The opium wars actually preceded the India tea industry -- the opium
largely came from India. The issue was that China would accept payment
for tea only in silver and would not buy British goods. At one point
35% of all the revenues coming into the Exchequer -- the UK equivalent
of the Treasury Department -- came from the opium trade, which was
largely led by the missionary families, including what became Jardine
Mathieson (sp?) the first of the Hong Kong taipans. In the 1840s,
Indian tea took over -- after decades of efforts to find native bushes
and propogate them. Slavery had been abolished in the UK in several
waves, with Earl Grey -- he of all the absurd fictions about "his" tea
-- one of the great radical leaders of reform for 40 years, but
mantained in India till, if I recall correctly, 1837. Not a glorious
period in British history. Interestingly, just as the McCarthy period
or red-baiting and the suspension of so many rights, including the
Fifth Amendment, have been kind of airbrushed out of US historical
memory, as a kid in the UK I never heard of the Opium Wars and I am
fairly knowledgable about history. The geo-politics of tea are kinda
interesting. The Opium Wars began the long humiliation of China which
was at the time the largest economy in the world.
On May 22, 9:06 am, Space Cowboy > wrote:
> Another good place to start is the Opium Wars on Wikipedia. The
> British sold the Chinese opium from India so they could buy Indian
> tea. You see that today with the Taliban selling the West all the
> once religiously prohibited opium it wants. You don't have to count
> casualties on the battlefield.
>
> Jim
>
>
>
> Alex wrote:
> > On May 21, 10:07 am, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
> > > toci > wrote:
> > > >A massive fire, but there's still hope it can be restored. Does
> > > >anybody know what kind of tea it carried? The article I read just
> > > >said Chinese. Toci
>
> > > In the late 18th and early 19th century, the huge demand for tea in
> > > the UK lead to just about anything available in China being imported.
> > > This was the era of "young hyson," gunpowder greens, "bohea" and
> > > just about anything that any exporter cold get their hands on being
> > > shipped out.
>
> > > But by the time the Cutty Sark was in business, the British had extensive
> > > tea plantations in India and Ceylon, and the British tastes in tea had
> > > turned greatly toward the Indian products. The stuff that was coming from
> > > China by then were mostly black teas, including yunnans and fujians, as
> > > well as some oddities like lapsang souchong that were made for the UK
> > > market.
>
> > > According to this web site:http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/...File.39/Cutty-...
> > > The Cutty Sark was only on the tea run from 1869 to 1877, a total of eight
> > > years. Most of that trade was probably carried out from the British legate
> > > port in Shanghai. And as I said, the Chinese tea trade was stagnating if
> > > not dying at that point in time, due to competition from India.
> > > --scott
>
> > > --
> > > "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
>
> > An excellent book on the topic of the boom and bust of the coastal tea
> > trade in China, if anyone is interested in reading more, is
> > "Harvesting Mountains: Fujian and the China Tea Trade, 1757-1937", by
> > Robert Gardella. After you read it, remember to keep to yourself the
> > fact that tea cultivation in Taiwan was started by foreigners.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -