The bitter dregs of a cup of tea

To enjoy a refreshing cup of tea is a pleasure passed down from generation to generation over many centuries, but the fact is there is a lot of pain associated with the history of a humble cup of tea. Let’s start with the basics. The picking of tea leaves appears to be a very simple task but since the height of the bush is generally no higher than a man’s shoulder, the pickers — generally women — must spend most of their day constantly bending over to reach and pluck the choicest leaves. The work is backbreaking and the wages rate with the lowest paid in their homelands for the most difficult types of unskilled manual labour. Spare a thought for a female tea-picker toting a baby on one hip and a large wicker basket on her opposite shoulder which she gradually fills with leaves.

So it has remained down the ages, although the product might end up being poured out of elegant teapots by sophisticated women from London and Dublin to Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney.

The origins of tea drinking goes back to China’s ancient times, when it is thought to have had two main uses — as an admixture to vegetable dishes, and as a medicinal drink for its ability to refresh the body and raise the spirits.

Historians have traced the cultivation of tea in China as far back as the eighth century. Also it is thought to have been spread from China to Japan about the 15th century by Buddhist adherents who used it in religious ceremonies ... hence, in time, the exquisite intricacies of the Japanese Tea Ceremony.

Tea was first imported into Europe in the 17th century by the Dutch East India Company. The taste of the decoction and its uplifting qualities took the Royal Houses and leading families in various capitals by storm. Soon the craze for tea spread to England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, entrenching itself as the favorite family beverage to this very day.

Then by some quirk of fate it somehow occurred that in the following centuries tea would play an extraordinarily important role in national and international political and economic events which truly shook the world.

Britain had 13 colonies down the Atlantic seaboard off the coast of America that were chafing against the strictures of rule from London and looking for ways to break free from the British yoke.

In 1773, the British Parliament repealed the Townshend Acts, but retained the tax on tea, partly as a symbol of its right to collect taxes from those colonies and partly to support the British East India Company which was in serious financial difficulty.

The issue soon sparked a drastic response among the free-minded settlers in the American colonies. The issued boiled over in Boston, where three British ships had arrived at the port with quantities of tea. Immediately the colonists placed an embargo on the shipments. Then, on the night of Dec 16, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere and some other protesters disguised themselves as Native Americans, boarded the ships and emptied the cases of tea into the harbor.

The incident, dubbed the “Boston Tea Party”, proved to be the pivotal point on which the fastbrewing American revolution against Britain was based. It lasted for eight years from 1775 to 1783, ending with the Declaration of Independence and the creation of the United States of America.

Next it was China’s turn to suffer under the British boot, and again the cause was tea. Imperial China supplied Britain with all of its black and green tea requirements, but, as both the grower and seller, imposed strict conditions on sales, such as purchases must be made in silver dollars, the sole point of contact for trade should be Canton (Guangzhou), and the British traders’ residence in Canton be restricted to six months a year (they mostly voyaged down river to Macao for those remaining six months).

The ever-increasing British demand for tea became so great that the country’s exchequer was being emptied of silver dollars. So a diabolical step was deliberately taken to stem the flow — within a few years opium was being extensively planted in British India, and then, when sold illegally in China, had to be purchased with silver dollars.

Thereby, to ensure that British tea drinkers could continue to enjoy their favorite beverage, not only were millions of Chinese enslaved to the opium habit, but their families were dragged down into terrible poverty with them; daughters often being sold into slavery for the price of a few more pipes for the father.

China’s efforts to stop the trafficking ended with defeats in the Opium Wars of 1840-42, and 185658. Among the prizes the victorious British seized through an unequal treaty following the first war was the possession of Hong Kong supposedly “in perpetuity”. The second war was followed by China’s “Century of Shame” when Britain, US, Japan and various European countries virtually monopolized the cream of the country’s trade in tea, silks and brocades, porcelain and Oriental curios.

However, as the expression goes, “what goes round, comes round”. China now has the world’s second largest economy, while Britain is a fading global power and the US’s economy is in disarray.

Today a cup of Chinese tea might leave a bitter taste on the lips of many a Western drinker.