Historical context
Tea was first introduced in Britain in the 1660s as part of the dowry of Portuguese princess, Catherine de Braganza, when she married Charles II, King of Scotland. Initially, only the upper classes had access to it but then gradually the middle and lower classes could afford it, so that by the mid-1800s, tea was the most popular drink throughout Britain, outselling beer. Tea revenues represented 10% of tax revenues to the Exchequer.
Before and during the early 19th century, China had a monopoly on tea while Britain (through India) had a monopoly on poppy. The Chinese were selling tea to the British in exchange for opium (made from the seed capsules of poppy). The British were making opium in India and the East India Company[1] (EIC, thereafter) was selling it to the Chinese. It was through drug-based commercial enterprises, such as tea and opium trades, that Britain became the greatest of all ruling empires.
Two opium wars took place between Britain and China in 1839-1842 and 1856-1860.
After the First Opium War, China decided to legalise the cultivation of poppy and the production of opium to break Britain’s monopoly on the plant. In response, the British thought of growing tea in India to break China’s monopoly on tea and finance its wars and domestic public works.
Why India? First, India was a British colony and, secondly, the Indian Himalayan mountain range resembled China’s best tea-growing regions. The Himalayas were high in altitude, had rich soil, were clouded in mist, and had frequent frosts. These conditions were favourable to the tea plant which needed protection from the sun and cold weather to develop a sweet and flavourful liquor. And the Himalayas were barely cultivated at the time.
A note on the Assam region – the tea grown there wasn’t tasteful and, thus, much inferior to the Chinese one – thus, the EIC decided that it wasn’t worth investing in its further development for tea cultivation.
Why Britain needed a spy?
If the manufacture of tea in India were to be successful, Britain would need healthy specimens of the finest tea plants, thousands of seeds and the deep knowledge of accomplished Chinese tea makers. This task required a plant hunter, a gardener, a thief and a spy. Britain needed Robert Fortune.
The tea tests done in London proved the high quality of Himalayan teas, but not without deficiencies. These deficiencies could be addressed if the best tea seeds/plants were used and if the Chinese tea experts could train Himalayan natives in the art of tea-making. However, getting these things voluntarily from the Chinese was out of question because China was very protective of its tea monopoly. The British would have to steal them.
Who was Robert Fortune and what was he seeking?
Robert Fortune was a Scottish botanist hired by the Royal Horticultural Society to do the first trip to China in 1843, and by the EIC for the subsequent trips. The aim of the first trip was to collect all sorts of plants for scientific and commercial use.
His tea mission was to steal samples of the most celebrated teas, keep them healthy and arrange for their successful transplantation in India. It was the most formidable task a botanist had ever faced. If his mission were successful, India would soon be on a path to rival and then surpass China in tea cultivation. Fortune would advance science and gain personal glory. That would also have saved the EIC, whose supremacy was becoming endangered. Britain would trumpet its triumph over the Chinese.
Foremost, as a scientist, Fortune had to verify the facts about what he was collecting: location, ecology and cultivation.
He had to hire Chinese servants, for obvious reasons. For his safety and that of his servants, Fortune travelled disguised (dressed) as a Mandarin. His forehead had to be shaved and a fake long hair tail worn. That may seem awkward and funny but think that, at the time, the Chinese, closed to the world, had no idea that Fortune wasn’t Chinese and he was introduced as someone important coming from the west of China. Plus, he was speaking decent Chinese.
Fortune’s tea trips
On his first visit to a tea factory on the Yangtze River in October 1848, Fortune saw the different stages of green tea manufacturing. The most striking for Fortune was seeing that two poisonous substances were added to tea. These weren’t added maliciously but because the Chinese thought that foreigners wanted the tea to look green, uniform and pretty. This unwitting criminality provided an irrefutable argument for British-manufactured tea.
Fortune’s first tea shipment was an almost complete failure, in part due to the very long transportation but mostly due to the incompetence of the man in charge of receiving the seeds and saplings in the Himalayas (who opened the sealed Wardian cases and watered the plants, which ruined them).
The second trip was to WuYi Shan in July 1849, in search of black tea[2]. During that trip, Robert Fortune had the privilege of being introduced to the rarest of teas, the most prized up to today, Da Hong Pao (Big Red Robe). Some Buddhist monks shared with Fortune valuable knowledge about tea making.
When seeking tea experts to take to India, Robert Fortune wanted the sons of tea growers who carried the knowledge of generations. The terms of the contract between the EIC and the Chinese manufacturers it sought to hire were quite generous for that period, except for one clause: if a man were to fail his duty for any reason, including illness, he’d pay a penalty of more than 6 months’ worth of salary. The first 2 months were paid in advance and they also got money for the 3 months of travel to the Himalayan gardens. The experts were promised autonomy and power over other people. They could grow tea the way they thought appropriate, would be assigned to different plantations and encouraged to compete with each other to earn a bonus and public praise.
Fortune not only acquired the tea experts, he also acquired equipment for tea planting and tea making and men experts in the making of tightly-sealed boxes for the shipment of tea (because proper packaging and shipment would help preserve the quality and aroma).
In February 1851, Fortune left for India after dispatching his third and last shipment of tea. In his words: ‘Everything had succeeded beyond my most sanguine expectations’. This shipment was the most successful with thousands of seeds that had germinated arriving in the Himalayas.
Robert Fortune also worked for the US government which wanted its share in the lucrative world tea economy. He was tasked to assess whether tea would take root in the hilly and humid states of Carolina and Virginia. He travelled to China in March 1858 and by December he had already 2 Wardian cases of tea seeds and plants for the US employer. After this success, the Americans fired him as they no longer needed him.
Beyond Fortune’s role
Stealing tea from China was the greatest theft of protected trade secrets that the world has ever known. Fortune’s actions would be described today as industrialised espionage. Whether we approve of what he did or not, his role in spreading tea outside of China is undeniable. He made history.
Within a generation, India’s nascent Himalayan tea industry would outstrip China’s in quality, volume and price.
In the 1850s, it took tea 9 months to a year to be shipped from China to London. That reduced its quality. It was believed that tea could have been 2 years old by the time it was brewed. Although there was an awareness to improve shipping duration, the absence of competitors for the EIC meant no innovation for many years. But then within 20 years, the end of the Napolean war (and of the need for heavy, slow ships), the end of the EIC monopoly, and the entrance of the Americans into China shipping – contributed to an accelerated delivery of tea. The new ships were called ‘tea clippers’ because they sliced through the water.
The rapid urbanisation of Britain, tea with milk & sugar provided cheap nutrition. Milk is a protein while sugar is a dense source of energy. Tea replaced beer, whose production was eating up nearly half of the wheat harvest in Britain. Both tea and beer helped kill the parasites in drinking water at the time. But obviously, alcohol made the workforce unreliable and affected infants whose mothers consumed beer during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Tea reduced infant mortality and gave an immunity boost to the population. That came at a time when industrialisation was demanding more and more labour force to help the booming British economy.
Fortune after the tea trips
Fortune’s final trip to the Far East was in 1862, a private one, to China and Japan. He worked for nursery firms. The botanical prizes of Japan were the target of enthusiast plant collectors in Britain. For every discovery, he kept all profit for himself.
Robert Fortune became a wealthy man due to factors such as selling part of the rare plants (at the time) he collected, selling objects of art and decoration so prized by Western aristocrats and merchants, and royalties from his book sales. He died at age 67 and was buried in London’s Brompton Cemetery.
Sarah Rose wrote a great book (For All the Tea in China) that describes in detail Fortune’s dangerous adventures in the pursuit of the world’s most valuable drink. I encourage you to read (and enjoy) it!
[1] EIC was responsible for every tea case that entered Britain.
[2]India wasn’t growing and making black tea at that time.