stuff.”—San Francisco Call, Dec. 27.
1857. Say they, there is brother Kimball; his women have all got store bonnets, and ribbons, and laces, and this, that, and the other thing, brooches, jewellery, and feather beds sowed under their arms. Aint we just as good as they?—H. C. Kimball at the Bowery, Salt Lake City, Aug. 2: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ v. 137.
1859. Instead of ‘store-tea,’ they only had saxifax tea-doin’s, without milk, yet the repast was one to be long and gratefully remembered.—Knick. Mag., liii. 318 (March).
1862. It may be asked, “Does not brother Brigham buy as many store goods for his wives and children as any man in the Territory of Utah?” I buy more.—Brigham Young, Feb. 2: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ ix. 187.
1864. Then ensued an exciting contest between a pair of No. 7 boots, and a few store clothes, to reach the College first, with the boots always a little ahead.—Yale Lit. Mag., xxix. 270 (June).
1874. A little “store-tea”—so called in contradistinction to the sage, sassafras and crop-vine teas in general use.—E. Eggleston, ‘The Circuit Rider,’ p. 68.
1880. Instead of “store tea” we used the root of the sassafras.—Peter H. Burnett, ‘Recollections and Opinions of an Old Pioneer,’ p. 11.
1890. After his return he came to our tent dressed in what the officers call “cit’s” clothes, which he termed “store clothes.”—Mrs. Custer, ‘Following the Guidon,’ p. 27 (N.Y.).
