Tea, Its Mystery and History

by Samuel Phillips Day

CHAPTER V.
HISTORY OF THE TEA TRADE.

In 1658, the Honourable East India Company directed to be “sent home by their ships one hundred pounds weight of the best Tea they could get,” this doubtless being considered a pretty large supply. The company had previously presented to Catherine of Braganza, on her birthday, a chest containing twenty-two pounds—a notable gift commemorated by Waller. In 1671 came the Ty-wan present from the Ruler of Bantam. During the three subsequent years, the company bought of Mr. Thomas Garway and others 562½ lbs. of Tea, which was either given away or consumed by the Court of Committee. From 1675 to 1677, no record exists of either purchases or imports. Hence, it is evident that Tea was not regarded as a source of private revenue at that period. Who could have fancied the marvellous change that a century or two would effect? Who could have thought that the Tea trade was destined to become one of the most important branches of our commerce, and not only so, but to occasion several wars, lead to the extension of our Eastern possessions, and precipitate the great Chinese exodus, which threatens such important results to the Pacific States of America, to Australia, the Polynesian Islands, and possibly to the world at large?

There is nothing in the history of commerce so marvellous as the growth and development of the trade in Tea. In 1675, the importation of this commodity rose to 4,713 lbs. But this enormous quantity manifestly overstocked the market for seven years afterwards. In 1685, the importations amounted to a little over 12,000 lbs. Four years later, 25,000 lbs. arrived, which caused the market to be glutted for a lengthened period, giving rise to considerable depression in that special branch of commerce. About this period the duty was taken off the “made” Tea, and a regular impost of five shillings per pound imposed. During the first twelve years of the eighteenth century, the total quantity of Tea imported was 1,102,070 lbs., showing an average of 91,922½ lbs. This result is the more remarkable as it exceeded the previously unheard of quantity imported in 1700. Yet we find that in the eleven years succeeding, this amount became nearly doubled, probably owing to a reduction of duty to four shillings a pound, in addition to a Customs’ impost of 14 per cent. The Tea trade, still ever augmenting, received a further impetus in 1746, when the duty was reduced to one shilling a pound, the Customs’ duty being fixed at 25 per cent. During the following twelve years the average importation amounted to 2,558,080 lbs. Another period of eight years (1760–67) gives an average of 4,333,267 lbs. Then taking an additional ten years to complete the century, the first really commercial importation of 4713 lbs. in 1778, had grown to an average of 6,948,238 lbs., and this, notwithstanding that besides the 25 per cent. Customs’ duty and the one shilling per pound Excise impost, there had been imposed an additional Excise 30 per cent. Further, in the concluding six years of the century, the Tea importations had further augmented to 21,706,718 lbs., the 91,183 lbs. of 1700 having become a century later upwards of twenty-five million pounds.

In 1784 the Commutation Act passed the Legislature. By its provisions the East India Company were compelled to make quarterly sales of Tea, to sell even as low as one penny a pound above prime cost, and to keep a sufficient quantity for one year’s consumption always on hand. The same year Mr. Pitt reduced the duty to 12½ per cent., to which act is ascribed the enormous increase in the trade. Although in 1795 the duty was raised to 20 per cent., still the consumption of Tea increased. Early in the nineteenth century other fiscal changes occurred. The Customs’ duty, for example, was fixed at 6 per cent., and the Excise duty 90 per cent. in value; while in 1819 the former impost was repealed, and the latter made cent. per cent. However, nothing that statesmen or financiers could effect seemed to check the growing fondness of English people of all social grades for their cherished beverage. Accordingly we find that during the first twenty-seven years of the present century—a period which completes the third fifty years of the Tea trade—the average annual consumption amounted to about twenty-nine million pounds.

Since 1827, the intervening half century has witnessed several fiscal changes in the Tea trade. The first and most important occurred in 1834, when the Excise duty became removed, differential Customs’ duties were imposed, and the long-existing monopoly of the East India Company was abolished. In 1835, practically the first year of free trade, the imports exceeded by 30 per cent. any previous period. The following year, at the request of the Tea dealers and brokers, the differential duties were repealed, and a fixed impost of two shillings in the pound imposed, the result being an increase of importation to the extent of fifty million pounds. In 1840, a rate of 5 per cent. was charged, thus raising the duty to 2s. 2¼d. per pound.

Drying.—A basket frame, wide at both ends and contracted towards the centre, containing the tea, is placed over hot embers of charcoal.

Although the war with China, coupled with the simultaneous distress in the manufacturing districts, caused a temporary check to importation, still the conclusion of peace and the repeal of the Corn Laws had their due effect in an opposite direction. Hence, in 1849, the quantity imported reached very nearly fifty-three and a half million pounds, while in the year of the first Great Exhibition, the importation had augmented to about seventy-one and a half million pounds. In 1853, an Act was passed reducing the duty immediately to 1s. 10d., and gradually to 1s. Owing, however, to the outbreak of the Crimean war, this measure was not carried out. From April, 1855, until April, 1857, the duty remained at 1s. 9d., being at this latter date reduced to 1s. 6d. Five years later a reduction of 6d. took place, and again in June, 1865, a further reduction. Since then no fiscal change has been effected. The effects of these fluctuations have been sufficiently marked, probably demonstrating that no further reduction, short of absolute abolition, would prove much of a boon to consumers.

In 1861, the imports increased to ninety-six and a half million pounds; the following year to close upon one hundred and fifteen millions, in 1863 to nearly one hundred and thirty-seven millions, in 1866 to one hundred and forty millions, and in 1877, to the enormous figure of nearly one hundred and eighty-eight million pounds (187,721,050 lbs. actually). Thus in two centuries, since the time of Thomas Garway’s handbill offering a few pounds of Tea to a select public, the trade has grown with prodigious strides into a highly flourishing branch of commerce representing value to the extent of some twelve millions sterling, and an addition to the imperial revenue at even the existing duty, of over four and a half millions, irrespective of the value of the thirty-two million pounds re-exported from our shores.