I enjoyed a bona fide Friday afternoon tea in Boston today. It wasn’t my top choice, but I ducked into one of Tealuxe’s three shops about a block away from that most sacred of edifices, the Boston Public Library. There I gulped down a small pot of Taiwanese Oolong:
After nearly a week of steeping in The History of Those Great Events Which Laid the Very Foundation of This Most Nobel of Countries, my thoughts turned naturally to the Boston Tea Party. I was surprised (a bit) by some of the new facts I gleaned from the Wikipedia entry. I learned, for example, that John Hancock, who organized a hugely successful boycott of British Tea and Sam Adams, who likely orchestrated the Party which turned the Boston Harbor into the world’s nastiest iced tea concoction (worse than Lipton, I imagine) both made huge fortunes from tea smuggling.
The British East India Company still made Adams and Hancock look like the good guys. They were only able to obtain tea from China by trading it for illegal opium, and their lobbyists persuaded Parliament to pass the Tea Act in 1773, which allowed the EIC to bypass hefty customs duties and undercut colonial competitors.
Has the essence of politics changed at all in 224 years?
The trade of luxury commodities still shapes the world and the lives of billions within it. Take coffee, for example. It uses a third of world tap water consumption. I read somewhere that the only thing that we import more of, by volume, is oil. Sugar is another widely consumed, highly politicized commodity.
There is one huge difference between then and now. Americans are in the power seat. Two hundred years from now, will others look back on their own tea parties? Will there be a grand Havana Corn Syrup Fiesta? Will the Gulf of Guinea flow with Coca Cola?
0 responses so far ↓
1 xJane // Sep 15, 2007 at 10:26 am
I’m gonna say….no.
Although that said, as some of the first people to use guerrilla warfare (against the Red Coats), we really should’ve known better than to go into Iraq.
I’ve often said that, more than a Secretary of the Homeland, which makes us sound halfway between Nazi Germany & Communist Russia anyway, we need a Historian to the President. Someone (perhaps a group of someones with different areas of speciality) who can remind the prez about what’s happened before in situations like this; perhaps how to get a different outcome, or to insure the prior outcome (if that’s desired).
Every once in a while, a tax on cigarrettes is mentioned (tax on the poor! everyone exclaims). Me, I’m totally for this: it’s a luxury good and is the cause of much grief in society. Why not impose a tax on it. Better that than something that everyone needs, like lettuce. Or water. Then I extend it in my mind to alcohol. Would I be okay with a tax on that? Yes, I answer myself, it’s still a luxury good. I know that it costs more than, say, water, and take that into account when I buy or imbibe it. Now I shall have to extend it to tea. Tea, too, is a luxury good. And I would probably be okay with a coffee tax. I doubt it would slow my consupmtion of it, but perhaps it would extract a benefit for others.
I’m amused that opium was easier to get ones hands on than tea. That must’ve made for some entertaining Friday Afternoons!
2 Zach Alexander // Sep 15, 2007 at 5:32 pm
I’m so glad you got to visit Boston’s best tea bar/cafe! I almost ended up working at the Harvard Square branch.
3 Jana // Sep 17, 2007 at 8:43 am
Loving your Friday tea posts!
But can I make a suggestion for a future post? I’d love to learn more about the process for decaffeinating tea. I’ve heard that it’s very destructive on the environment and may introduce toxic residues into the tea itself. Is this true???
4 xJane // Sep 17, 2007 at 11:19 am
hmm, good idea, I’ll (& I’m sure John’ll, too) research. i’ve actually not heard anything about it being destructive to anything but the taste…
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