by Sarah Rose
The exhaustive work on tea is William H. Ukers’s aptly named All About Tea (The Tea and Coffee Trade Journal Company, 1935). For a more narrative tale there are several excellent popular histories, but I most enjoyed the spirited The Great Tea Venture by James Maurice Scott (Dutton, 1965).
It surprised me how much fun it was to explore the world of the naturalists and botanists in Victorian England and the empire, and I can’t find enough praise for the scholars who got there first: David E. Allen’s The Naturalist in Britain: A Social History (Princeton University Press, 1994), David Arnold’s The Tropics and the Traveling Gaze: India, Landscape, and Science, 1800-1856 (University of Washington Press, 2006), Fa-ti Fan’s British Naturalists in Qing China: Science, Empire, and Cultural Encounter (Harvard University Press, 2004), Sidney W. Mintz’s spectacular Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (Penguin Books, 1986), Donal McCracken’s Gardens of Empire (Leicester University Press, 1997), Henry Hobhouse’s Seeds of Change (Harper and Row, 1986), and Sandra Knapp’s Plant Discoveries: A Botanist’s Voyage Through Plant Exploration (Firefly Books, 2003) were all tremendous resources. I am indebted to Sue Minter’s The Apothecaries’ Garden (Sutton, 2000) as well as the pamphlets published by the Chelsea Physic Garden and to the garden itself—among London’s most splendid treasures.
As any student of China might, I depended on masters to instruct me in Qing history: Jonathan Spence, John King Fair-bank, Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, Philip Kuhn, and Fredric Wakeman all wrote brilliant and breathtaking works of expansive history that I eagerly devoured. For further reading on the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, I recommend Spence’s God’s Chinese Son (W. W. Norton, 1996). On opium, Zheng Yangwen’s The Social Life of Opium in China: A History of Consumption from the Fifteenth to the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2005) is excellent. For life in rural China, Nancy Berliner and the Peabody Essex Museum’s Yin Yu Tang: The Architecture and Daily Life of a Chinese House (Tuttle Publishing, 2003) is a generous resource.
I fear there is less compelling historical work on the East India Company than there should be. No text captured the grandeur or complexity of the company in a way that satisfied me as a researcher. Nevertheless, I leaned on several solid works, among them Peter Ward Fay’s The Opium War (University of North Carolina Press, 1975), Nick Robbins’s The Corporation That Changed the World (Pluto Press, 2006), John Keay’s The Honourable Company: A History of the English East India Company (HarperCollins, 1993), Patrick Tuck’s The East India Company (reprinted by Routledge, 1998), H. A. Antrobus’s A History of the Assam Company, 1839-1953 (privately printed by T. and A. Constable, 1957), as well as David Macgregor’s The Tea Clippers: An Account of the China Tea Trade and of Some of the British Sailing Ships Engaged in It from 1849 to 1869 (P. Marshall, 1952).
In learning about Fortune, China, the East India Company, and tea, I benefited from the able advice of tea experts Mr. Lu Shun Yong, his partners, Mr. Wang and Mr. Shi, as well as Alan Stokes and Michael Harney; China scholars Carsey Yee, Jan Wong, Hayes Moore, and Susan Thurin; the peerless Richard Morel and the staff at the British Library Asia collection, and the entire University of Chicago library system—my favorite library on earth.
Beijing was previously known as Peking to English speakers. In 1949 the Communist government replaced the anglicized Peking with the official pinyin, Beijing, but it did not come into common usage until the 1980s when the government began using Beijing on official documents. Many of the older China hands whom I first met during the handover of Hong Kong still use Peking to refer to the capital. It retains a kind of colonialist hue that I decided to keep throughout the text, as anachronistic as it is.
Fortune was often the first or among the first Westerners to go into a rural area, and it is not always clear what location or object he refers to in Chinese because he traveled at a time when there was no systematized Chinese to English transliteration. Where possible I have strived to include the pinyin. But I am not, alas, a Chinese speaker, and I was dependent on translators throughout. All mistakes, of course, are mine.
Index
Aching (Chinese merchant)
Albert, Prince
Alcock, Rutherford
Allahabad, India
American tea industry
Anhui Province
Assam tea
auctions (London)
“Ballad on Picking Tea in the Garden at Springtime”
Banks, Joseph
barberry
Beale, Thomas
Big Red Robe bushes
black tea . See also specific names
Bohea hills. See also Wuyi Mountains
Bohea tea
botanical
discoveries
gardens (see also specific names)
imperialism
products
research
specimens
theft
botany
Brown Bess musket
Bruce, Robert and C. A.
Buddhists
caffeine
caichanu (tea-picking women)
Calcutta
Calcutta Botanic Garden
camellias
Campbell, Archibald
Canton, China
Catherine, Princess
Ceylon, India (Sri Lanka)-
Cha Ching (Lu Yu)
Chelsea Physic Garden
China
appreciation for tea
climate of
and emigration
as exotic place
exotic plants of
foreigners in
interior
landscape of
loses tea domination
people of
population of
servants and
tea changes role of
unrest in
China trade
Chinese
clothing
cottages
customs
decorative arts
gardeners
tea experts
tea legends
Chinese tea
central to monastery life
drinking of
finest
gardens
hunting of
importance of
manufacturing of
merchants
origins of
poisons added to
scenting of
seeds and plants for
cholera
Classic of Tea, The (Lu Yu)
coffee
colonialism
compradors
Confucian concepts
Cook, James
coolies
Da Hong Pao tea
Darjeeling, India
Darjeeling tea
Darwin, Charles
Delhi, India
Dent, Beale & Co.
Dent, Thomas
Devonshire, Sixth Duke of
East India Company
and Calcutta Botanic Garden
and Darjeeling
demise of
extensive staff of
in India
and Indian army
and tea trade
and trade with Far East
See also Fortune, Robert: and East India Co.
Elizabeth, Queen
Enfield Rifle
England. See Great Britain
Essay on the Productive Resources of India, An (Royle)
face (mianxi)
factories
arms
tea
Falconer, Hugh-
farming
feng shui
First Opium War. See Opium Wars
First War for Independence
foot binding
Fortune, Mrs. Robert. See Penny, Jane
Fortune, Robert
and America
background of
catalogs collections
on China tea pickers
on China’s landscape
Chinese name of<
br />
at Chinese temple
collects exotic plants
collects tea legends
collects tea seeds and plants
on the coolie trade
as curator of Chelsea Physic Garden
death of
and decorative arts
discovers new transport method
and East India Co.
failure of first green tea shipment
family life of
finest teas and
first Chinese expedition
in Hangzhou
hires tea experts
and his servants
and Indian tea
influences tea drinking
and Kew Gardens
and opium
and pirates
and Royal Horticultural Society
seeks black tea
seeks green tea
steals tea from China
successes of
on tea brewing
on tea drinking
transports seeds and plants
travels in China
travels to Himalayas
at Wang’s Sung Lo home
Fortune, Robert (cont.)
writings of
Fujian Province
Fuzhou, China
Garden of Simples. See also Chelsea Physic Garden
Gardener’s and Florist’s Dictionary, The
gardening
glass cases. See Wardian cases
global market
gold rush
Great Britain
army of
and beer consumption
class system of
economy of
empire of
and gardens
and India
influenced by Chinese art
navy of
plant specimens and
and popularity of tea
and porcelain trade
and tea
Great Exhibition (London)
green tea - See also specific names
greenhouses
gypsum
Han Chinese
Hangzhou, China
Hardinge, Henry
Himalayan tea-
Himalayas (India)
Hodgson, Brian Houghton
Hong Kong
Hong Xiuquan
Honourable Company. See East India Company
Hooker, Joseph
Hooker, William Jackson
horticulture
Huangpu River (China)
Illustrations of the Botany and Other Branches of Natural History of the Himalayan Mountains (Royle)
India
agriculture of
army of
establishes tea trade
gardeners of
plants shipped to
population of
and weapons
Indian Mutiny
Indian sepoys
Indian tea
Chinese seeds and plants for
Chinese tea experts and
cultivation of-
and East India Co.
experiment
founding of
gardens
impact on Great Britain
manufacturing of
outstrips Chinese tea See also specific names
Industrial Revolution
Jameson, Robert
Jameson, William
Japan
John Company. See also East India Company
Kanpur, India
Kew Gardens
Lindley, John
Linnaean Society
Linnaeus, Carolus. See Linné, Carl von
Linnaeus system
Linné, Carl von
London, England
Lu Yu
malaria
malis
Manchurian Qing Dynasty. See Qing Dynasty
mandarins
materia medica
Miller & Lowcock (London)
Min River (China)
Ming Dynasty
monks
mulberry plants
Napoléon
naturalists
navigation improvements
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (Darwin)
oolong tea
opium
addicts
as commodity
and criminals
dealers
smoking
trade
Opium Wars
orchids
Pearl River (China)
Peek Brothers & Co. (London)
Peking (Beijing)
pekoe tea
Penny, Jane (Mrs. Robert Fortune)
Physic Garden. See Chelsea Physic Garden
pidgin
pirates
plants
collecting of
exchange of
exotic
hunting of
mass globalization of
medicinal
ornamental
for scenting teas
transport of See also Wardian cases; and individual names
Polo, Marco
poppies. See also opium
porcelain
Pritchett, Richard
Prussian blue
Qing Dynasty
quinine
R. Gibbs & Co. (London)
red tea
Royal Botanic Garden. See Kew Gardens
Royal Horticultural Society (London)
Royle, John Forbes
Saharanpur Botanic Gardens
Sahib, Nana
sailing ships. See also tea clippers
Scotland
Shanghai, China
Sikkim, India
silk
Sing Hoo (Robert Fortune’s servant)
slavery
Smith, Adam
social connections (guanxi)
souchong tea
Suez Canal
sugar
Sung Lo Mountain region
Taiping Rebellion
tea
aroma of
and brewing
brokers of
cloning of
collecting of
commercial value of
as commodity
democratized
distribution of
drinking methods
finest
flavor of
growing of
health benefits of
irrigation of
manufacturing of
picking
popularity of
prices of
processing
quality of
recipe for
as stimulant
transport of See also specific names
tea clippers. See also sailing ships
Tea Race
tea route
terrarium. See Wardian cases
Three Years’ Wanderings in the Northern Provinces of China (Fortune)
Tie Hua
Times, The (London)
trade
with China
of coolies
with Far East
in India
networks of
of slaves
of tea See also opium
treaties
Twinings, House of
U.S. Patent Office
Victoria, Queen
Victorian society
Wallich, Nathaniel
Wang (Robert Fortune’s servant)-
Ward, Nathaniel Bagshaw
Wardian cases
assembly and transport of
failure of
for Fortune’s ornamental plants
importance of
naming of
scientific basis of
successful use of
and transport of seeds and plants
Ward’s cases. See Wardian cases
weapons
Wedgwood, John
Wedgwood, Josiah
Wellington, Duke of
women
Wuyi Mountains (China)
Wuyi Shan. See Wuyi Mountains
Yellow Mountain (China)
zamindars (caretakers)