Why a Booktrail?
1800s: A true story – perfect for when drinking a cup of tea yourself – this is the true story of how that perfect brew came to be in your hands and makes for a fascinating read!
For all the Tea in China
What you need to know before your trail
Espionage, empire and the secret formula for the world’s favourite drink
“There was a time when maps of the world were redrawn in the name of plants, when two empires Britain and China were to war over two flowers: the poppy and the camellia.”
In 1848, the East India Company sent a Scottish gardener on a secret mission deep in the heart of China – territory forbidden to foreigners – to steal the closely guarded secrets of tea.
Robert Fortune was not just a gardener of course, he was a plant expert and also a spy who took on the challenge. China was known at the time as the world’s sole tea manufacturer. Britain practically ran its Empire by trading opium to the Chinese -and then when things changed, had to fight two destructive wars to sustain it.
Travel Guide
The East India Company was a growing player in the tea trade at the time but was also losing out in a changing and more competitive world and so it was decided that they would try and build their own plantations in the Himalayas of British India.
There were just two problems: India had no tea, and no one knew how to grow tea even if they had some.
Robert Fortune was sent out to steal some plants and bring them back. But the emperor wanted to keep the secret of tea to himself and was prepared to do anything to ensure that happened.
The Brits then discovered that the Indian Himalayan mountain range resembled China’s best tea-growing regions. And so the importance of the area grew.
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