The Historical Development track of Tea the Development History and Culture of Chinese Tea Trade

Many years ago, the whole tea production process from leaves to cups was in the hands of the Qing government. Foreign countries know nothing about tea varieties or production technology, and all they have is the power to buy and sell tea. During the Qing Dynasty, China was not only the country with the largest tea output in the world, but also the country with the largest tea export.

With the popularity of tea in the European royal family, ordinary people below began to follow this trend. Among them, Britain first bought a large amount of tea from the hands of the "sea coachman" Dutch, and then went to the origin to find the source of goods and started its own tea trade. As more and more tea is bought, so does the outflow of silver.

In order to prohibit the outflow of large amounts of silver, British opium poppy and Chinese camellia went to war.

It is well known that opium poppy fruit was processed and refined into opium, and opium was planted and processed in the British colony of India at that time. For more than two hundred years, the British East India Company used the profits from opium sales to China to buy tea, while the Qing government obtained silver from the tea trade and bought opium from British merchants.

But in 1729, the then ruler of the Qing government suddenly banned the sale of opium in China, but opium could still be smuggled in, and opium sales increased rapidly and steadily, increasing fivefold from 1822 to 1837 alone.

In 1832, Lin Zexu's time at Humen angered the British, who used this as an excuse to send troops to make profits by force and forced the Qing government to sign unequal treaties with European powers.

Since the time of Marco Polo, few Westerners have been able to spy on the scenery of China's interior. For more than 200 years before the first Opium War, British ships could only be moored in Guangzhou. There is no way for the British to get in and out of places other than their place of residence.

The evil Western empire opened China's door with cannons and wantonly plundered China's treasures. Fearing that the Qing government might legalize opium, the British Empire sent its own botanists to tea-producing areas in China to try to steal tea seeds and find an ideal place to grow in India. in order to get rid of the dependence on Chinese tea.