The Popularization of Tea: East India Companies, Private Traders, Smugglers and the Consumption of Tea in Western Europe, 1700–1760

Abstract

In the seventeenth century, tea was still considered a luxury in Europe. A century later, it had become a popular drink within reach of all layers of society, at least in many parts of Western Europe. In this development, the opening of direct trade in 1713 between Europe and Canton — the only Chinese port where tea was sold to the European East India companies — has traditionally been seen as a critical step. Nonetheless, the English East India Company had already come to the conclusion that ‘tea was an article of general consumption in England’ as early as 1705.2 Even in the absence of a precise date for the take-off of popular consumption, the explosive growth of tea imports following the establishment of direct trade with Canton is impressive. Tea imports grew exponentially as the Dutch (VOC) and English (EIC) East India companies, established players in the tea trade, expanded their trade under pressure of competition from new entrants, such as the Ostend, Swedish, Danish and French Companies. However, a study that focuses solely on quantities has strong limitations. Therefore, rather than focusing merely on the quantities of tea imported by the East India companies in this period — the traditional approach taken by existing scholarship on the globalization of the tea trade — this chapter adopts a broader approach, which also takes into account the qualities or types of tea which were traded at the time.