TIL that British stole tea from China through Robert Fortune who shaved his head, wore local Chinese clothing (including a pigtail), and posed as a wealthy official from a distant province to hide his accent. And stole 20,000 seeds to break China’s monopoly on tea by growing it in then British India

[u/FreeAbortionfromDad]

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-great-british-tea-heist-9866709/

[u/Low_M_H]

and thus, the Ceylon tea is born. One of history recorded major industrial espionage by the British empire.

[u/f0xbunny → u/Low_M_H]

And Darjeeling I think?

[u/Smart_Carrot_9320 → u/Low_M_H]

Absolutely disgusting

[u/Used_Theory7186 → u/Smart_Carrot_9320]

Ip theft

[u/LimaCharlieWhiskey]

Wait till you find out how British authors like Dickens were ripped off by the Americans in the 1800's. Intellectual property is only protected by the victors.

[u/perksofbeingcrafty]

It’s called a queue

[u/PopeAlexanderSextus → u/perksofbeingcrafty]

Thank you!!!

[u/Which_Replacement524 → u/[deleted]]

China in 1848 was big, decentralized, and extremely populous. As well, the strict social hierarchy of the time - not just in China, but especially in China - meant that if some rich guy walked through claiming to be a wealthy official and wanted something as menial as tea seeds, it was easier to just say "yeah, checks out", because the days it'd spend to verify that would probably greatly displease someone and you don't want to be responsible for that kind of mess if it turns out he really is who he says he is.

[u/SeizeTheTrusts → u/[deleted]]

Go search up Xinjiang people. They have some very non-“Chinese” faces and you could easily get by claiming you are from there as a white-adjacent race. Except maybe nordics, little obvious

[u/GrandFleshMelder → u/SeizeTheTrusts]

That’s true, they had probably never seen a Uyghur before.

[u/Guayabo786]

And the Persians stole silkworms from China, so what gives?

[u/topgeezr]

China had the monopoly for the first 200 years of the British tea trade, and they refused to accept reciprocal trade in British goods, demanding that payments for tead and other Chinese goods was made only in silver, leading to a trade deficit in the days when that was really a problem.

[u/DevelopmentLow214]

A fake self-serving story propagated by Fortune. Assam was already a tea producing state, and the tea plant varieties brought from China by Fortune did not grow well in Assam.

[u/T41k0_drums → u/DevelopmentLow214]

If you read the article, you would know it’s not simply about the seeds. The trade secrets for the intricate refining of the tea leaves after harvest was the real reward.

[u/Kagenlim → u/T41k0_drums]

Yeah but India has been making tea for centuries tho, even till today, British and Ceylon tea is radically different from Chinese tea in flavour and usage

[u/T41k0_drums → u/Kagenlim]

Do you have a source for your claims? I don’t recall that from this article, which points to how Ceylon and certainly British tea as we know them today have common origins from this episode in history, regardless of any relative distinctive characteristics.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Ask5538 → u/T41k0_drums]

Hey, Ceylon tea is indeed the chinese one stolen but the Assam tea was actually grown and consumed by Singpho tribe and Bodo tribes before the British ever came to Asia. It is a local variety and distinct in aroma and flavor. And is wild tea - used in Assam locally. China on the other hand had structural crop patterns and cultivation on commercial levels and different kinda tea. If you look at the other plants of these region many have been originated in both areas as they are quite similar in climate. But India does grow that Chinese tea in other areas.