By the end of the 18th century, the use of tea in England was interwoven with opium; trade in both was essential to supporting the country’s fiscal and other policies. Revenue from tea helped finance the Napoleonic wars, for example. The British were growing opium poppies in India and selling the opium to China and importing Chinese tea to Britain. “The duchess started having tea during that part of the day as a way to stave off light-headedness and hunger between lunch and dinner. Soon the trend began spreading in court, and even Queen Victoria herself began hosting afternoon tea events.”
The popular custom of buying tea in tea bags came about quite by accident in 1908, according to Liversidge. She attributes the accident to the method a New
Napoleon just maintains the goals of the French Revolution since he needed to secure and reinforce his own energy.
After importing tea into Britain, the East India Company was required to auction it off to other merchants, some of whom then exported the tea to the American colonies. By law, this was virtually the only tea permitted in the colonies.
The French and Indian war left Great Britain with debt. The British then began to tax the colonies. The colonists were unhappy with this taxation because they were being taxed without representation. One act that lead to tensions was the Tea Act. There were several British actions that caused colonial reactions, eventually leading to the formation of the United States.
Indirectly, tea had a devastating social impact on China, as it led to the huge trade of Opium. As much as ten percent of the Chinese population (over forty million) were regular users of opium. China consumed ninety five percent of the world’s Opium supply. This had a devastating social impact on them because majority of the citizens there were addicted to it. Economically, because of the huge amounts of Opium that were imported into China, they could not export enough goods to equalize, causing the outflow of silver from China to Europe. The political impact in China included government attempts to stop the illegal trade of Opium (due to the social use of it) resulted in the blockading of European trading areas there. Britain retaliated, causing the Opium wars, through which, because of the British victory, Britain gained far greater access to the Chinese market and increased trading privileges. This also lead to Chinese workers being taken to the new world. Doing this introduced cheap labor to the new world. The Company’s need for tea in Europe, and the lack of Chinese interest in other British goods, led to the production of Opium in Bengal (by the British). This Opium was then traded with China in return for tea. By 1750, the East India Company established control over India's opium cultivation. The British exported the opium to China, which
In the first few months of 1773 the British East India Company found it was sitting on large stocks of tea that it could not sell in England. It was on the verge of bankruptcy, and many members of Parliament owned stock in this company. (USA, 1) The Tea Act in 1773 was an effort to save it. The Tea Act gave the company the right to export its merchandise without paying taxes. Thus, the company could undersell American merchants and monopolize the colonial tea trade. By October, the Sons of Liberty in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston threatened tea imports and pledged a tea boycott.
Allingham,, Philip V. "England and China: The Opium Wars, 1839-60." The Victorian Web: An Overview. 24 June 2006. Web. 06 Apr. 2011.
On a cold December night, a group of townspeople stormed the ships in the Boston harbor and tossed 342 chests of tea into the ocean. This event is known by the Boston tea party, it was a protest of the colonists against the Tea Act which passed by the Parliament on May 10, 1773. This act granted the British East India Company Tea a monopoly on tea sales in the American colonies. Since the tea cargos were the only thing townspeople thrown overboard and they were really careful about the other things on the ship, they are sending a clear message: they are not going to pay the tax on tea. The colonists loved tea, they used it on daily basis. And it is
George Hewes’ account of the Boston Tea party is considered a firsthand account of a historically significant event. The Boston Tea party took place the night of December 16, 1773 on three ships anchored in Boston Harbor. Hewes recounts the events leading up to the Boston Tea Party, the actual attack on the ships and its aftermath. He provides descriptive narration thus contributing to the historical context surround the Tea party. This event and many others leading up to it, provide a colorful backdrop on the eve of the American Revolution.
Parliament needed to start taxing American colonists throughout the Seven Year Wars. They couldn’t raise taxes in the British population because their taxes were already too high. Their next option was to tax American colonists. American colonists were taxed on coffee, sugar, glass, paper, wine, and printed materials. Previous from the tax, tea from the colonies would be smuggled in from the Dutch since it had to be sent to England first.
The Tea Act was passed on May 10, 1773 by Parliament. The act granted the British East India Company Tea a monopoly on tea sales in the American colonists. The main reason this passed was to get the East India Company out of bankruptcy, which the company was in due to reduced sales of their tea. The act gave the East India Company two benefits. One was to allow it to market its tea directly to America, using its own agents there. This allowing it to bypass the network of auctions, wholesalers, and colonial merchants through which the tea previously had seen sold. The other benefit was to free the company of the duty on tea that it imported to Britain and then reshipped to America.
At the end of the eighteenth century, China’s goods were much desired by Britain. However, the Chinese saw Europeans as savages and did not want to trade with them. During trade, there was an imbalance in China’s favor, because the Europeans were forced to buy Chinese goods using silver. The Western Imperialists began to grow opium poppies from in India, and then smuggle them into China. China soon became addicted to the drug and spent most of it’s money on the purchase of it from the Europeans and Americans. This shifted the balance of power to be in Europe’s favor.
The Opium Wars were a series of three wars between the Chinese and the British; primarily fought in regard to the illegal trade of opium in China during the 19th century. They manifested the conflicting natures of both nations and demonstrated China’s misconceptions of its own superiority. The Opium Wars resulted in the humiliating defeat of the Chinese to a country they considered to be “barbarians”.
The English accomplished this in several ways. Some of the “Unfair Treaties” forced the Chinese to allow the English ships into their ports and to allow them to have a major role in the trade market. The English wanted tea, porcelain, and silk from China. The Chinese, however, didn’t want the goods the English offered in return. The English began trading opium in return for the goods.
The thought of opium as a topic of conversation in China throughout the late eighteenth century and nineteenth century brought about discussions that varied from arguments for its legalization and praise of its distributors to the complete ban of the drug and punishment for all users and smugglers. For those who acted as proponents of the narcotic, they sincerely believed that this necessary evil was one of the only aspects of the economy that could effectively propel China into the same class as that of the world’s supreme powers (Janin 6). Those who condemned even the slightest interaction with opium or its derivatives opted for the more “honorable” route, in that, they pledged to rid their country of such horrible vices in order to follow a purer path throughout their daily lives (Mackay 124). It was from these arguments that made these debates rampantly widespread throughout the country, with neither side effectively telling the truth about the future of China and ultimately being left to the voice of those in charge of the economy, since they are the ones who control what is worth importing and exporting. If the use of opium were permitted, then the impact would have been generally positive, in that, there would be fewer smugglers to worry about breaking the law, and more profit actually being given to the Chinese government since they would actually be included. On the other hand, basing this drug trade on purely moral and some economic terms, then the people of China will constantly be in a state of intoxication because they will no longer be able to think and process clearly, while the economy of the Chinese government might also not be able to possess the buying power that they would have previously had when they unc...
It seemed as if tea was a drug for the Europeans because for them it was just so addicting, to the point they would do anything just to get more and more. The only things that were worthy of trading with the Chinese were gingko (type of plant), shark fin, a soft type of wood (used for incense) and silver. As the demand for tea rose, Britain gradually ran out of silver to trade with, and was desperate to find what China wanted. Then, the British resorted to trading in opium. China was very picky about their opium.