1)
Tea from China was one of the most, not to say the most important goods in the trade between Asia
and Europe in the 18th century. The Eurasian trade has a long history dating back to the first caravans
following what was to become the silk route. The last decade of the 15th century saw the arrival of
the first Europeans by sea, as the Portuguese rounded the Cap of Good Hope. A century later, with
the Dutch and the English taking the lead, European East India companies started to undermine the
Portuguese position in Asia. In China, a growing share of the trade became maritime with an
increasing number of European ships arriving to Canton from the beginning of the 18th century.
While Asian species, such as pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg together with cotton textile from South Asia
were the most valuable goods initially, a shift occurred in mid-18th century, as Chinese tea became
the engine of the Eurasian trade.
Slide change
In this paper I want to use the example of the tea trade to discuss the relation between
consumption, commerce and science, or more particularly natural history in 18th century Europe.
My starting point in this discussion is Harold Cook’s study Matters of exchange. To recapitulate the
main points with this work. Cook looks at the role of commerce in shaping the scientific revolution,
focusing particularly on the Dutch Republic in the 16th and the 17th centuries.
Exploring the link between empiricism and growing trade Cook discusses how the overseas trade
promoted exact descriptions of objects, a language that left imprints in early modern scholarship,
particularly within the all compassing field of natural history. The buying and selling of exotic objects
also fed into the culture of collecting that dominated early modern scholarship. In addition,
overlapping notion of taste, of knowing or “kennen” in a connoisseur sense of the word connected
the world of scholarship and the world of trade.
Many of the new species from the East were for example simultaneously used as medicine and for
conspicuous consumption in elite circles, although over time these goods became more diffused
socially, and more every-day in character.
Cook’s contextualising of the scientific revolution, drawing on the early modern trade of the Dutch
republic to throw new light on many prominent 16th and 17th Dutch naturalists, helps bridge a more
traditional history of science with recent historiographical trends focusing on material culture.
This world of trade did of course change and the tea trade does reflect an important shift. The tea
from China was initially thought of as a medicine, the prize among other things preventing it from a
wider use. By the 18th century tea had become a staple goods in north west Europe, particularly in
the Low Countries and in Britain.
In this paper I want to explore the imprints of this consumer revolution on scientific scholarship in
the 18th century, focusing particularly on the link between the tea trade and natural history, but also
taking into account how the trade was actually conducted.
2)
In doing this I will draw on the work of one of the most prominent naturalists of the 18th century.
Carolus Linnaeus is today perhaps best known as the inventor of the binary name system and for his
taxonomic developments. When it comes to tea modern botanist have diverged from Linnaeus who
thought tea leaves were the produce of two different species of tea, Theae virdis and Theae Bohea, a
distinction based on the difference between two products, green tea, and black tea.i The term Bohea
referred to the cheapest of the black teas imported from China.
Slide change
Linnaeus was however not alone in this misconception. Only in the 1840s, in the wake of Robert
Fortune’s explorations in China, was it established that black and green tea originated from the same
species, what today is known as Camelia sinensis.ii
The finished tea products, green and black tea leaves, are of course the result of different methods
for harvesting and treating the leaves of Camelia sinensis. One excuse Linnaeus had for not realising
this was the case is that he only managed to get hold of a live tea plant in 1762. This after a long
series of misfortunes, involving tea plants falling overboard on route back from China, of being
eaten by rats or perishing on the very last lap of the journey, or surviving only proving to be another
member of the Camelia genus.
How to transport tea plants and tea seeds from China to Europe was in fact a topic for a prolonged
correspondence between Linnaeus and other naturalists such as John Ellisiii and Alexander Gardeniv.
They frequently shared thoughts on how to preserve seeds and seedlings on long journeys with Ellis
promoting a sophisticated system of encapsulating tea seeds in wax. The live plants that finally
reached Linnaeus had, on Linnaeus’ advice, been germinated on board an East India ship. Linnaeus
also exchanged information with Ellis of the movement of tea plants more generally, including
reports from America on attempts to grow tea in the overseas plantations.v
While taxonomic work was one reason why Linnaeus was interested in transferring tea seeds and
plants from China the main motive was economic. By the mid-18th century tea had become a very
important commodity in Europe although it was of course just one of a series of exotic goods that
became objects for large scale trade and consumption here. Sugar, coffee and chocolate were
others, just to mention a few that also were consumed as or in hot beverages.
How the Asian goods and the consumer revolution of the 18th influenced European philosophical
debates promoting heated arguments about the pros and cons of luxury have been discussed in
various contexts. Central to this debate was the formation of economic policies and the role of the
European states regulating trade and consumption. Since this frequently involved the exploration of
nature domestically or in colonies, the subject of natural history became increasingly linked to early
modern political economy.
Lisbeth Koerner’s work on Carolus Linnaeus have to a high degree helped highlight the extent to
which 18th century natural history was informed by the rise of global trade and contemporary
political economy.
While acknowledging Linnaeus’s contributions to taxonomic developments Linnaeus in Koerner’s
eyes belongs to peripheral part of Europe, both isolated and restricted by the Nordic climate. The
circumstances are particularly important in Koerner’s discussion of Linnaeus’ attempts to cultivate
tea in Sweden including his promotion of locally grown import substitutions, such as Oregano
(Origanum vulgare) and Twinflower (Linnaea Borealis). It is worth mentioning that Linnaeus
launched his alternatives with names such as “Cape tea” and “Kings tea”. The latter Linnaeus hoped
would become a popular alternative to Chinese “Emperor’s tea” while reference to the Cape of
Good Hope was supposed to give the home grown alternative a more exotic aura.
To Koerner, the failed attempts to replace tea from China with tea from Sweden are not only
illustrative of Linnaeus’ opportunistic personality, they are also indicative of his overarching project,
what she labels the creation of a “local modernity”. Linnaeus’ ambition was to orchestrate a plant
transfer, to move tea and tea production from China to Sweden: “to reproduced the economy of
empire and colony within his Baltic country, and thus to short circuit the economic improvements
achieved by Holland and England through their international trade”vi.
3)
I am sympathetic to Koerner’s reading of Linnaeus in several respects, particularly her use of the
backdrop of global trade, and the political economy it gave rise to in Europe. While the connection
between Linnaeus and the Swedish East India trade previously been studied from the point of view
to how it offered Linnaeus’ students opportunities to travel to China, Koerner turns the trade with
China, and particularly tea into an important backdrop for Linnaeus thinking about natural history
and economy.
What I like to do in the rest of this paper is to highlight how the tea trade de facto was conducted,
and the extent to which it differed from Linnaeus’ understanding of it. Although the conclusion I am
going to draw might come across as quite simple, the modus operandi of the tea trade looked
different from how Linnaeus envisioned it, it will help illuminate both overlaps and discrepancies
between the world of trade and commerce on the one hand and the world of science on the other.vii
4)
The organisational form the Eurasian trade took the form of charted companies. This was the result
of several different circumstances. Initially the long distance journeys and the system of Asian
factories, local centres where permanent European staff bought up and stored textiles and species,
in anticipation of the arrival of the company ships, demanded heavy investments. This legitimize the
monopoly the companies were granted by the European states in which they were based. The great
fortunes the trade generated was a bonus it provided a source for loans which could be used to
finance warfare at home. In this sense the East India companies conformed to mercantilistic ideals,
which positioned the economic welfare of the state at the forefront.
In other respects though the Asian trade was in breeched with the same set of ideas. Early modern
monetary theorists believed that transnational trade was like a zero sum game, one state’s gain was
another’s loss. Wealthy state finances implied the hoarding of precious metals. As this quote from a
text by Linnaeus on tea, Potus Theae from 1765, illustrates, this thinking involved a global
perspective:
Slide change
“It is amusing to note that the Europeans, the wisest of all, conquer the most distant regions of
America, and there with the greatest difficulty excavates precious silver, and with greatest danger
repatriates it to Europe, in order to, with no less danger, carry it to another part of earth, to the East
Indies, only to exchange it for the leaves of a certain shrub.
All household utensils in China would be made of silver by now, if it had not been used to pay the
Mongols for food and work at the silk manufacture. These ignorant Mongols burry all their treasures
in the earth before they die, in the belief that they will benefit from them in a future life, thus the
same silver will on this continent (Asia) be reunited with the earth, which it in another (America) was
excavated from. Perhaps the time will come when a prince conquers the Mongol Empire, reexcavate the same silver and sends it back to Peru, for such are the changing the destiny of
things.”viii
So talks an early modern scholar on natural history.
The reference to silver utensils is interesting because it does ties in with another of Linnaeus’
objections against the China trade, namely to that in porcelain. To pay the Chinese silver for
porcelain was madness Linnaeus argued since this silver could be used for tableware in Europe, ware
that in contrast to porcelain was durable, and if necessary could be turned into silver money.
As a matter of fact the growing tea consumption in Europe did prompt silversmiths in London to
produce tea pots in silver, tea cups in the same material did for obvious reasons not take off.
Linnaeus’ comments suggest he was somewhat unaware of the natural advantage of porcelain over
metal in utensils made for the consumption of hot beverages. However this was not the case since
Linnaeus ordered no less than two personalised porcelain tableware from China, decorated with the
plant he made his emblem, the Twinflower (Linnaea Borealis), which accidently also was one of the
plants that Linnaeus suggested could substitute Chinese tea.
Slide change
The purpose of this paper is not to point out inconsistencies between what Linnaeus said and what
he did, or consumed. Moreover the Swedish East India Company provided Linnaeus with ample
opportunities to extend his knowledge of Asian natural history by offering placements for his
students, including e.g. Pehr Osbeck who if not for the misfortune of having lost a live tea plant to
the sea outside the Cape, could have been able to provide Linnaeus with such plant already in 1752,
20 years before the tea plant finally reached Linnaeus.ix Moreover, had Linnaeus succeeded with his
plant transfer, the trade with China would largely be made redundant. As Linnaeus pointed out:
Slide change
"…in recent years the planting of mulberry trees and the production of silk in southern Europe have
made so much progress that a time will come when we no longer need to fetch silk from China. The
art of making porcelain vessel has recently been perfected in Saxony, Prussia, France, and our
motherland, that these vessels to form and color outperform the Chinese. Only tea leaves singles
out the Chinese."x
What Linnaeus failed to acknowledge though and possibly comprehend, was how complex the East
India trade was and the role of the Swedish company in it.
As is well known now, the whole Asian market was connected up through a system of country trade
in which the European participated. The different companies played different but complementary
roles, as did European individuals based in Asia and working for these companies. One important
group here were the wealthy Anglo Indians, the so called Nabobs, who due to restrictions internal to
the English company remitted their fortunes back home with the help of the Scandinavian
companies. The latter used the capital of the Nabobs to invest in tea, which once sold in
Copenhagen and Gothenburg could be turned into bills of exchange for the London market. In other
words next to demands in Europe for Asian goods, the remittance of European fortunes from Asia to
Europe was another important factor.
The European market was likewise very complex. Not only did the different East India companies
have monopoly on the trade with Asian goods in the country they operated from, import restrictions
or very high duties on a wide range of Asian goods undermined the legal trade with these goods on
other European markets.
The later circumstances forms the most important condition for the Swedish East India company. It
was the trade with Chinese tea on behalf of consumers in Britain that was the modus operandi for
the company. The import duty on Chinese tea varied but it was generally high, before the
Communitation act of 1784 British tea duties reached a staggering 119 %. Such rates promoted an
excessive smuggle traffic. Next to continental brandy tea from China was the most significant
smuggle goods in Britain. It is estimated that between half and two thirds of all the tea consumed in
Britain was counterfeit.
The demand of British consumers is visible in the Scandinavian records, with the cheapest of the
Chinese tea, the Bohea type being by far the most prominent. In other words it was a mass market
of British tea drinkers, who wanted tea on a daily basis but could only afford the cheapest type, that
directed the trade of the Swedish company.
Since tea cargo in weight constituted up to 89% of the cargo of the Swedish companyxi, and up to
95% of the cargo of the Swedish East India company’s ships were re-exported, what reminded in
Sweden was negligible. Consequently, Linnaeus and the Swedish government’s fear that a taste for
Asian luxuries were spoiling the domestic economy, was based on a misconception. The Asian trade
was not an integrated part of the Swedish economy.
What happened to the Swedish imported tea once it was re-exported, and left Gothenburg is
however not easy to trace. Smuggling is notoriously hard to quantify. Correspondence between
merchants involved in European wholesale market of tea does however illuminate a sophisticated
knowledge of Chinese tea, involving not only an understanding of the distinctions between different
types of green and black tea, and different qualities within these types, but also the European
markets for them. Linchisin and Pekoe tea was for example according to one merchant who
frequently traded with tea brought to Europe via Sweden,” too fine” for the Hamburger market.
Here people’s taste were far too crude and unsophisticated.
The sales catalogues from the Scandinavian companies do also illuminate the growing knowledge of
tea. In the account book from the first year the Danish company traded with China for example, all
green tea is lumped together into one category. Soon however the tea types were separated into
not only different categories such as Hyson, Hyson Skin, Bing, and Singlo, but also different qualities
of them.
Slide change
The merchants involved in the re-export of the Swedish tea were also very knowledgeable of the
amounts of tea that arrived from China each year, as they shared information about the composition
of the cargoes of the different companies with one another. It was of course the effect of this trade,
in terms of expected prices on different types tea on the European wholesale market, most of it
destined for Britain, that generated an interest for this type of information.
Moreover, the same merchants were very aware that the whole premise for the Swedish trade was
the high import duties in Britain. As one trader in Swedish tea argued when he reported to an
associated in Sweden, on plans to lower the British duties on tea, in London in 1752: “ In that case
Holland & Germany will be the only market for tea, imported by your company or the Danish, French
& for the future.”xii
The logistic of this tea trade was another topic often visited, reflecting the problems that arose as
thousands of tea chests made their way from Canton, across the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of
Good hope, and onwards to their different home ports of the East India companies. How to organise
this movement protecting the tea chests from dampness and other corrupting influences arising
from storing it too close to other goods with too strong scents, was frequently discussed. In contrast
to Linnaeus who in correspondence with Ellis, was interested in persevering the viability of seeds or
seedlings that could be used cultivation tea on a great scale, the merchants were interested
preserving the freshness of huge amounts of of tea for European consumers.
Summary:
In sum, knowledge of Chinese tea among merchants involved in the wholesale market for Eurasian
goods became increasingly sophisticated in the 18th century. It came to involve a growing
understanding of differences between different types and qualities of Chinese tea, and what the
growing number of European and particularly British tea drinkers preferred. In close proximity to this
consumer related knowledge they developed knowledge about the more logistical dimension, how
to best transport and store thousands of chests of tea. Operating on the fringe of the legal market,
selling on tea to smugglers, the merchants were also aware of how legislations and regulations in
different European countries impacted on the Pan-European tea market.
In contrast to the merchants Linnaeus seemed to lack an understanding of the complex Eurasian
trade and forces at work in it. Collaborating with other naturalist Linnaeus was instead focused on
the taxonomy of Theae virdis and Theae Bohea but more importantly on finding ways around the
Chinese monopoly on tea. The latter engaged Linnaeus in extensive communication on the art of
plant transfer and seed conservation, as well as on-going promotions of home grown alternatives,
domestic plants as import substitutions with which to replace the Chinese tea.
What the merchants and Linnaeus shared was the understanding that Chinese tea was very sought
after on the European market, that it was a goods consumed en mass, and on a growing scale. The
mass market for tea provided the rational for their actions, and consequently also for what kind of
knowledge they generated about tea from China. If early modern epistemological changes evolved
out of an European encounter with exotic goods, as Cooks have it, then by the 18th century the taste
of a European consumer, the existence of a mass-market, framed at least some of thinking of
naturalist and merchants alike.
Extra
What might be surprising is that although the actions of Linnaeus and the merchants had
contradictory objectives, one to increase import from China to generate as much income as possible,
and one to decrease the same import, to reduce trade, they happily seemed to be able to co-exists,
making use of the same infrastructure, the East India companies.
It raises a series of questions of the different rational between merchants and naturalists. Linnaeus
frequently suggested that whoever succeeded in breaking the Chinese monopoly by successfully
transferring tea plants to Europe, would have their names immortalise, a frequently used troop in
Linnaeus writing. It also raises a series of question about the extent to which the scientific discourse
and the merchant was separated. I have yet not come across any suggestions that the Swedish or
the English companies tried to prevent Linnaeus or Ellis in their pursuit of growing tea in Europe,
although if successful such venture would undermine the company trade.
This can be compared to the steps the Dutch East India company took to preserve its control and
monopoly of the nutmeg production on the Spice Island. One hypothesis is that the relatively open
market that the Canton system promoted, welcoming anyone who wanted to trade in tea,
generated this relative openness. It is also worth underlining that while Linné thought of the tea
trade within a context of the trade between Europe and China more generally, including the trade in
porcelain and silk, or even globally, taking into account the role of the American silver. In the
correspondence between the merchants I have investigated such holistic perspective is generally
lacking.
Då skulle Thée blifwa gement at dricka för oss, och de kosteliga Thée-tassar mista sit värde." (55)
Och China skulle på det sättet träda i arabiens fot-spår, förlota mycket af sin nu blomstrande
sällhet, och lemna Swerige icke en ringa del a samma sin fortun och lycka." 56
Harold Cook>
“So the goods of commerce embodied not only particularly moral attributes but particular kinds of
knowledge, giving pride of place to the tangible world.”
Was Linnaeus demonstrating his knowledge of the refined world by writing negatively about exotic
material?
i
Potus Theae 1765
ii
Although it is worth highlighting that this was a possibility discussed long before Fortune’s report. Today
botanists talk of one species of tea, Camelia sinensis, with two variations, Camellia sinensis var. sinensis, and
Camellia sinensis var. assamica.
iii
John Ellis FRS (c1710 - 15 October 1776) was a British linen merchant and naturalist. Ellis specialised in the
study of corals. He was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1754 and in the following year published An
essay towards the Natural History of the Corallines. He was awarded the Copley Medal in 1767. His A Natural
History of Many Uncommon and Curious Zoophytes, written with Daniel Solander, was published
posthumously in 1776. Ellis was appointed Royal Agent for West Florida in 1764 and for Dominica in 1770. He
imported many seeds and plants into England from America, and corresponded with many botanists, including
Carolus Linnaeus. His essay Directions for bringing over seeds and plants, from the East Indies.. (1770) included
the first illustration of the Venus Flytrap.The standard author abbreviation J.Ellis is used to indicate this
individual as the author when citing a botanical name. Wikipedia
iv
Alexander Garden FRSE FRS (January 1730 – 15 April 1791) was a Scottish physician, botanist and zoologist.
The gardenia flower is named after him. He lived for many years in Charleston, South Carolina, using his spare
time to study plants and living creatures, and sending specimens to Carolus Linnaeus. Wikipedia
v
In March 1768 for Ellis explains to Linnaeus that any rumours that tea was successfully grown in America was
false.15 march 1768 Ellis to Linnaeus
vi
Koerner p.139)
vii
I will also help form the starting point for a critique of the geography implied in Koerner’s analysis, as I will
outline below it was much more complex.
viiiviii
Det är roande att tänka på att européerna, de klokaste bland alla, erövra de avlägsnaste trakterna i
Amerika, därstädes med största möda utgräva de kostbara silvret, under största fara hemföra det till Europa
och slutligen med icke mindre fara föra det till en annan del av jorden, till Ostindien, endast för att hämta
bladen av en viss buske. Sedan länge skulle i Kina alla husgeråd vara av silver, om man ej betalde mongolerna
för födoämnen och arbeta vid sidentillverkningen med rent silver. Dessa okunniga mongoler nedgräva för sin
öd alla sina skatter i jorden, i den tron att de skola få nytta av dem i ett kommande liv; alltså blir i en världsdel
samma silver återförenat med jorden, som i en annan uppgräves ur dess sköte. Kanske kommer den tid, då en
furste erövrar det mongoliska riket, återuppgräver samma silver och låter sända det tillbaka till Peru; ty
växlande är tingens öden. Potus Theae 1765 14
ix
Linnaeus also made up plans to get one overland, and via Russia, another area the exploration of came to
involve several of his students)
x
“Men i senare tid har plantering av mullbärsträd och tillverkning av siden I södra Europa gjort så stora
framsteg, att den tid en gång kommer då vi icke längre behöver hämta siden från Kina. Även konsten att
tillverka porslinskärl har på senare tid i Sachsen, Preussen, Frankrike, och vårt färdenesland så fulländats, att
dessa kärl till form och färg överträffa de kinesiska Endast tebladen är kineserna ensamma om.”
xi
Konninckx 471
xii
Arthur Abercromby