Plants are often named for, or in honor of, their discoverer—such as Hosta fortunei (plantain lily) for Robert Fortune; Kniphofia northiana (poker plant) for Marianne North; and Dendrophylax lindenii for the orchid hunter Jean Jules Linden.
Opium
Humankind has used opium, derived from the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum), for recreation, and for pain and emotional relief for over six thousand years. Considered man’s first addiction, opium is both a savior and a curse—it brings relief to those in pain, and hell to those addicted to it. Addiction is not a new phenomenon, but the first widespread substance abuse began over tea.
From 1669, the English East India Company held a monopoly on the right to export tea from China to England. The Chinese would accept payment only in silver. They didn’t allow English traders into the country. In 1793, the Chinese emperor Qianlong (reigned 1736–1795) proclaimed that China wanted none of England’s “manufactures” and demanded that England continue to pay for tea only with silver. Such was England’s appetite for tea that a major trade imbalance between the two countries had developed. That meant that China was earning a great deal of money from England but England was earning very little from China. To right this trade imbalance, England began to export more and more opium into China from India, although opium was illegal in China except for medicinal purposes. By 1799, so many Chinese were becoming addicted to smoking opium, and so much silver was leaving the country, that China outlawed the drug completely.
The East India Company of England also held a monopoly on opium. Ignoring the Chinese law, they grew and sold it in India, after which it was smuggled into China by companies such as Jardine, Matheson & Co. The Chinese destroyed the huge warehouses full of smuggled opium in 1839. England retaliated, and two wars were fought, known as the First Opium War (1839–1842) and the Second Opium War or Arrow War (1856–1860). As a result of England’s victory in these wars, opium became legal in China, more Chinese ports were opened, Hong Kong was lost to England, and the interior of the country was opened for the first time to Westerners.
It hadn’t taken long for opium to arrive on Western shores. It became popular as a medicine in England around 1680. Although addiction was considered shameful, there was no shame in imbibing it as a medicine. Most people took opium through liquid medicines such as laudanum, Hydrochlorate of Morphia, and chlorodyne. Because it eased the pain of menstrual cramps, child birth, and hysteria and stopped the crying of fretful babies and eased their teething pain, opium was a doctor’s remedy of choice for women and babies. In the nineteenth century, unregulated “patent” medicines, purchased easily over the counter or through mail order, such as Dr. J. Collis Browne’s Chlorodyne, Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, Dr. Seth Arnold’s Cough Killer, and Jayne’s Expectorant, flooded the market.
T. W. Bowlby
The incident that befell Elodie’s father was a true event that occurred in mid-September in 1860, near the end of the Second Opium War. After England and France took Tien-Tsin, Thomas Bowlby, a journalist for The Times, and several others, traveled with Imperial Commissioners Wade and Parkes to Tungchow to arrange peace proceedings. A detachment of this group was captured by soldiers and taken to the Chinese Board of Punishments. There several of the men, including Bowlby, were tied hand and foot with leather bindings, which were soaked in water. As the bindings dried, they cut into the skin, causing agonizing wounds. Bowlby died on the fifth day of capture. In retaliation, the British sacked and burned the Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan) in Peking, an exquisite estate created during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911).
Clipper Ships
The clipper ship was the racing ship of its day. Fast and sleek, tall and beautiful, a clipper could pay for itself in one trip. The first clippers (which take their name from their ability to “go at a clip” over the water) were developed in the United States in the 1830s to transport goods in a timely manner from China to New York and around Cape Horn to California. The British soon began creating their own design, which was very different from American ships. The British clipper was a long, slim vessel that carried a huge spread of sail on three tall masts. The shape of the ship meant it could cut through the water like a blade.
It used to take large sailing ships, called East Indiamen, up to a year to make a homeward journey, but a tea clipper could do it in around one hundred days, traveling from Fuzhou (Foochow) to London. Clipper ships would race each other home, and from 1861, shipowners offered a premium of ten shillings per ton for the winning ship. But often, clippers raced each other only for the glory of setting a record for fastest passage home.
The clipper ship boom ended in 1869 with the opening of the Suez Canal in Egypt, which connected the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea and cut out the journey around Africa for ships on the way to China. Clippers could not sail in the canal’s waterway, and modern steamships could cut a journey in half, reaching China before the clippers. The last remaining tea clipper is the Cutty Sark, housed at Greenwich, England, by Royal Museums Greenwich.
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Originally a residence of many monarchs, including George III and his family, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, founded on the palace grounds in 1840 in the village of Richmond, became an important collection of botanical species, sending plant hunters out all over the world to retrieve plants that might prove important, financially, medically, or scientifically, for the British empire. The Palm House was built between 1844 and 1848 using 200 tons of iron and 16,000 panes of glass. No one had ever built a glasshouse like it. It was based on a ship’s design— an upside-down hull—and was intended to house plants that Victorian explorers brought back from the tropics. Plants were kept in pots in the Palm House during the Victorian era. The oldest potted plant in the world, a Cycad (Encephalartos altensteinii), brought to Britain in 1775 by Francis Masson, Kew’s first plant hunter, from a voyage with Captain Cook, still lives there today.
Kew remains the world’s most important botanical institution, containing 30,000 different kinds of live plants (including orchids), seven million preserved plant specimens, a seed and DNA bank, botanical art, and garden designs of every kind from alpine to desert to rain forest. Kew employs a staff of world-renowned experts in their field. It was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003.
Tea
Tea is made from an evergreen shrub called Camellia sinensis, which originated in China (hence the species name sinensis, which means “from China” in Latin).
TEAS THE ENGLISH PREFER:
Dark tea blends such as English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast, Earl Grey, Lady Grey, Darjeeling, oolong, Lapsang Souchong
TEAS THE CHINESE PREFER:
Green tea, white tea, oolong (wu-long), pu-erh (an aged, fermented tea compressed into disks or bricks), gunpowder tea (zhu cha, which refers to the pelleted shape as green tea is rolled and dried), and bu zhi chun (a type of oolong produced on Mount Wuyi).
How to Make English Tea
YOU WILL NEED:
A teapot
Boiling water
Tea bags or loose tea
Milk
Sugar
Heat the teapot and cups with some of the boiling water and then discard the water. Into the pot, place one teaspoon per person plus one for the pot (if you have a four-cup teapot you’ll use five teaspoons) or two teabags. Pour in the boiling water, stir once, and replace the lid. Leave to steep for three to five minutes (longer if you like strong or “builder’s” tea). Pour into cups and add milk and a teaspoon of sugar, if desired. Alternatively, make a single cup with one tea bag. Add boiling water to the tea bag in the cup, let it steep for three to five minutes, remove the bag, and add milk and/or sugar.
How to Make Chinese Tea
YOU WILL NEED:
A Yixing teapot (small clay pot) or a gaiwan (a spoutless pot with a lid)
Chinese teacups
Loose tea
Water just
under a boil (boiling water is too hot for green tea)
Place a handful of loose tea into the pot and pour in the hot water. Replace the lid, leave to sit for around a minute, and then drain off the water. (This first steeping is to wash the tea leaves.) Add hot water to the rinsed leaves and leave to sit for around thirty seconds, then pour into cups. Refill the pot one to two more times. Each drinking will yield a different taste as the tea becomes more diluted.
There are a few rituals when drinking Chinese tea. It’s considered bad manners to allow the spout of the teapot to point at anyone. To thank the pourer, tap two fingers on the table. When pouring tea for yourself, make sure you serve others, too. And don’t add anything to your tea; enjoy the flavors on their own.
Ships Biscuits (Also Called Sea Biscuits)
Ships biscuits were the answer to how to preserve bread on a long voyage, but they often became a home for tiny beetles called weevils. Sailors tapped them on the table before eating to rid the biscuit of pests. Often softened with beer to make them edible, the biscuits were also crushed into crumbs and used as flour.
1 pound of medium to course stone-ground whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon of salt
Water
(Weevils optional)
Combine the flour and salt and add enough water to make a stiff dough. Let it stand for 30 minutes to allow the flour to absorb all the water, then roll out into a thick sheet. Use a biscuit cutter or a water glass to make half a dozen biscuits. Bake them at 425 degrees for 30 minutes. Then leave them out to dry and harden.
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Acknowledgments
A big thanks goes out to my editor, Leila Sales, for your gentle guidance. You always help me create the story I want to tell. And to my agent, John M. Cusick, for believing in me.
Thanks to my amazing friends who give advice, constructive criticism, and your eagle eyes: the Tale Blazers, Melissa Azarian, Terri King, and Jen Doktorski.
A huge amount of gratitude goes to my friend Jessamyn Huang for beta-reading Orchid and for helping me with Chinese history, language, and customs. And to my friend Sofia Del Carmen De León Maisonet for beta-reading Orchid and for your support. You both mean so much to me.
To my father for naming the Osprey. And to my mother and niece Ashley for catching some pesky mistakes and listening to me complain about story issues.
To my nephew Ethan Biggs for helping me sort out those irksome knots/nautical miles and math questions. And to my husband, Mark Waller, and friends Jeff Vargas and Doug Santiago for helping me see the guy’s perspective.
To Stawell Heard, Librarian, Acquisitions and Cataloguing for Royal Museums Greenwich, who answered my queries on the Merchant Navy and clipper ships.
Thanks to my Daisy Mabel, who turned up on my doorstep, days after I wrote Kukla into life, with her exact looks and penchant for stealing food. Sometimes I wonder . . .
And as ever, thanks to my family on both sides of the pond. You are everything to me.
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