Definition of "hong"

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

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie

"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.

1901, Hezekiah Butterworth, “1.Strange Things to Be Seen in China – Jataka Tales – the Boxers – American Tea-farms”, in Traveller Tales of China or the Story-Telling Hongs, Boston: Dana Estes & Company, page 11

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.

1935, William Ukers, All About Tea

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.

1997 August 7, “Superman versus the hong”, in The Economist‎