If you have ever had a herbal tea, you have technically had a potion. You drank it, fulfilling the original Latin, and it contained something additional, and plant based, that did something to your body or mind to relieve its current dis-ease..
The reverse of this card tells us that : "Tisanes or herbal teas go way back into folklore and were used as hot infusions for medical reasons and even as aphrodisiacs. Many are reputed to have beneficial properties, camomile flowers aid relaxation while mixed fruit rosehip tisanes contain vitamin C"
In fact the first ever herbal tea is said to have been drunk by Shennong, a Chinese Emperor. He is also reputedly the first person to ever drink tea, when he paused beneath a camellia tree with a glass of water, and a leaf fell in to the liquid. Now this has a bit of a problem because anyone who makes tea knows that it takes a while for the tea to colour the water, especially if the water is not hot, but maybe he fell asleep. Even Emperors fall asleep. Another fact about Shennong is that he is believed to be the founder of Chinese medicine as well, which is strongly based on herbs and potions.
This set appears only in our original British Trade Index part IV, where it is catalogued as simply "1988-1 The Language of Tea. Nd. (12)".
I am not sure why this is only a set of twelve, for there are other languages that could have been included, but maybe it was because there was another issue that same year, of fifty cards, that being "Discovering Our Coast".
Sadly, there was no album for this set, only a wallchart, being a map of the World, with vacant spaces to fix the cards to, with the text printed alongside, or below the card . You had to send two twenty pence coins for this wallchart, presumably to cover postage.