The speaker at the latest meeting of Lockerbie and District Rotary Club was member Alan Hanlin who gave an enlightening talk on tea, as well as treating all to a complimentary teabag!
In his own inimitable way, he took members through the history of the tea trade, the British East India Company, the establishment of tea plantations in Assam and Darjeeling in the foothills of the Himalayas, the establishment of tea plantations in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, and the many Scots involved.
He explained this pre-eminence of Scots was due to the Scottish enlightenment of the 18th century and Scots were prominent in many fields throughout the British Empire, especially in medicine.
Tea was popular in 17th century England, known as the “China drink”, but by the 19th century, British merchants were looking at sources, other than China, for their tea. The British East India Company’s monopoly of the China tea trade ended in 1833, hitting business hard. Robert Bruce was a Scottish trader who knew northeast India well and knew that the natives had a tea like plant and that if a tea planting industry could be developed in Assam it could rival that of China. Bruce’s part in obtaining access to the plant and to the area was crucial. Despite his early death, his brother continued his mission.
Another Scot, Robert Fortune from Berwickshire, was responsible for getting Chinese tea plants into India. He was a botanist tasked by the East India Company to go to China and find out as much about tea plants, seeds and machinery as he could. He spent three years from 1848 in China, as a covert Chinese businessman, risking death and with many setbacks. Yet he survived and retired to the Borders in Scotland. Later research showed that the Chinese tea and the Assam plant were varieties of the same plant
James Taylor, was another Scottish tea planter and he was instrumental in establishing the tea industry in Ceylon in 1872. Later, in the 1890s, he would partner with Sir Thomas Lipton who bought Ceylon tea for his huge grocery empire. Taylor was revered in British Ceylon and many plantations in what is now Sri Lanka have Scottish names.
Alan also described the punitive taxation on imported tea at that time and the importance of the Isle of Man in smuggling. Famous tea clippers like the Cutty Sark and the Thermopylae also featured.
William Jardine from Lochmaben, who went out to China as a doctor but formed the Jardine Matheson Trading Company with James Matheson in 1832 and made his fortune selling opiates to the Chinese.
John Carpenter gave the vote of thanks to Alan for an illuminating and very well researched talk.