When Tea Was Worth Its Weight In Opium

When Tea Was Worth its Weight in Opium

by Alan McKee

The Sea Witch, a fabulously fast and manoeuvreable sailing ship used to carry opium. One of the legendary ‘opium clippers.’

The Sea Witch- fastest sailing clipper

Wiki Commons

Imagine a crop so profitable that it was literally worth its weight in gold, so valuable that empires warred over it, and new technologies were developed to transport it. No, I am not talking about tea but about the crop that was bound up with tea cultivation and which brought the British Empire to the pinnacle of world power and wealth throughout the nineteenth century: Opium. Some historians have even said that without opium there would have been no Victorian era of British wealth and power, perhaps no British Empire. Certainly, history would have looked very different.

Even today, there are multi-national corporations that got their start in the opium trade.The opium auctions at Bombay and Calcutta drew traders from many nations, each with their own super fast sailing craft, ships that would carry the drug past the ships of the Chinese emperor. Americans, Russians, Germans, French, all stood in line to bid on chests of opium in the two great markets where opium was sold by the British. But what does this have to do with tea, the most widely used beverage, other than water, in the world?

A tanuki (raccoon dog) as a tea kettle by Katsushika Hokusai (1760—1849), Japanese

Tea and opium share a long and interconnected history. The opium poppy, papaver somniferum was first grown in large amounts in India by the British Empire. It’s primary purpose was to even out the balance of trade between the British Empire and the Chinese. After tea was introduced to the British people, consumption rose to a point where the British government was concerned about it’s trade deficit with China. The Chinese were not interested in any of Great Britain’s usual trade products. Even British cloth did not tempt the Chinese who were used to silk.

Dried Tea

theloveofteamag

As the addictive properties of opium became better known, the British set out to create a China of addicts, which they did by sending and smuggling the drug into China in unprecedented quantities, in spite of China’s protests. The British placed vast tracts of Indian land under poppy cultivation, and made it illegal for any one else to grow the opium poppy. Huge “factories” were built where the opium was collected, graded and packaged for export. In fact, so huge did the opium trade become that the opium smugglers built special ultra fast sailing ships to out run the heavy slow Chinese junks. These fast ships became known as the ‘opium clippers’ and were the fastest ocean going sailing craft ever built. The ships used in the famous Americas Cup race are based on the designs of the opium clippers.

Early Colonial Tea Kettle

theloveofteamag

So, you could say that tea had a following that was as devoted to the beverage as opium addicts. Eventually, the British wanted their own tea plantations so they could bypass the Chinese altogether. After the two Opium Wars were fought by China and Great Britain, the British began developing their own tea plantations in India, thanks to the boldness of an Englishman who went to China, passed himself off as Chinese and stole a few living bushes from China. Many of our most loved black teas come from these transplanted tea bushes. Not only were these teas under British control but the Chinese could no longer sell adulterated tea to the English, green tea made green with arsenic. So, the next time you sit down to enjoy your tea, realize that the same drink you have in your cup had the power to build vast fortunes and empires. launch multi-national corporations and re-write history.

Alan McKee has been a professional writer most of his life. As a boy, he helped his father, Alvin Schwartz, write Superman and Batman comics for DC in New. York Then followed a long international career as an advertising copywriter and graphic artist. For most of his life he has used words and images to communicate. He has three historical novels for sale on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. Each demonstrates his skills as a researcher and narrator. Visit www.hudsonhousemysteries.com