Hong

Lyke an huge cave hewne out of rocky clifte, From whose rough vaut the ragged breaches hong

"You and your son are about to visit China," said a Chinese agent of an old and established hong in Canton. […] The speaker was Ah Hue, or Ah Hue-Ling. He had made a reputation for honorable dealing as an agent of the tea trade.

In this partly manufactured state they are sold to collectors, who re-sell them to tea hongs, or factories, and these hongs in turn resell to middlemen, who supply the foreign exporter.

Even though China's red flag now flutters above them, some 40% of the offices are still owned by Hongkong Land, an immensely wealthy company that is part of the Jardine Matheson group, the biggest of the British-owned “hongs” and the one that did most to establish the British territory.