The British East India Company Tea Trade

English needed the tea from China which was one reason caused British to negotiate with the Chinese to open more trade opportunity to the outsiders, and the denial of exporting tea to the British caused the later Opium War.

In 1773, Parliament aroused the Americans by passage of the Tea Act. This act, designed to help the East India Company by making it cheaper for them to sell tea in America, was interpreted by Americans as a subtle ploy to get them to consume taxed tea. In Boston, in December 1773, a group of men dumped the tea into the harbor.

Once established as England's national drink, tea imports from first China and India led to massive trade. The book describes the power of the British East India Company, which “generated more revenue than the British government and ruled over far more people,”

During the late 1700s, the East India Company had a monopoly on all of the tea in the colonies. Tea was everything

When the tea made its way to France, it was also considered a fashionable expensive drink. In the United States the colonists favored tea until the tax imposed on it caused the Revolutionary War in 1775. (Saberi, 2010, p. 112) Turmoil and war has occurred for the diffusion of tea from China to United States.

The British hoped that the tea act would undercut the tea smuggled into britain's north american colonies.The British government led by the Prime Minister, Lord North, hoped to reassert Parliament’s right to impose direct revenue taxes on the American Colonies with the cheap tea.Never-the-less the British anticipated a good reception to the Tea Act in America, after all, the colonists would get their tea at a cost lower than ever before.Tea would be cheaper in America than Britain. Ships laden with more than half a million pounds of tea set off for the colonies shortly after the Tea Act was passed.

At the time tea was the most popular non-alcoholic drink in the world, and consequently, was highly taxed. All tea which was being sent to America was first shipped through England. By the time the tea made it to America, the price was through the roof. In response to the high price of tea, many merchants began smuggling the tea into America and selling it at a discounted price to the colonists. This system worked well until the Tea Act was passed. The Tea Act lowered the import tax on tea, and imposed a small tax on the tea itself. Unfortunately, the colonists did not react as well as the English hoped. Merchants felt threatened by the tax as many of their businesses relied on smuggled tea to turn a profit. The colonists also reacted negatively, believing that Britain was unfairly imposing a tax which they had to right to impose. In retaliation, American colonists dressed as Indians and dumped 342 chests of tea from British merchant ships into Boston Harbour, and again, nine days later in Delaware, colonists dumped over 700 chests. The British, rightly outraged by the actions of the colonists, imposed the Coercive Acts: 1) the King closed Boston Harbour until all the dumped tea was payed for, 2) the Massachusetts charter was annulled, and the governor council was reappointed by the King, 3) the Quartering Act required homeowners

The Boston tea party was assembled by the Sons of Liberty on Thursday December 16th 1773 around 7:00 to 10:00 PM put on in front of a crowd of over 5,000 people this was an act of defiance of the Americas to Britain to the Tea Act of 1773, as well as taxation without representation or more well known as the Townshend Act of 1767. However it was just not these two factors which lead them to do this it was also the thought of Britain charging the colonists more for tea, ink, and many other things, in order to pay for the troops fighting in the French and Indian War. So at first Britain was making everyone pay over price on tea so the colonists started smuggling tea from Dutch and other European tea makers. These things violated

The Tea act was extended by the British Parliament in 1773 to reduce the tax on tea shipped to the dependencies. The Act was one of many measures imposed on the American colonists by the British regime. The Act imposed a tax on tea imported to the colonies by a company that Great Britain had set up for that role. That society owned the sole right to import tea to the settlements, so almost all tea consumed by colonists would be taxed. They were so furious that they boycotted tea altogether.

Tea was connected to the opium trade because the East India Company had to pay in silver but the price of silver was rising more than the price of tea so the East India Company used opium as silver to buy tea. Tea is connected to the Opium War of 1838 -1842 because Chinese and British merchants were trading tea and opium, thousands of addicts and blighted countless lives merely to maintain Britain’s supply of tea and after laws had little effect, Chinese officials destroyed stocks of opium which started the Opium War.

The tea act was a tax on tea passed by the parliament to tax the colonists to pay off their debt from the french and indian war. The patriots were outraged by the tea act because they felt why should the British be able to tax us when we are all the way across the ocean. Ever since the tea act was passed in 1773 there have been hostilities had been near the breaking point. The colonists did not like that the British East India tea company was given an exclusive right to sell tea in America. Sam Adams organized the sons of liberty because he wanted to take down the unfair tax on tea. He and the sons of liberty dumped hundreds of pounds of tea into the harbor. This was one of the main events that lead up to the Revolutionary war.

In the late sixteenth- century Europe adopted a caffeinated warm drink for the first time this included chocolate, tea and coffee. Tea fills the senses with a bittersweet scent. This herb came from china by ship. Unlike cider and beer tea was new to the English-speaking world (49). Starting in the eighteenth- century Europe trading companies began to market green and black tea (51). Before this time period tea was very rare in the west region of British north America. Only the wealthy could originally afford tea and sugar. Tea was also used as a source of herbal medicine rather than traditional methods. This herb was also expensive because it shipped across great distances and allowed the East India Company to charge higher prices and labor added an extra charge. This resulted in tea becoming a luxury item in the colonies (53). The Townshend’s act in 1767 put a tax on tea which Americans responded that parliament could not tax without their consent. This frustrated the colonist because it put their love for tea at risk, so they responded to parliament by aiming at British merchants and manufactures

The Tea Act, like the Stamp Act, was not for the benefit of the colonies. The purpose of the Tea Act was to bail out the East India Company, this was troublesome for Britain because they were very important to their economy (Staff, 2009). The East India Company was deteriorating due to financial troubles, so Great Britain gave the company a monopoly on the importation and sale of tea to the colonies Staff, 2009). These acts angered the colonists, which then brought up the idea of independence from the King. In retaliation, men from the Sons of Liberty, dressed as Indians, boarded a ship full of tea and dumped it all into the Boston harbor (Davidson, DeLay, Heyman, Lytle, & Stoff, 2015).

The Tea Act of 1773 was a tax on tea but, the British lowered the cost of tea significantly enough that even with the tax, British tea was cheaper than Dutch tea. Also to keep the price down, the British East India Co. got rid of the middleman in the colonies and opened up their own shops. If the colonists bought this tea, they would be accepting the fact that the British could tax without representation. On Dec. 16th 1773 the ships docked at the Boston ports. The Sons of Liberty dressed up as Indians and threw 324 chests of tea into the water. England responded to the Boston Tea Party by the Coercive Act of 1774.

East India Company’s officially sanctioned monopoly over trade in the East Indies essentially gave it the power to negotiate commercial treaties, establish settlements and even wage wars if it so desired (p.185). While it may have started out with commercial intentions, it eventually diversified into revenue collection and became a ‘Mughal’ vassal, with privileges and tax-exemption. I believe that its significant influence was not just due to military superiority, but also political shrewdness. For example, it forced the ruling ‘nawab’ Siraj-ud-Daula to be the first aggressor by defying his orders. This in turn gave it moral justification to retaliate and depose him.