Air Conditioner Harbor Point

Air Conditioner Harbor Point

Air Conditioner Harbor Point

On Dec. 16, 1773, a band of American colonists emptied 342 wooden crates of loose black tea into Boston Harbor to protest against the monopoly and business practices of the East India Company, founded by the British in 1600 to trade for spices and other goods in Asia. The destruction of a valuable commodity and the restitution stubbornly demanded by Britain but refused by the colonists started the brewing of revolution.

Green tea was for domestic consumption in China. Black tea was for export.

China was the only source of commercially grown tea leaves when the new drink sensation was first brought to Europe by the Dutch in the seventeenth century. The Chinese drank green tea and exported black tea. Black tea was air dried and thus fully oxidized, which acted as a natural preservative. It could be crated, shipped aboard fast sailing vessels, sold in worldwide markets and still be fit for foreign consumption a year or two after it was processed, as far as the Chinese were concerned. They preferred the fresh, more delicate and fragile flavors of green tea, which did not travel well because it was not oxidized at all.

Tea was a hot commodity in world trade

China’s monopoly as a tea producer ended in the mid nineteenth century when India, under British auspices, started growing and exporting tea. In time Indian tea became less expensive than Chinese. The East India Company lost its British monopoly of trade in Asia in 1834, and the company was abolished a few decades later. Indian darjeeling had become the darling of English tea drinkers.