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Tea was domesticated in China, and the knowledge of how to grow it, harvest it, and process it was a closely guarded secret. After basically becoming addicted to the beverage, the British needed to find a way to grow their own tea, as buying it from China was eating up their silver reserves. So, missions of “tea espionage” were conducted, most notably by a Mr. Robert Fortune, who had the good fortune to be able to visit Taiwan on a whirlwind trip. He only spent a day on the island, but he wrote about it, giving us a look at pre-treaty port Qing era Taiwan, and he made several interesting botanical discoveries.
Cover images: A map of areas visited by Robert Fortune (left), an image of Robert Fortune, (top left), and (right), an image of the tea plant (Camellia sinensis) from Köhler's Medicinal Plants.
READ ABOUT: the Chinese steamer Confucius, the ship that took Robert Fortune to Taiwan for a very short visit in 1854. The ship's story is quite interesting.
Below: Lilium formosanum. A lily endemic to Taiwan and first, wrongly as it turned out, identified by Robert Fortune as the Japanese lily. Via Wikimedia Commons.
| Country | Million tonnes |
|---|---|
 China |
2.97
|
 India |
1.2
|
 Kenya |
0.43
|
 Sri Lanka |
0.34
|
 Vietnam |
0.214
|
 Turkey |
0.212
|
 Iran |
0.16
|
 Indonesia |
0.14
|
 Argentina |
0.10
|
 Japan |
0.08
|
| Source: Worldatlas/Wikimedia commons | |
Below: A 19th-century Japanese painting depicting Shennong: Chinese legends credit Shennong with the invention of tea. Via Wikimedia Commons.
Check our very first episode, the story of a very white man who showed up in London in 1703... and claimed to be from Formosa. Or try a foodie episode from Season 3. Or, for those who want some harder-core history, hear the tale of the Lockheed U-2 pilot Wang Hsi-chueh 王錫爵, who became was famous for defecting to the PRC by hijacking China Airlines Flight 334 on May 3, 1986.
