As England built colonies along the East Coast of the American Continent in the 17th Century, English tea culture spread to America. At that time, tea was monopolized by East India Company and very pricy. Nevertheless, many people held tea parties and built tea gardens like they did back in England. When England faced economic hardships due to long wars, it enacted the Townshend Acts of 1767 (imposing tariffs on paper, glass, tea, etc) to impose high rates of taxes. America boycotted English products and produced alternative tea using the herb that they found in the new continent. There was a resistance activity in Massachusetts and the armed forces of England killed four civilians while trying to stop the resisters. This was the Boston Massacre. Prime Minister Frederick North of England partially withdrew the Townshend Acts except for tea to stop the riot. After that, East India Company confronted a financial crisis due to insolvencies, increasing inventories, and falling prices of tea due to excessive production.
To support the company, the North Administration enacted the Tea Act in 1773 to give it the rights to monopolize tea supplies to North American colonies without any tariff. This made the American merchants furious. Raged by England’s intervention in the colonial government’s tariffs, some of the radical activists disguised as Mohawk Indians and entered four ships of East India Company docked at the port of Boston, including the Dartmouth, and threw all of the tea into the sea. The Boston Tea Party, dated December 16, 1773, marked the breakout of the American Revolution in 1775.
England was importing an enormous quantity of tea from China through East India Company. They were also importing silk and porcelain, but only had a little bit of wool and incense to export. In order to satisfy the fast increasing demand of tea, they had to pay a lot of silver. As they began to run out of silver, they desperately needed to find goods to replace silver. England came up with the idea to export cotton, Polygonum indigo, and opium through its colony in India to earn silver. For this purpose, England began cultivating large quantities of opium in India in the late 18th Century.
As a lot of opium was sold to China, China began to lose silver and confront many social problems due to opium addicts. The Qing Dynasty made an order to control the use of opium, but many of the government officials were already too corrupted to follow the order. China eventually stops opium smuggling by forfeiting opium held by all of the English merchants, but England starts the Opium War (1839-1842) to revenge. The Treaty of Nanjing (1842) that was signed in result of the war had China surrender Hong Kong to England, pay USD 21 million to compensate for the cost of war and opium, and open five ports in Guangdong, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai.
As East India Company’s monopoly of tea trading ended in 1833, many new tea traders emerged in England to ignite a fierce competition. The quality of tea depends on freshness and the point was to transport tea leaves newly picked in May to England as fast as possible.
Tea Race began with the invention of clipper, a high-speed sailing ship, in the late 1840s. As the Orient of America transported 1,500 tons of tea from Hong Kong to London in only 95 days in December 1850, many English shipbuilders concentrated on developing even faster clippers. Between 1850 and 1860, many newer clippers were built to astonish and excite the people of England. Among many clippers, the Cutty Sark, which was proudly built by England, was not able to participate in the race. The Tea Road was shortened by 5,000 miles with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, but only steamships were allowed to cross the canal. Unfortunately, the Cutty Sark was completed on November 22, 1869, six days after the opening of the canal.
In the Goryeo Dynasty, everyone from commoners to monks, to royal rulers enjoyed tea, tea-drinking tools developed along with the tea culture. As tea was served at national ceremonies, various tea sets were considered more valuable than other vessels. Tea sets developed from ordinary cups with saucer and lids into more luxurious shapes. Seo Geung of the Sung Dynasty who visited Songdo in 1123 wrote, "The People of Goryeo has developed many tea sets because they enjoy drinking tea," indicating that the tea culture of that time catalyzed the development of Blue Porcelain.
In the 19th Century, England began developing bone china, the porcelain that enhanced the color of black tea. The off-white powder of ox bones was added to clay and baked at high temperatures to create milk-white bone china. Bone china was not only great with the color of black tea, but it was also durable enough to brew black tea in hot water. New methods were also developed to add patterns to bone china. Transcription method was developed to transfer sketches onto the vessels rather than drawing in each pattern by hand like they did in China. This contributed to the mass-production of bone china by eliminating the handiwork. The history of English bone china has given birth to several world-class brands, including Royal Doulton, Ansley, and Wedgewood, for generations.
