YET MORE ON TEA AND OPIUM
MARTIN MERZ
413
Notes on tea
In his article on tea and opium Solomon Bard states that during his fateful embassy to China in the late 18th century Macartney 'was allowed to collect shoots of tea plant. These were later carefully transported to Bengal with samples of soil where they flourished and very likely gave rise to present Indian tea'. In his follow-up notes in Vol. 41 of the RAS Journal David Akers-Jones quotes a passage from Macartney's journal about the acquisition of tea plants with the express purpose of transporting them to Bengal 'where I have no doubt that by the spirit of patriotism of its Government an effective cultivation of this valuable shrub will be undertaken and pursued with success'. The plants were delivered to the East India Company's botanical gardens in Calcutta. Akers-Jones notes that some years later 'indigenous tea plants were discovered in Assam and it is tea from these which seems more like the tea we are now accustomed to drink. Whether there was any hybridisation between the two species I cannot say.'
Although tea became hugely popular soon after it was introduced to England in the 17th century details about the tea plant and its manufacture into a beverage remained a mystery for over two hundred years. The price of tea rapidly came down from sixty shillings a pound in 1666 (Leiper p.21) to five shillings a pound in 1750 (Wild p.40), a trend which continued as imports increased dramatically as exorbitant taxes came down and more players entered the field. By 1888 tea imports reached over twenty million pounds a year, 'producing more revenue than the whole of India'. (Wild p.40) There was a desire to unravel the secret of tea and further reduce costs as the beverage evolved from a luxury item of the elite to become the national drink of England. But the merchants who purchased tea in Canton had no opportunity to visit tea plantations and learn about its manufacture; and they seemed to lack any curiosity as long as they could engage in their business. The trade continued as a black box transaction from which the finished product appeared.
In 1763 John Bell wrote, 'Both the green and bohea [black tea]