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Contents
European market for tea and the Swedish East India Company, c. 1730-1760 1
Introduction 2
Early modern tea and European consumers 4
The sales at Gothenburg – quantities types and buyers 6
The tea import between 1733 and 1759 8
The cargo of Calmare for Sale in 1748 10
The cargo of Prins Carl for sale in 1756 13
Swedish Tea on the Pan-European Market 17
Competition and sale 18
Tea for whom? 21
Expert and insider knowledge 22
Summary 24
European market for tea and the Swedish East India Company, c. 1730-1760
By Hanna Hodacs & Leos Müller
Abstract:
European trade in tea is one of the most dynamic components of the
18th-century global trade. In the course of the 18th century tea
revolutionized drinking habits of Europeans, in particular in Britain
and Holland (or Dutch Republic). Imports of tea increased many times
and the prices dropped; already by the mid-century tea had become an
everyday beverage for many Dutch and British subjects, including the
poor. All the tea consumed in 18th-century Europe was imported from
China by a limited number of competing suppliers – chartered companies
– and one of the most important actors was the Swedish East India
Company. What distinguished among others the Swedish company was that
most of the tea it brought to Gothenburg was re-exported. In this
paper we analyses this trade focusing on volumes, assortments,
qualities, prices and purchasers of this tea. The aim is to illuminate
the role of the Swedish tea on the European market, and aspects to do
with how quantities and qualities were negotiating with long distance
producers as well as long distance consumers. In the paper we will
draw on two types of sources, firstly a near unique series of sales
catalogues from the Company auctions in Gothenburg covering a series
of years stretching between 1733 and 1759, secondly the correspondence
of a group of merchants, all involved in the whole sale tea trade in Gothenburg but operating from Hamburg, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and London
.
Introduction
Tea was a key commodity in the global trade of the 18th century. Together with coffee, sugar, tobacco and cotton, tea was one of the new tropical commodities that transformed consumption patterns of Europeans in revolutionary ways. The new hot beverages were known to 16th and 17th century Europeans but they were mainly consumed as exotic and expensive drugs and only by a few. About 1700 this consumption pattern changed, the European markets for tea and coffee swelled and within fifty years the hot beverages were no longer a luxury but a necessity, at least on English and Dutch tables.[1] Trade in Chinese tea and Indian cottons, the new Asian commodities (in an 18th century context), grew much faster than trade in spices and silks, the old ones. Europeans were of course accustomed to spices and silks from Asia since the Silk Road’s golden days; tea and cottons however opened up new and different markets. Others goods, such as Chinese porcelain, followed suit, soon surpassing silk to become second most important goods imported from China by the East India Companies.[2] Not only was porcelain used for drinking tea, it was also a suitable cargo to transport together with tea. Being heavy, insensitive to dampness and scent free, the porcelain was packed at the bottom of the East India men with the tea on top.
How did tea travel to Europe? Firstly, there was trade in tea and coffee from Dutch Batavia. Coffee was grown on Java already about 1700 and Chinese merchants started to supply tea to Batavia about the same time. The Batavia tea imported by the Dutch East Indian Company (VOC) was however of an inferior quality, which seems to be caused an additional voyage and poor packaging of Batavia tea between Canton and Batavia. .[3] The problem with inferior tea qualities was something that troubled Dutch tea traders during the whole of the century, and which we shall return to below.
Secondly, there was the English East India Company’s (EIC) trade in tea. From about 1700 the EIC carried tea directly from Canton, a shorter route and with less logistical complications (off- and on- loading cargos) meant they avoided some of the quality problems associated with the VOC tea that came via Batavia. The role of the English company in the creation of mass market for tea in Britain is well known. Between the first and second decade of the 18th century, the English imports of tea more than tripled , from 646,000 pounds in 1699-1709, to 2.3 million pounds in 1709-1718.[4] The growth in coming decades was no so spectacular but the EIC clearly was the leader in the tea trade. Tea also became the key commodity for the EIC; indeed from the 1770s and onwards, tea was the most important (in value) Asian commodity in the EIC trade--even more important than the cottons.[5]
The rapid increase in tea consumption in Britain does not only reflect the success of the EIC importing the goods. The monopoly of the EIC was challenged by other agents. From 1718 a group of merchants based in Ostend in the Austrian Netherlands opened a direct trade with China. In 1722 these traders were granted the company charter by the Austrian Emperor and this so-called Ostend Company made tea trade its business strategy. In the decade between 1719 and 1728 the Ostenders imported over 7 million pounds of tea, almost exactly the same volume as the EIC.[6] Together these two actors accounted for 84 per cent of tea imported to Europe; the import of the VOC and the French Company made up the rest.
It seems that a large share of the Ostend tea was actually distributed via the Dutch market and consumed on the continent and only a smaller share (20-25 per cent) found its way to Britain, as contraband. Nonetheless, the VOC and the EIC saw the Ostend Company as a dangerous competitor; via their governments they put pressure on Vienna to prohibit the trade from Ostend. The strategy succeeded; in 1727, after less than a decade of trade between Ostend and China, the company charter was suspended, and in 1731 the trade was prohibited. The Habsburg dynasty sacrificed the Ostend Company to its dynastic interests.
The legacy of the Ostend trade was however not lost. By proving that tea was the most profitable commodity in the East India trade, it came to change the trade between Asia and Europe in fundamental ways . This is also where the Swedish East India Company (SEIC) comes into the picture. The Ostend Company men, looking for a suitable place to continue their trade after the abolition of their company, shifted their business to Gothenburg in Sweden. Gothenburg had a number of advantages making it fitted for the trade with China. Located on the west coast of Sweden, by the North Sea, it is easily accessible by sea from major Western-European ports. Hence it could work well as redistribution centre for Chinese tea, continuing to the Continent and Britain.
It also appeared more difficult for the VOC and EIC to put political pressure on Sweden, to hinder trade in Asian commodities from Gothenburg. Yet, it has be stressed that the Swedish authorities were well aware of the controversial transfer of the business from Ostend to Gothenburg, and they were secretive about the men and the money engaged in the new enterprise. The SEIC was granted its royal privilege in 1731. The privilege was granted to Henrik König & Company, a Stockholm merchant without much particular interest in Asian trade. The two real founders of the company, Niklas Sahlgren, a merchant from Gothenburg, and Colin Campbell, an Ostend-based merchant of Scottish origin, were concealed. At the beginning the SEIC was basically a joint venture involving a few Swedish merchants and the Ostend men. The fact that the Swedish demand for Asian commodities and particularly tea was extremely limited further underlines SEIC’s status as an off-shore business; almost all cargoes imported by the SEIC and sold at public sales were re-exported abroad, as illicit or legitimate goods.
The aim with the paper is to explore the effects of the strong Ostend connection on the Swedish company focusing on the trade in tea. What can an analysis of quantities and qualities of tea and how it was traded tell us about the effect of Ostend knowhow and networks on the trade in Swedish tea? What was the role of information, public and privately shared, for establishing a mature tea market in Europe? Moreover, can it help illuminate the consumption of tea in Britain and elsewhere?
The paper is divided into four parts. The first section, containing a description of different tea types and how they were traded and consumed in Europe, will generate some more specific questions relating to Swedish tea trade. The following section includes an analysis of the tea cargos of the Swedish East India Company, and who bought this tea. The discussion is based on an analysis of surviving sales catalogues from Swedish company, covering 30 cargos for sale between 1733 and 1759. These catalogues belongs to Kommerskollegium’s archive, (now located at Riksarkivet in Stockholm) indicating that they might have part of a report from the Company on its trade. Other catalogues, located at Landsarkivet and Sjöfartsmuseet in Göteborg, and Stockholm Stadsarkiv have also been used. In the next section the focus is on the re-exportation of the Swedish tea. The discussion here draws on an analysis of the correspondence of a group of merchants from the 1740s and 50s, all involved in the whole sale tea trade in Sweden but operating from Hamburg, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, London and Gothenburg. At the centre of this correspondence is Charles Irvine, a Scottish merchant and supercargo on the Swedish East India Company ships who for a long period was settled in Gothenburg. Irvine was a prolific trader in tea, and so was his business associates and contacts in Europe.
Early modern tea and European consumers
The general popularity of tea has to do with its refreshing qualities, and maybe most importantly its caffeine content. This does not however explain the great varieties of tea, all harvested from the same plant (Camelia sinensis). The big modern divide is between black or fermented tea, still the preferred type of tea in the Western world, and green tea of different types, which are more commonly consumed in Asia. The modern distinction between black and green tea was less obvious in the 18th century. Moreover, in contrast to today, the tea consumed in 18th century tea was exclusively from China. Only in the 19th century were tea gardens established in places such as Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Kenya, and even Argentina, most of them within the realms of European empires. The expansion of tea growing also produced a greater variety of tea types, such as e.g. Assam, the difference tastes reflecting the differences in soil, climate and methods of harvesting.
While modern connoisseurs generally prefer green tea, the European preference for black tea can be explained historically. As all tea drunk in Europe in the 18th century originated in China it had come a long way. Since black tea can be stored for longer period than green tea it was the black tea that was best suited for long distance trade. The preference for black tea in Britain is sometimes also explained with reference to colour. Black tea produces a brown beverage, with a similar colour to ale, which was also the drink it came to partly replace. What marks out the western consumption of tea in general though was the addition of milk and sugar. One reason for adding milk is usually that it takes the edge out of the bitterness caused by tannins. The connection between new hot beverages, such as tea and coffee, and sugar is well documented. There was a strong causal linkage between the introduction of the new beverages in Western Europe and expansion of sugar trade and production in the Caribbean. The addition of sugar to tea differs also the European tea-drinking culture from that of Asia. However both Europeans and Chinese tea drinkers liked using porcelain vessels consuming their tea.
The different types of Chinese 18th century tea reflect where, how, and when the tea was harvested and on differences in the process of preparation: ways of heating, roasting and rolling tea leaves.[7] Eight tea types were most commonly consumed in Europe, these sorts also made up the bulk of the tea imported by the SEIC. Bohea was the most common, volume black tea, compared to other varieties seen as an inferior sort. It originated in Wuyi Mountain area in south-east China. Bohea was the cheapest tea. Souchong (Soatchoun in the SEIC sources) was a unique black tea from the same area, but demanding higher price. Congo was a refined sort of Souchong black tea obtained from the fifth and largest leafs from shoot tip of the plant. The fourth sort of black tea appearing in the SEIC imports was Pekoe (or Peckoe), a very fine black tea competing with Souchong. Green tea made up a very small share of tea cargoes to Europe generally. The bulk of green tea came from a province of Anhui. The sort Hyson (Heysan) fetched the best prices. Hyson Skin (Heysan-Skin), was a less fine type of green tea, made of inferior leafs left over from the Hyson production. Bing was also s fine green tea, an Imperial tea in China. “ a stunning, distinctively bright colour and an unusual spiky appearance”.[8] Singlo, which was important in Swedish cargoes, was another green tea.
The European knowledge of tea types and qualities and their understanding of how the Chinese tea was produced increased over the cause of the 18th century. Mui & Mui’s study The Management of Monopoly illuminates the step the EIC undertook to secure import of tea suitable for the British market. This involved introducing quality controls of tea bought in Canton, conducted by tea specialist from London but also an increasing involvement of British agents with growers in China. In London the growing tea trade generated the need for huge ware houses and complex system for monitoring the stock and its quality. The trade in tea for domestic use was largely in the hand of a relatively small number of whole sellers, who also were influential lobbying both the company and the government. [9] The focus on qualities in Mui and Mui’s study is linked to the authors’ general argument that the EIC in general was well able to provide for the British market, a discussion which ultimately is about the role of monopolies. While this might be the case the study also raises a series of question about the qualities of tea consumed in Britain before 1784.