The First Harvest of “Guizhou Green Tea” in 2025 was celebrated in Southwest China's Guizhou Province on Jan 1, 2025 Photo: IC PHOTO

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Tea, originating in Asia’s monsoon region, became a distinctive beverage deeply intertwined with Chinese culture. By the 17th century, Chinese tea began transitioning into a global commodity. As the West embraced Chinese tea, it also absorbed aspects of Chinese tea culture. However, before the 19th century, Western traders, aristocrats, and intellectuals primarily gained their knowledge of Chinese tea types and benefits through direct consumption, often mingling these insights with “exotic” Orientalist fantasies.  

As the Latin American independence movement progressed, European nations, along with the East India companies of the countries like Netherlands, Britain, and Sweden, found it increasingly difficult to obtain silver from their overseas holdings and colonies. The silver required for trade with China could not be adequately supplied, hindering the profitable tea trade with China from proceeding smoothly. Consequently, countries such as Portugal, France, the Netherlands, and Britain began experimenting with Chinese tea cultivation. While the early 19th century marked the international transplantation of Chinese tea, crucial knowledge regarding tea seeds, tea tree cultivation, and processing techniques remained exclusive to China.

Introduction of Chinese tea to British India

Britain initially sought to balance its trade deficit and mitigate silver outflows by extensively cultivating poppies in colonial India. However, this ambition was thwarted by Lin Zexu, a Qing Dynasty official who led the campaign against opium smuggling in Guangdong Province, in 1839. Consequently, Britain’s need for a stable tea supply escalated its efforts to acquire Chinese tea knowledge. This desire dates back to 1793, when the Macartney Embassy secretly collected Chinese tea seeds for trial planting in Kolkata’s botanical gardens, though the undertaking was ultimately unsuccessfully.  

In 1826, a Dutch tea expert successfully cultivated Chinese tea in Java, inspiring British merchants and colonists. Between 1804 and 1828, Samuel Ball, a tea inspector for the British East India Company, compiled An Account of the Cultivation and Manufacture of Tea in China, proposing the introduction of Chinese tea cultivation to India. In 1834, a British man named G.J. Gordon obtained Chinese tea seeds in Fujian, distributing them to Kolkata and Assam.  

In A Journey to the Tea Countries of China, Robert Fortune recounted his covert travels through China’s green and black tea-growing regions, during which he acquired Chinese tea-processing “secrets,” and took a significant number of Chinese tea seeds to India. Over time, British colonists mastered Chinese tea knowledge.

By 1839, Charles Bruce submitted a report to the Tea Committee of India summarizing the entirety of their tea knowledge. In her work Translating the Art of Tea, Professor Francesca Bray compared the tea expertise documented in Bruce’s Report on the Manufacture of Tea (India) with Samuel Ball’s and Robert Fortune’s works, noting that Bruce had adapted Chinese tea techniques to better suit India’s conditions, particularly the shortage of skilled tea processors. Furthermore, the consumption of the tea plant native to the Assam region of India was promoted by the British. The application of Chinese tea cultivation and processing techniques to Assam tea rapidly advanced India’s tea industry. By 1866, Indian tea was gaining ground, with Britain importing 4,584,000 from India compared to 97,681,000 pounds from China.  

Industrial revolution in Indian tea production

The 1860s saw India adopt mechanical tea production. In 1867, a British tea planter developed a tea leaf roller, followed by further innovations in tea processing and refining machinery. In 1871, Edward Money’s The Cultivation and Manufacture of Tea earned a gold medal from the Agri Horticultural Society of India. This work showcased India’s tea industry, dedicating an entire section to tea-processing machinery.  

Mechanization, combined with the expansion of large plantations, fueled the rapid growth of India’s tea exports. By 1896, Britain imported 24,549,936 pounds of tea from China, 122,941,000 pounds from India, and 80,294,474 pounds from Ceylon. Indian tea had overtaken Chinese tea in both British and international markets. As Francesca Bray observed, the transfer of Chinese tea seeds and techniques provided the foundation for India’s tea industry, while innovations in mechanization and native tea cultivation enabled British India’s tea industry to excel. 

China’s adoption of Indian experience

As tea was a cornerstone of China’s exports and economic interests, the competitiveness of Indian tea prompted reactions from the Qing government as well as from foreigners residing in China. In 1888, Robert Hart, inspector general of the Maritime Customs Bureau, submitted a report addressing the challenges posed by Indian tea to the Qing Office for the General Management of Affairs Concerning the Various Countries. By 1897, the Governor-General of the Jiangnan and Jiangxi Regions ordered the revitalization of domestic tea production, citing competition from India and Ceylon.  

In 1905, an official Qing delegation visited India and Ceylon, producing detailed accounts of their tea industries and highlighting the need for modernization in Chinese tea production. However, social turmoil in the late Qing era limited the practical application of Indian tea expertise.  

In 1929, The Shanghai Import and Export Commodity Inspection Bureau (hereinafter referred to the Bureau) was established to oversee tea exports. The Bureau not only undertook the inspection of tea for customs export but also sought to introduce knowledge of modern tea production techniques from India.  

Between 1934 and 1935, the Ministry of Industry sent representatives to study tea production in regions such as Assam and Ceylon. In 1936, the Bureau published a report titled Tea of India and Ceylon, which detailed the history, production conditions, tea cultivation, manufacturing and packaging, trade and transportation, and labor organization of Indian and Ceylon tea. Around the same time, Fan Hejun translated a research report on India’s experimental tea farms, contributing to the introduction of modern mechanized black tea production methods.

Following the outbreak China’s nation-wide war of resistance against Japanese aggression, the Chinese government implemented tea control policies, organizing the classified production of tea in various regions and exporting it through Shanghai and Hong Kong to earn foreign exchange. Fan Hejun was dispatched to India to study the tea industry in British India, and upon his return, he published Notes on the Investigation of Indian Tea. Zhuang Wanfang authored a booklet titled Tea Inspection, which included comparative charts of tea exports from China, India, and Ceylon between 1924 and 1937, reflecting China’s aspirations for modernizing its tea industry. 

In 1942, the Tea Research Institute under the Ministry of Finance conducted extensive work in the Wuyi Mountain tea region, cultivating a group of professionals skilled in Chinese tea production. This marked a new phase in China’s assimilation and adoption of British India’s tea production knowledge.

In summary, British tea merchants and colonists in Indian plantations initially drew upon Chinese expertise in tea cultivation and processing. However, by the early 20th century, the dynamic shifted, with China actively adopting modern tea science from India to enhance its tea industry. This transnational exchange of tea knowledge and its reciprocal nature warrant careful consideration.

Jiang Zhenpeng is a professor from the College of Sociology and History at Fujian Normal University.

Edited by REN GUANHONG