Chapter Eighteen
Chests, Tubs, and Lots of Tea - the European Market for Chinese Tea and the Swedish East
India Company, c. 1730-1760
Hanna Hodacs & Leos Müller
Introduction
More than 1,100 tons of tea were put up for sale in Gothenburg in August 1754. It
was the largest quantity sold at a Swedish East India Company (SEIC) auction before the
Seven Years’ War. The tea cargo was packed in 14,499 chests of various sizes, 380 tubs and
more than 5,000 canisters; tea was by far the bulkiest of goods shipped to Gothenburg from
Canton. All but a fifth of the tea in the 1754 shipment was a cheap black type called Bohea.
The logistics of this trade involved moving these large quantities of Bohea tea from the Wuyi
Mountain area in South-East China where it was produced, to Canton, across the Indian
Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope, and to the North Western fringe of Europe. This
would be daunting enough, but the journey did not end in Gothenburg—the headquarters of
the SEIC, on the West Coast of Sweden. After the auction, the chests were loaded onto
smaller ships destined for places including Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Ostend.
The tea imported by the Danish Asiatic Company (DAC) travelled along a similar route
for the same reason: that the domestic market for tea in Scandinavia was limited. In 1754, a
total of 875 tons of tea arrived in Copenhagen in 8,318 chests and 277 tubs.1 Together with
the Swedish tea, this represented a significant proportion of European tea imports. We can
envision the quantities of this tea by looking at the dimensions of the tea chests. The largest
chest used by the DAC measured around 65 cm in height, 76 cm in width and 86 cm in length
and was usually reserved for Bohea, the bulk tea.2 We believe that the Swedish chests
containing Bohea tea had similar dimensions. If one were to have piled the chests containing
the Scandinavian import of Bohea tea from 1754—a total of 10,339 chests—on top of one
another, the stack would have measured almost seven kilometres in height: 6,763 meters,
21 times higher than the Eiffel tower.
1
With tea imports growing year on year, the eighteenth-century trade from China was
largely about moving thousands of tea chests from one end of the Eurasian continent to the
other. Once auctioned, the chests regularly travelled on further before they reached the
most prolific tea drinking nations of Europe: the English and the Dutch. Tea was perishable,
and needed to be sold and moved on in order to make a profit.
The Scandinavian tea—at least during the first half of the Eighteenth Century—seems
largely to have been sold on to tea wholesalers in the Dutch Republic and Southern
Netherlands who helped distribute the goods to the next level of purchasers, although this is
difficult to prove conclusively. We assume that many of them were connected to the
networks of smugglers who supplied Britain with illegal tea. Many of them also brought tea
to Britain which had been imported by the Dutch and the French companies. The monopoly
of the English East India Company (EIC) in combination with high tax on tea caused
smuggling from the continent to be rife. Thus, there are good reasons to believe that it was
consumers in Britain that drank most of the tea imported by the Danish and Swedish
companies.3
What distinguished the SEIC from other East India companies was that it traded
almost exclusively with China. Only six of 132 SEIC expeditions between 1731 and 1806 went
to India. Gothenburg and the SEIC had taken over a role previously occupied by the Ostend
Company in the Southern Netherlands, discussed by Chris Nierstrasz in this volume. The
Ostend Company had been suspended only three years before the SEIC was founded in
1731. The halt in the trade between Asia and Ostend was the result of Dutch and British
diplomatic pressure on the Habsburg regime, which reigned the Southern Netherlands since
the Peace of Utrecht 1713. The aim of Dutch and British policy was to reduce the
competition for the English and the Dutch East India companies. Since several Ostend
Company men simply shifted their business to Gothenburg, these policies resulted in limited
gains. The royal charter for the SEIC was officially granted to Henrik König & Company, a
Stockholm merchant without much interest in Asian trade. Omitted from the royal charter
were two other founders of the company: Niklas Sahlgren, a merchant from Gothenburg,
and Colin Campbell, an Ostend-based merchant of Scottish origin. As this chapter will show,
both Sahlgren and Campbell took an active part in the tea trade.4
2
The tea trade of the SEIC is particularly useful for illuminating how the market for
Chinese tea in eighteenth-century Europe worked and what it involved. It sheds light not
only on the logistics of moving tens of thousands of chests of tea not only between China
and Europe, but also between different markets within Europe. Moreover, an almost unique
source material of SEIC provenance has survived in the form of a series of printed sales
catalogues recording the quantities of Asian goods on offer in Gothenburg between 1733
and 1759. Annotated with information on the prices each lot fetched, the name of the
purchasers and, occasionally, the quality of the goods for sale, these catalogues offer a rare
opportunity to study how tea from China was sold and bought in Europe, and who was
engaged in this trade.5
This chapter is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on how types and
qualities of tea were handled as thousands of tea chests made their way from Canton to
Gothenburg and beyond. The second part maps out the specific types of tea the SEIC
imported and how preferences changed between 1742 and 1759. In the third part, the sales
of one tea cargo—that of the East Indiaman Prins Carl, returned in 1756—is studied in
depth, with particular attention paid to the purchasers and their connections to markets on
the Continent and the British Isles.
Chests, Tubs and Lots of Tea
The charter of 1731 dictated that the cargoes of the SEIC were to be sold at public
auctions, and to the highest bidder. This was standard procedure when selling Asian goods in
Europe, including in Ostend.6 Sales usually began eight weeks after the ships returned. Sales
catalogues and hand bills listing the goods for sale were pre-circulated.7 Perhaps most
importantly, the elapse of eight weeks allowed foreign and distant Swedish merchants to
reach Gothenburg, the former often gaining special permission to visit the city for this
purpose. In the first decade of the SEIC’s existence, the catalogues were printed in German,
a detail that underlines the importance of the foreign buyers. The first surviving catalogue in
Swedish, listing the cargo of Louisa Ulrica, is from 1747.
While the English East India Company organised separate auctions for tea, silk and
porcelain, the SEIC put up all its goods for sale at the same time, listing the entirety of its
3
cargo in the same catalogue. A wide variety of Asian goods—including fans, walking sticks,
lacquer furniture, ready-made clothes, hats, and painted mirrors—thronged with goods
imported in larger quantities, such as tea, silk, and porcelain. Over time, the cargoes became
less complex as the company became more and more specialised—and dependent—on tea.
For example, at the SEIC’s first public sale in 1733, the cargo of Fredericus Rex Sueciae was
sold in 5,100 lots—a vast figure. Of these, tea accounted for around 2,200 lots, which was
nearly half of all lots. 23 years later, in 1756, the auction catalogue of Prins Carl included only
2,176 lots. Of these, almost three-quarters, or 1,463 lots, consisted of tea. The difference in
tonnages between the Fredericus Rex Sueciae and the Prins Carl, 500 tons and 875 tons
respectively, further emphasises the growing importance of tea.8
Chests of different dimensions, as well as tubs, canisters and barrels were used to
transport the tea. Each larger unit was given an identity number by which it could be tracked
from Canton to Gothenburg, and beyond. The numbers were not allotted randomly. In
Canton, these numbers helped keep track of which different types of tea the chests
contained, and also indicated which Hong merchants had delivered the tea. This allowed the
companies to raise complaints with specific merchants when they returned to Canton, if
they discovered faults with the tea once it was sold on in Europe.9 Tea bought as part of the
pacotil, or private trade, was also marked with symbols identifying which member of staff it
belonged to.10
Once in Europe, the numbers on the chests were used to organise the lots sold at
public sales, each lot typically containing between two and four chests. The chests’ identity
numbers were printed in the catalogues next to the lot number, with the sequences of chest
identity numbers kept intact within and between lots as they appeared in the catalogue.
These numbers seem also to have been used to keep track of not only the type of tea each
chest contained, but also the quality. Evidence for this can be found, for example, in a
catalogue from 1748 which contains handwritten notes on the quality of the Bohea tea,
summarising the content for sequences of chests. Each sequence contains between 150 and
four chests, as well as the price each lot fetched. The highest price, 46.81 öre silver-money
per Swedish pound, or skålpund, was paid for tea from the chests numbered 1446 to 1545,
described as ‘Rather good Bohea with mostly thorn leaves’. The lowest price of 40.33 was
4
paid for chests 1575 to 1584, described as ’Totally ordinary, Bohea worse than all previous’.
The average prices for the other sequences of chests seem to more or less match the quality
assessments in the comments, which typically describe the tea as either ‘good’, ‘ordinary’, or
‘plain’, containing ‘open’ or ‘closed’ leaves. The difference between the highest and the
lowest price for Bohea paid at this auction was just above 13 per cent.11
There are also reasons to believe that the quality of the content of individual chests
were known to potential bidders. Several catalogues contain handwritten notes, in the form
of singular letters, above each chest. Two surviving catalogues contain keys which explain
what the letters refer to, for example, ‘P best sort; M second; O common; R a little windy; C
windy; N musty very’.12 In the case of one of these catalogues, the quality of only certain
chests are indicated in this way on the first ten pages, the majority of which were bought by
two merchants named Bagge and Hising.13 In other words, tea buyers seemed to know what
they were bidding on, down to the content of individual chests.
The use of letters to indicate the quality of the tea at public sale was not unique to
the SEIC. In an annotated catalogue from the Ostend Company, the letters B, b, c, and d are
seemingly used for the same purpose.14 To what extent information on quality was widely
shared is hard to say. Two surviving catalogues from the same sale, the public sale of the
cargoes of Cron-Printzen Adolph Friedrich and Calmare, which took place in Gothenburg in
1748, contain identical annotations in the form of letters (la, b, Lm).15 Not only are the
letters the same in the two surviving catalogues, but they are by all accounts written by the
same hand. It is possible that these quality indications stemmed from comprehensive tests
of the tea in Gothenburg prior to the auction. However, since no reference to such tests
have been found, it is more likely that they originated from quality estimations made in
China, as the tea was packed. Whether this information was widely shared is hard to tell.
What we do know is that insiders, such as the supercargoes and some well-connected
purchasers of large quantities of tea, were very well informed about the contents of specific
chests and sequences of chests.16
In addition to helping to keep track of the chests and the type and quality of tea it
contained, the identification numbers were also used in the accounts. Correspondence
between Charles Irvine and his partners in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Hamburg shows that
5
the chest numbers were used in communication about the status of Irvine’s accounts, as
well as in discussion about the trade more generally. Irvine was a former supercargo in the
SEIC and one of the leading Scottish merchants involved in the Gothenburg tea trade.
Sometimes the chest number would also be followed by information about which specific
East Indiaman had brought the chest to Europe and in what year.17 It is worth noting that the
integrity of the tea chest was, by all accounts, kept intact as it moved from Canton, to
Gothenburg and onwards to the Continent. When wholesalers in Amsterdam tasted the tea
they had received from Sweden, they drilled a hole in the side of the chest to take out a
sample rather than opening the chest up.18
The elaborate logistical system, used from the start by the SEIC, clearly indicates that
the company drew on an established practice. It is not unlikely that the SEIC drew upon the
system which had been used by the staff of the Ostend Company. While one purpose of the
identity numbers was to accommodate the movement of many thousands of chests, it also
helped purchasers to distinguish between different qualities. Chinese tea sold to European
wholesalers was not just black or green tea, or Bohea or Congo, to mention just two of the
most common black tea types. Rather, it was Bohea tea of a wide range of different
attributes and tastes, fetching different prices. Detailed information on what the chests
contained, as well as knowledge of what distant consumers wanted, was by all accounts
central to the trade in tea in Gothenburg.
Long-distance trade in the early modern period promoted standardisation of goods.
For London merchants involved in the Atlantic trade, these standards helped to calculate
cargo space necessary to ship the goods to and from North America and the Caribbean
world. More importantly, perhaps, standardisation helped to reduce the risks associated
with commissioning purchases through agents and irregular correspondence.19 The longdistance East India trade also promoted standardisation of Asian goods. While, for example,
Indian cotton textiles proved to be particularly challenging, because they came in many
different shapes, colours, patterns and qualities, and under many different names, tea by
contrast was a commodity that lent itself more easily to standardisation.20 As Mui and Mui
have shown in the case of the English East India Company, this process came to engage not
6
only the company but also the tea wholesalers in London, who in turn were well-informed
about consumer preferences outside the capital.21
In contrast to the EIC, which provided a domestic and legal market for tea from its
London warehouses, the tea imported by the SEIC not only had to travel a longer journey. It
also had to call upon the assistance of agents engaged in illicit trade before it could be
retailed to consumers. Moreover, tea was a perishable good, and competition from the
other East India companies was great. This meant that the success of the trade of the SEIC
depended not only on the ability of the company to transport chests from Canton to
Gothenburg, but also on the ability of wholesalers in Gothenburg and the Low Countries to
sell and move on the tea to the next level of the market. An elaborate system that kept track
of quantities, types and qualities of tea was necessary for this trade to be successful.
Swedish tea strategies
This chapter has thus far discussed logistics, quantities and qualities. What about the
SEIC’s business strategy for tea? Previous studies have established that the company traded
in tea from the beginning and, over time, increasingly came to specialise in it.22 But how was
this strategy played out in terms of the different types of tea the SEIC invested in? Very little
archival material can be found in Sweden that illuminates the executive decisions made by
the company directors. Nor has much SEIC material from the trade survived in Canton.
However, sales catalogues enable us to analyse the Swedish tea cargoes and how they
changed over time. Drawing upon information from this source, we have been able to
summarise the tea imports of the cargoes arriving between 1742 and 1759, and so to unveil
the company’s tea strategies.
Although the catalogues provide us with very precise information about numbers of
chests, lots and the price paid per Swedish pound for tea, it is not straightforward to
calculate weight. While the catalogues normally include a summary of the total weight of the
tea in the cargo, including the packaging, the weight of each individual lot or chest is not
specified. However, there is information about the standard weight of the packages, such as
chests and boxes, which indicates the weight of the lot. In other words, the purchaser did
have some idea of how much he was going to receive per lot, although the bids at the
7
auction were per Swedish pound. Once the sale was complete, the chests with tea in them
were weighed, the standard chest weight—which was printed in the catalogue—was
subtracted and the final payment made. According to some estimates, the packaging made
up between 15 and 25 per cent of the total weight of tea.23
The following analysis of tea imports between 1742 and 1759 is based on printed
information; we did not subtract the weight of packaging.24 Figure 19.1 provides the weight
in kilograms of tea for sale at public auctions in Gothenburg between 1742 and 1759. The
volatility of total import figures is explained by the fact that the number of vessels arriving to
Gothenburg varied from year to year. Sometimes only one vessel arrived, and sometimes
two, three or even four arrived. Moreover, for four years—1745, 1747, 1751 and 1756—we
have only incomplete records of the tea for sale in Gothenburg.25 It is also worth noting that
during the 1750s the average size of the cargo for sale increased to about 400,000 kg per
vessel, representing quite a significant increase in the volume of tea imported.
Figure 22.1 also illustrates the proportions of Bohea and Congo teas imported, the
two most important tea types. Bohea, the cheapest black tea, accounted for an average of
84 per cent of all tea in the sales catalogues we looked at.
%
Figure 22.1 Tea Volume Imports of the SEIC, 1742-59
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
kg
1200000
1000000
800000
600000
400000
200000
0
1742 1743 1745 1747 1748 1749 1751 1752 1753 1754 1755 1756 1757 1758 1759
(3 of (1 of (2 of (1 of (3 of (3 of (2 of (2 of (1 of (3 of (2 of (1 of (1 of (1 of (2 of
3 c.) 1 c.) 4 c.) 2 c.) 3 c.) 3 c.) 3 c.) 2 c.) 1 c.) 3 c.) 2 c.) 2 c.) 1 c.) 1 c.) 2 c.)
Bohea (% of total tea volume)
Congo (% of total tea volume)
Total tea volume (kg.)
Source: Försäljningskataloger (sales catalogues), Vol. 3-21 (1742-1759), Enskilda arkiv inom
8
Kommerskollegium, Ostindiska kompaniet, Kommerskollegiums arkiv, RA, Stockholm (see
also Appendix A).26
The case of Congo tea points to a different trend. For the whole period 1742 to 1756,
Congo accounted for around 10 per cent of tea sold. However, there was a marked increase
in imports of Congo from around 1750, when quantities rose from about 36 tons per sale to
an astonishing 200 tons in 1755. By 1755, Congo far exceeded all other tea sorts, with the
exception of Bohea. This is likely to reflect a change in demand, traced in Andrew
MacKillop’s contribution to this volume: that Scottish consumers preferred Congo tea from
Gothenburg to the tea brought in via London. Although Illicit, the Swedish Congo was
cheaper and more in-line with Scottish taste. After Bohea and Congo, the three most
common types were Peckoe, Singlo and Soatchoun. As Figure 22.1 indicates, these tea types
only amounted to around 6 per cent of the tea for sale. It is also worth highlighting that the
volumes of green tea, although small, are not insignificant. As the table in Appendix 1
illustrates, Singlo and Heysan, the most popular green teas, were imported in the same
volumes as the more exclusive black tea types, such as Soatchoun and Peckoe.
All in all, the import of Bohea, the cheapest black tea, clearly indicates the extent to
which the SEIC were supplying mass markets located in the tea-drinking regions of Europe,
particularly in the British Isles. The import of more expensive types of tea such as Congo
suggests that the Swedish company also responded to changing consumer demands in, for
example, Scotland. These demands highlight the link between consumer preference,
patterns of trade and trade contacts; the Scottish presence in the Swedish company was
strong. This also brings us to the last part of this paper, namely who bought Chinese tea in
Gothenburg and in what quantities.
Buying Chinese Tea in Gothenburg
The public sale of one single cargo, of Prins Carl, in 1756, is the main focus of this
section. Although the information in the catalogue is insufficient to estimate the exact
weight of tea purchased by individual merchants, it is possible to identify the number of
chests and lots that each buyer procured. It is worth emphasising that the numbers of lots or
chests traded do not accurately reflect the volumes of tea for sale. Bohea tea was almost
9
exclusively packed in the largest type of tea chest, while Congo was typically packed in a
variety of chests of different sizes.
The tea cargo of the vessel Prins Carl represented a vast volume. In total, the tea
advertised in the 1756 catalogue accounted for 530 tons. Bohea accounted for 400 tons of
this, Congo 100 tons, and Soatchoun 19 tons. Peckoe, Heysan, Heysan-Skin and diverse sorts
sold in canisters made up the remaining 11 tons. But who were the bidders?
All in all there are 56 listed buyers in the 1756 sales catalogue. The top third of this
group, eighteen buyers, acquired 1,185 lots or 81 per cent of the total number of 1,463 lots.
The middle third, 18 buyers, acquired 213 lots, accounting for 15 per cent. The bottom third,
19 buyers, purchased the remaining 65 lots, or 4 per cent. The trade was also highly
concentrated among a few leading buyers. Niklas Sahlgren, a founder of the SEIC in 1731,
was the most prolific buyer with 297 lots or 20 per cent of the tea cargo. The second in the
top ten, Christian Arfwidson, acquired 200 lots or 14 per cent. These two men accounted for
one-third of all tea purchases.
Table 22.1: Prins Carl’s Cargo (1756): the Top Ten Leading Purchasers
All tea
N
Bohea
r lots
N Sahlgren
2
N
97 Sahlgren
C Arfwidson
2
6
Congo
C
r
Lots
lots
1
7
C Irvine
10
N
r
N
35 Sahlgren
00 Arfwidson
J Scott
N
C
3 Arfwidson
4
G
1
10
8
5
3
5
J More
2 Carnegie
6
Scott &
3 Comp
J Irvine
6
Holterman
5
R
3
A Grill
9
G Carnegie
J Scott
3
Comp
J Irvine
0
A Grill
0
4
M
4
Beckma
7 n & Beyer
2
J
2
2
2
Bagge
C
M
3 Holterman
1
G
9 Bellenden
arkiv inom Kommerskollegium, Ostindiska kompaniet, Kommerskollegiums
11
2
6
Source: Försäljningskatalog (Sales catalogue), Vol. 18 (1756), Enskilda
arkiv, RA, Stockholm.
3
1
3 Campbell
7 Holterman
C Campbell
J Scott
5 & Comp
5
3
3
7 Irvine
5
Bagge &
J
7 More
2 Parkinson
M
3
3
2
3
2
1
1
5
1
3
The concentration among a small group of buyers indicated in the Table 22.1 is
reminiscent of the workings of the tea wholesale market in Britain. A small group of London
buyers bought up most of the tea imported by the English East India Company and sold it on
in smaller parcels to retailers around the country. Those retailers in turn sold the tea to
consumers, often in the form of their own blends. The large initial investments necessary
when tea was sold at auction promoted such division of trade.27 Judging by the number of
purchasers, the Gothenburg market was not much different. That small-scale
buyers/investors could be excluded from the market is revealed in a letter from Charles
Irvine, one of the most prolific tea traders, to a Joseph Hartly. Hartly wanted to invest in tea,
but apparently did not have sufficient means to buy large amounts. Irvine advised him:
It will hardly be possible to buy any of the goods you propose directly at
our sale because the lotts [sic] will generally speaking be much larger than the
quantities you order but I may perhaps be able to get some friend to divide
with me or let me have your quantity at a small profit.28
The correspondence also indicates that a number of partners usually invested in a
purchase of a lot together. The sale catalogues, however, only list the leading figures of
these investor groups.
If we look specifically at the purchases of Bohea, we find 39 buyers who bought a
total of 642 lots. Bohea was sold in standardised lots consisting of two to four chests. The
packaging and selling of Congo was different, which explains the relatively large number of
lots compared to the total weight of Congo. The chests into which the Congo was usually
packed were much smaller, holding between 13 kg and 26 kg, than those used for the
Bohea, which held up to 43 kg. Moreover, the number of chests of Congo in each lot varied
between two and six. In spite of these differences, the group of Congo buyers, a total of 35
individuals, largely overlapped with those buying the bulk of the Bohea tea.
Judging by sales records from previous years, there was a strong continuity; most of
the leading buyers from the start were the Ostend men of British/Scottish origin and, by
1756, these men were still dominating. While Colin Campbell, one of the founders of the
Company, was not as active by 1756 as he had been before, there were many other
12
British/Scottish agents buying large amounts of tea: J. Scott, J. More, Charles and John Irvine,
George Carnegie, Robert Parkinson, J. Chambers, W. Chalmers and others. We have already
mentioned Charles Irvine as one of the most prolific actors in the SEIC trade. He was invited
to join the company by Colin Campbell and served in the 1730s and 1740s as a supercargo.
James More (Moir) also belonged to the group of Ostend men that joined SEIC. Like Irvine,
More had worked as a supercargo for the SEIC. Not all Scots bidding for tea had a past in the
Ostend Company, however. Gothenburg was already host to a community of Scottish
merchants before 1731, including the Chambers family who had been settled on the West
Coast of Sweden since the beginning of the century.29
The continuous strong presence of this British/Scottish group may seem surprising.
By the 1740s, and in response to the outdrawn negotiations between Swedish and British
authorities regarding the so-called Porto Novo Affair, the SEIC had promised not to take any
more British subjects into its service.30 As a result of this, many of the British subjects who
had worked as supercargoes on Swedish and Ostend ships changed roles; rather than being
employees of the SEIC, they moved on to focus mainly on trading. It also meant that,
although the captains, supercargoes and vessels used in the trade over time and in growing
numbers originated from Sweden, many of the purchasers of the Asian goods imported by
the Swedish company came from elsewhere.
However, the wholesale tea market also showed signs of change. The leading buyers
of Swedish origin active in 1756 were Niklas Sahlgren, Christian Arfwidson, Abraham Grill
and Martin Holterman. Sahlgren, one of the founders of the company and later a director,
continued to play a key role also in distribution of goods to the continent. Holterman
became one of the most successful Gothenburg merchants in the 1750s. He married into the
Ström-Sahlgren family, and in this way became deeply involved in the SEIC’s business as a
share-holder and also, as demonstrated above, as a trader of goods destined for markets
outside Sweden. In 1766 Holterman was appointed director of the SEIC. Abraham Grill, a
company director and tea buyer, but not a former supercargo, acted on behalf of the Grill
family. His brothers had big firms in Stockholm (Carlos and Claes Grill) and Amsterdam
(Anthony and Johannes Grill). David Sandberg, another Swede active in the sales of 1756,
had a history as a SEIC supercargo. He also became a director of the Company. Sandberg, like
13
the Bagge and Ström families, was also based in Gothenburg, and had intermarried with the
British/Scottish families. An J. F. Ström, who also became a director, is likely to be Johan
Fredrik Ström, 1731–81, of the wealthy Ström family which had strong links to the SEIC.
Ström’s brother also worked for the Company. Sahlgren, Sandberg, Ström, Grill, Arfwidson
and Holterman are similar insofar as they all belonged to a tightly connected group of
Swedish merchants. These families often had offices in both Stockholm and Gothenburg, and
were also engaged in other trading activities, particularly iron making and trade, and
shipping.31
The continued strong presence of the Ostend network, with its strong Scottish
connections, compounds the impression that the distribution networks established in the
earlier period, linking Gothenburg to the Southern Netherlands and the Dutch Republic, still
played a key role in re-exports of tea. However, it is also clear that by 1756 the Swedish
merchants had become more integrated in these trading networks. From being an off-shore
business of the Ostend Company, the SEIC was slowly changing into a Swedish enterprise.
Conclusion
Tea from China was the Asian best-seller in eighteenth-century Europe. The imports
grew at a staggering rate, and the trade of the SEIC illuminates this history of the import
boom well. The history of the SEIC also provides the key to understanding how the European
market worked, not at least how the uneven distribution of demand for tea unfolded.
Without the growing mass market for tea in Britain, the rationale for the Swedish company
would have ceased. Importing and re-exporting vast quantities of tea was, however, a
complex business. The logistics of the tea trade involved separating types and qualities in
such a way as to meet the demands of the market. The analysis of the quantities of different
types of tea imported by the SEIC further underlines how coarse black Chinese tea, the
cheapest kind, was rapidly becoming an everyday consumer good, and also how the taste for
finer tea evolved. In neither case are we talking about the taste of Swedish consumers, an
issue that also helps to explain who was engaged in buying tea in bulk in Gothenburg. It was
buyers with close connections to wholesalers in the Dutch Republic and Southern
Netherlands that were the most active. The role of the Ostend Company as a blueprint for
the SEIC is very apparent. Know-how came from Ostend, not only of how to conduct trade
14
with Asia, but also where to deposit goods and how to market them in Europe. The Scottish
connection is another aspect which highlights the link between trade and taste--and, indeed,
politics, since some Scots who settled in Gothenburg were exiled Jacobites. There was a
strong Scottish presence in the Swedish company, and flow of Swedish tea to Scotland. For
example, the growing share of Congo in the Swedish cargoes is likely to reflect the
developments in the Scottish market, discussed in MacKillop’s contribution to this volume. In
other words, the Swedish trade with Asia was connected and dependent on trade networks
and consumer preferences in Western Europe, particularly in Britain.
15
Appendix A Catalogues of Public Sales 1742-1756, Tea Sorts in Swedish Pound (incl. package)32
Cargo
B
ohé
C
ongo
P
eckoe
So
atchoun
S
Bing
inglo
H
eysan
H
eysan-
d
iv. Sorts
Skin
1742 Gothenburg
1742 Riddarehus
und Stockholm
1743 Calmare
6
2
58560
7355
1
7
010372
339
Fredericus Rex Sueciae
2
4381
453,6
8
005840
845
1
7230
9787
4303
7
1
2
235
5
96681,4
1745 Calmare und
4
1
46
537
25
9
568,2
8956,2
13
5
995,8
6512,4
085
34
2
3
163
0313
154
16
18508
1
2
646
8083,6
1
1747 CronPrintzessan Louisa Ulrica
1748 Printz Gustav
1748 Calmare
1748 Cron-Printzen
Adolph Friedrich
1749 Götha Leyon
1749 Hoppet
5
3
73
05376
6693
996
5
7
64
06044
193
90
5
2
19
5
91324
2848
200
03
7
3
30
7
80260
1813
047
72
7
4
16
1
16305
3196
890
4499
5
2
66823
7425,5
1
2328
8
491
50
475,5
17
7833
2
0333
1
22
1749 Freden
1751 Enigheten
1751 Adolph
Friedrich
1752 Götha Leyon
1752 Printz Carl
1753 Enigheten
5
1
06253
5886
9
3
39354
3822
9
5
46745
0338
7
6
92124
2467
1
9
030642
6589
9
1
36384
37291
8
468
1
775
2
1266
1
7675
1
1922
7205
45
2
446
9348
34
8
467
867
41
11226
3
4
399
3
2
573
1687
338
1
1
549
67
6670
2
206
19
2
694
8664
18
15
6387
388
1
2
4389
073
1
9187
45
3612
6
607
923
7
3
930
557
4
199
1754 Hoppet
1754 Adolph
Friedrich
1754 Götha Leyon
1755 Friedrich
Adolph
1755 Enigheten
1756 Prins Carl
5
1
68318
23346
8
1
12795
57385
6
1
47087
34776
1
2
068461
43185
9
2
26928
24242
9
2
34336
38818
1
0503
1
1935
6
547
7
719
7
714
8
671
943
22
1
353
6673
10
1
485
5790
26
3
364
779
27
2009
43
888
19
1
2
5765
6600
366
1
4
2253
4911
366
8
5
882
2126
5
250
2137
581
7
663
20
082
2
2
660
347
5
2
260
4224
3
301
326
7
2
921
184
1757 Friedrich
Adolph
1758 Enigheten
1759 Sophia
Albertina
1759 Printz Carl
8
1
99509
32128
7
1
87178
92457
1
1
154549
50323
1
1
033516
52681
2
1330
1
4142
1
2432
1
1775
67
2
045
4000
44
1
074
4746
51
1
542
1926
54
1
074
1640
16065
1
7572
1
1779
4601
5
075
4601
5
070
Source: Försäljningskataloger, Vol. 1-21 (1733-1759), Enskilda arkiv inom Kommerskollegium, Ostindiska kompaniet,
Kommerskollegiums arkiv, RA, Stockholm.
1 skålpund (Swedish pound) = 0.425 kg
20
1
003
1
220
7
22
7
04
1
Asiatisk Kompagni, Afdelingen i København, Kasse- og hovedbøger fra kinaskibene 1734 -1772, Vol.
2207 and 2208, National Archives of Sweden or Rigsarkivet (RA), Copenhagen.
2
Asiatisk Kompagni, Afdelingen i København, Negotieprotokoller for Kinafarere 1735-1833, Vol.
1119, p. 112, RA, Copenhagen.
3
W. A. Cole, ‘Trends in Eighteenth-Century Smuggling’, The Economic History Review, New Series, 10
(1958), pp. 395-410; Hoh-Cheung and Lorna H. Mui, ‘Smuggling and the British Tea Trade before
1784’, The American Historical Review, 74 (Oct., 1968), pp. 44-73; Hoh-Cheung and Lorna H. Mui,
‘“Trends in Eighteenth-Century Smuggling” Reconsidered’, The Economic History Review, New Series,
28 (Feb., 1975), pp. 28-43.
4
Christian Koninckx, The first and second charters of the Swedish East India Company (1731-1766): a
contribution to the maritime, economic and social history of north-western Europe in its relationships
with the Far East (Kortrijk: Van Ghemmert, 1980).
5
See Försäljningskataloger, Vol. 1-21 (1733-1759), enskilda arkiv inom kommerskollegium, Ostindiska
kompaniet, Kommerskollegiums arkiv, RA, Stockholm. The catalogue from the sale of the cargo
Calmare and Cron-Printzen Adolph Friedrich in 1748 is available online,
http://www.ub.gu.se/samlingar/handskrift/ostindie/dokument/document.xml?id=168, date
accessed 14 May 2013.
6
See e.g. cargo manifest of the Ostend vessel St Joseph in 1720, Jan Parmentier, ‘The Private East
India Venture from Ostend: The Maritime and Commercial Aspects, 1715-1722’, International Journal
of Maritime History, 2 (1993), p. 95.
7
Kristina Söderpalm, 'Auktionen på den första lasten från Kina år 1733’, in Kristina Söderpalm (ed.)
Ostindiska Compagniet. Affärer och föremål(Göteborg: Göteborgs stadsmuseum, 2000), p. 88.
8
Sven T. Kjellberg, Svenska ostindiska compagnierna 1731-1813. Kryddor. Te. Porslin. Siden, (Malmö:
Allhem, 1975), p. 177 ff.
9
Hoh-cheung Mui and Lorna H. Mui, The Management of Monopoly: A Study of the English East India
Company's Conduct of Its Tea Trade, 1784-1833 (Vancouver: University of British Colombia Press,
1984), pp. 41-42.
10
These symbols, often made up of dots and lines, are referred to when the supercargos, trading in
Canton, wrote to the Captains on board of the ship. See e.g. Pye & Cruishank to C. Irvine, 28/11 1752,
IC, James Ford Bell Library (JFB), Minneapolis University Library (MUL).
11
Sales catalogue from the sale of the cargo of the ship Calmare,
http://www.ub.gu.se/samlingar/handskrift/ostindie/dokument/document.xml?id=168, date
accessed 14 May 2013.
12
Sales catalogues from the sale of Adolph Friedrichs (undated), Götha Leyon (undated) and Götha
Leyon and Prins Carl (1752), F25:11, Övriga Ämnesordnade Handlingar, Magistrat och Rådhusrätten
1626-1849, Stockholms Stadsarkiv (SA). Quote from Adolph Friedrichs (undated). We want to thank
Ulf Andersson for sharing this information with us.
13
Sales catalogues from sale of the cargo of Adolph Friedrichs (undated), F25:11, Övriga
Ämnesordnade Handlingar, Magistrat och Rådhusrätten 1626-1849, SA.
14
Sales Catalogue from the sale of the cargoes of the ships Concodia and Marquis De Prie, Vol. 51, A
152, Östadsarkivet, Landsarkivet i Göteborg.
15
Compare the catalogue from the sales in 1748, available online
http://www.ub.gu.se/samlingar/handskrift/ostindie/dokument/document.xml?id=168, date
accessed 14 May 2013, with Vol. 10, 1748, in enskilda arkiv inom kommerskollegium, Ostindiska
kompaniet, Kommerskollegiums arkiv, RA, Stockholm.
16
C. Irvine to C. Campbell 31/12 1744, C. Irvine’s Letter book Dec. 1744 to Jan 1748, IC, JFB Library,
MUL.
17
Pye & Cruishank to C. Irvine, 11/3 1752, IC, JFB Library, MUL.
21
18
Pye & Cruishank to C. Irvine, 19/5 1753; IC, JFB Library, MUL.
Nuala Zahedieh, The Capital and the Colonies. London and the Atlantic Economy, 1660-1700
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 177, 277.
20
Giorgio Riello, Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2013), pp. 96-97.
21
Mui and Mui, The Management of Monopoly, pp.19-20.
22
Koninckx, The First and Second Charters, p. 207.
23
For the procedure of weighing and payment see Söderpalm, ‘Auktionen på den första lasten’, p. 98.
24
Note in the catalogues from the years 1742 and 1743 (Vols. 3, 4, 6, enskilda arkiv inom
kommerskollegium, Ostindiska kompaniet, Kommerskollegiums arkiv, RA, Stockholm), the weight is
in cattees (1 catti = 0.5968 kg = 1.4 Swedish pound).
25
For the year 1745 records for two out of four ships are missing; for 1747 records for one out of two
ships are missing; for 1751 records for one out of three ships are missing; and for 1756, records for
one out of two ships are missing.
26
Note the series of sales catalogues is not complete. We have therefore indicated the number of
cargos that the sales catalogues provide information on, out of the total numbers of SEIC cargoes
arriving in Gothenburg each year.
27
Mui and Mui, The Management of Monopoly, pp. 12-22.
28
C. Irvine to J. Hartly 7/10 1747, C. Irvine’s Letter book Dec. 1744 to Jan 1748, IC, JFB Library, MUL.
29
Leos Müller, 'Scottish and Irish Entrepreneurs in Eighteenth-Century Sweden. East India trade and
iron’, in David Dickson, Jan Parmentier, and Jane Ohlmeyer (eds.) Irish and Scottish Mercantile
Networks in Europe and Overseas in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth century (Gent: Academia
Press,2007), pp. 147-174.
30
Conrad Gill, ‘The Affair of Porto Novo: An Incident in Anglo Swedish Relations’, The English
Historical Review, 73 (1958), p. 63.
31
Kurt Samuelsson, De stora köpmanshusen i Stockholm 1730-1815. En studie i den svenska
handelskapitalismens historia (Stockholm: Esselte, 1951) Leos Müller, The Merchant Houses of
Stockholm, c. 1640-1800. A Comparative Study of Early-Modern Entrepreneurial Behaviour (Uppsala:
Uppsala University Library, 1998).
32
The spelling of the names of the same ships varies. We have used the names listed in the
catalogues.
19
22