The European market for tea and the
Swedish East India Company
c. 1730-1760
Hanna Hodacs & Leos Müller
(University of Warwick & University of Stockholm)
Tea
• Key commodity in 18th century Eurasian trade
• Part of new trade; together with Atlantic
sugar, coffee, porcelain and cottons
• Compared with ”old” or ”VOC” 17th-century
trade in spices and silks
• 1700-1720, a shift:
– EIC and Ostend Companies shaped new trade
patterns in which Canton played a key role.
What characterised the 18th century
trade in tea?
• Chinese market for tea
– Global monopoly on tea
– Hong merchant encouraged competition between
European purchasers but kept control over supply
• European Market for tea
– Small companies provided for markets outside the
realm of the state in which they were based (via
Smuggling to Britain)
– Created a competitive Pan-European market for
tea
Ostend Company and SEIC
• EIC, VOC, Ostend Company:
– The key actors introducing tea in Europe.
– Direct trade from Canton/VOC imports tea from Batavia
• 1718-1728: a window of opportunity
– Ostend Company: a Flemish and Scottish enterprise
– Imported as much as EIC, the two actors accounts for 84%
of total European tea imports!
• 1727-1731: trade suspended
– Anglo-Dutch political pressure
– Shift to Gothenburg, SEIC established in 1731
(Colin Campbell, Niklas Sahlgren, Scottish/Flemish
network)
SEIC, 1731-1813
• ”The most successful enterprise in Swedish history”
(E. F. Heckscher)
– 131 expeditions, 4 charters,
• An important actor in the tea trade
– 1731-1783 carried 10-15% of the tea imported to Europe
– Same volumes as the French, Danes and Dutch
– A ”Canton Tea Company” , hardly no India trade!
• Business strategy:
– know-how, money and people from Ostend (especially
between 1731-1756)
Layout of paper:
• Introduction (Ostend connection) + description
of different types of tea
• Analysis of tea in sales catalogues 1733-1759
– Printed catalogues with annotations
– Volumes, buyers, prices
• Analysis of correspondence between traders in
tea
– Charles Irvine’s letters, Ostend man, SEIC supercargo
– On competition, the circulation of quality and price
information
• Conclusion
18th-century tea types
• Chinese origin – Chinese terminology
• Black teas:
– Bohea, Soatchoun, Congo, Peckoe, Linchisin
• Green teas:
– Heysan, Heysan-Skin, Bing (imperial tea), Singlo
• Earl Grey, Darjeeling, Ceylon tea, etc. all 19th
century products.
Sources – Sales Catalogues
• Unique material
• Tea the dominating good (in volumes and value)
• Printed information:
– Information on the number of chests, later on
cattees, Swedish pounds, including package
(weight of chest)
• Annotations:
– Buyers, prices per pound
– Quality
• Chest identity number:
– Followed chest from Canton to end retailer in
Britain?
Catalogue of
Fredericus
Rex Sueciae,
1733
Detailed information on cargo
Ship Gothenburg 1742
(tea unit is catee)
Diagram 1: SEIC’s tea imports, 1742-1759
(Swedish pounds= skålpund)
1600000
1400000
1200000
Bohé
1000000
div.Sorts
Heysan-Skin
800000
Heysan
Bing
600000
Singlo
Soatchoun
Peckoe
400000
200000
0
Congo
Diagram 2: Congo, Peckoe, Soatchoun and Singlo,
1742-1759 (Swedish pound=skålpund)
350000
300000
250000
200000
Singlo
Soatchoun
150000
Peckoe
Congo
100000
50000
0
Volumes and types
• Sales: an increase in volumes
• More sales per year
– E.g. 1754, three ships returning 2.3 million pounds
tea for sale!)
• Diminishing variety
– Bohea: 85% over the period 1742-59 (in volume)
• The rise of Congo in the 1750s
Prices – trends
• A large number of lots sold at same prices
(Bohea) but also diffentiation (between 27
and 38 öre smt per pound)
• Exclusive teas: more price fluctuation
– Grill paid 124 öre smt per pound Soatchoun!!!!
• Green teas more expensive
– On average Hysan above 100 öre smt per pund
Table 1: Ship Prins Carl (1756)
Buyers
All tea
lots
Bohea
Lots
Congo
lots
N Sahlgren
297
N Sahlgren
135
N Sahlgren
110
C Arwidson
200
C Arwidson
73
C Arfwidson
85
J Scott
65
C Irvine
42
G Carnegie
33
J More
63
Scott & Comp
37
J More
33
J Irvine
62
R Parkinson
30
J Scott
31
M Holterman
59
A Grill
27
J Irvine
26
G Carnegie
53
J Scott
25
Bagge & Comp 23
Bagge & Comp 50
J Irvine
23
C Campbell
21
A Grill
47
M Holterman
23
M Holterman
15
C Campbell
47
Beckman &
Beyer
19
G Bellenden
13
Buyers
• A few dominating buyers
– Niklas Sahlgren 297 lots of 1463
– Christian Arfwidson 200 lots of 1463
• 55 buyers all in all
– The 10 most prolific buyers bought 943 lots (64%)
– The 10 least prolific buyers bought 17 lots (1%)
• Group 1: Scottish/British buyers: J Scott, J More,
Charles and John Irvine, George Carnegie, Robert
Parkinson, J Chambers, W Chalmers
• Group 2: Swedish buyers: Sahlgren, Arvidson,
Holterman, Bagge, Ström, Sandberg
• Group 3?: German buyers: Schale, Scholl
The correspondence of Charles Irvine
• Fierce Pan-European competition!
• Public sales (Company auctions or whole
sellers’ auctions)
– Price and quantity information widely avaliable –
well functioning Pan-european market for tea?
• Trade networks (Scottish connections)
– Circulation of insider information re. quality of
specific chests or sequences of chests
Hypothesis
• Publically available information (re. e.g.
quantities of tea for sale each season)
influenced prices at first round of public sales
(Company auctions)
• Insider information, circulated among
networks, on qualitative aspects, influenced
prices at second round of public sales (whole
sellers’ auctions)
Expert knowledge on tea
• Whole sellers in the Low Countries
(Amsterdam and Rotterdam)
• Final words assessing qualities of tea
• Access to tea imported by all continental East
India Companies
• Access to market for tea
Tea stapel market
• Amsterdam & Rotterdam
– Staple market for Chinese tea
• Information nodes
– Interconnectedness, linking Canton, to
Gothenburg, to Rotterdam, Amsterdam and
Hamburg
– Producers (inland China) or consumers (in Britain)
not (yet) included in the correspondence
• Quick development
Tea and the European market for
Chinese goods
• Tea – became the most important goods in the
Eurasian trade (second half 18th century)
• Europeans could not grow tea at home (while
they could produce silk and porcelain)
• Is tea therefor irrelevant in a history of how
Asian imports influenced European production
(and consumption)?
No…
• Consumption
– Tea was served in Chinese porcelain
• Logistics
– Porcelain a ballast for the tea
• Transaction costs
– A mass market for tea helped lowering transaction
costs on porcelain, silk, lacquer wear etc
The Swedish tea trade and a geography of
consumption of Chinese goods
• Most Swedish tea – re-exported to the Low Countries
• What happened to the other Chinese goods?
– Did the Swedish imported silk and porcelain continue to
travel with the tea?
– Or did the mass market for tea in the Low Countries and
Britain give the poor people of Sweden access to Asian
luxuries which otherwise would have been beyond their
means?
• The Swedish tea trade can help illuminate a geography
of consumption of Chinese goods that does not
necessarily match the geography of European wealth
The chronology the trade in Chinese
goods
• Tea:
– a perishable good
– Europeans wanted a regular supply
• Silk and porcelain:
– Objects with different life span
– European silk and pottery producers pushed new
trends which influenced taste & fashions
• The consumption of Chinese goods in Europe had
different rhythms
– A disharmony between the tempo of the tea trade
and the trade with more durable goods?
Questions…
• Can a geography and chronology of the tea trade
help illuminate what might have been only
partially overlapping markets for Chinese goods
in Europe, working out of sync with one another?
• Is this maybe why the Swedish East India
Company imported an ever smaller variety of
Chinese goods?
• Or does it reflect advances in European
manufacturing? Or both?