Robert Fortune

Last night I watched a documentary about Robert Fortune and Chinese tea.

Robert Fortune was a Scottish naturalist. He had a great interest in plants, flowers and horticulture in general.

In the 1700s and 1800s, China had a monopoly on tea. The best tea came from China. Tea plants, tea cultivation and methods of harvesting and roasting were well kept secrets.

The British loved tea. A lot. And they were prepared to pay a lot of silver for it. But it could only be obtained from China then. And so they decided that it will make most sense if they could cultivate it themselves without having to pay China for it. It could not be cultivated in UK. But it could in India, which they controlled.

So the East India Company, which had obtained a charter from the UK Government to have a sole monopoly on trade with the Far East, approached Robert Fortune to see how it can be obtained from China and then grown in India.

Robert Fortune travelled to China. At that time it was forbidden for foreigners to go to inland China. He arrived at Hangzhou and then disguised himself in Chinese clothes, shaved his hair and wore false braids. He travelled on a boat through the waterways to inland China to the best tea growing regions of Wuxi and the Yellow Mountains.

Between 1843 and 1848, he travelled many times to China and identified the best green tea and black tea growing areas. He obtained the seeds and plants. He observed the method of growing, harvesting and roasting of the tea leaves. He spoke to those who were doing these to understand the way to get the best out of these tea plants.

He then smuggled the seeds and plants out of China, together with the know how and cultivated them in India and later Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The rest is history.

This is how the British broke the Chinese monopoly on tea. By theft and industrial espionage.

Of course Robert Fortune did not just steal tea seeds and plants from China. He is singlehandedly credited for introducing more than 200 variety of plants and flowers to the UK, of which more than 100 were from China.

The things the British have done to China. Steal their tea and their know how, force China to take in opium exports at gunpoint, which the East India Company grew in India, to fuel the raging addiction in China. Force China, again at gunpoint, to open up their ports and markets to them and cede HK to them.

Of course they were no angels in India as well.

What the British had and have in wealth was what they took by force from the rest of the world.

I can understand the antagonism and anger the Chinese and Indians have towards the British even today.