by Rose
I was convinced to read this book by being led to believe that
its main thrust was the difference the discovery and cultivation of tea made
for the health of the British people and in particular maternal health. It is barely mentioned in this book and only
at the end. It is the subject of one
paragraph. Still it makes sense. Lacking modern sanitary conditions people
including pregnant mothers and children drank beer which was safer than water.
Ingestion of alcohol caused birth defects and delays among newborns in the
British Isles and delays and brain damage in their young who drank it instead
of water. All that makes sense. However, if that is the subject about you
which to read, then read something else.
This is the biography of Robert Fortune the man who was single handedly
responsible for the theft of tea plants from China where their exportation was
strictly regulated to the lands of India at the base of the Himalayas. England did not have the same control over
China as it did over India in spite of the fact that it won The Opium Wars
which put China and its people at great disadvantage. Robert Fortune was a self-educated botanist,
the son of peasant stock who was paid very little to dedicate his discoveries
to the crown. Men who were from merchant
or landed gentry could afford to attend schools of higher education including
University which entitled them to higher salaries and income from property that
provided them with a pleasant life style.
On the other hand, Robert Fortune was provided a house for his family at
first on the grounds of the state botanical gardens and later elsewhere. In addition to the value of the house, he
received about $10,000 per year. Due to
his wife’s scrimping and saving, they were able to get by but just barely. Robert Fortune went abroad for 3 years at a
time. He lived in China where he was
instructed to study the exotic plants located in China including tea plants and
to bring the m home to England. He
brought a number of exotic plants including orchids to England. The Chinese were extremely secretive about
their tea growing technology and the tea seeds and plants themselves. Fortune was to obtain the plants and secret
them to India where England had set up future tea plantations. England had little control over inner China
which was an anathema to them, but they occupied and had great control over
India. The best Chinese tea plantations
were located in Northwest China at the base of the Himalayas. On just the other side of the Himalayas lay
India and the perfect soil and climate for tea growing plantations.
By now Robert discovered a way to augment his meager
salary. He could send porcelains, silks,
and trinkets home on British bound ships.
There he auctioned off these treasures for sizable sums and at the end
of his life was earning a sizable yearly income. Though not mentioned in this book, it is
likely he was hired as a consultant or a public speaker and/or consultant
between the two 3 year trips in China and after the second trip.
Because white folks who often strayed out of the European
colonies in China which were in Shanghai or Hong Kong in southern China were
often killed, Robert Fortune had to devise a method to travel and return to
Shanghai safely. The tea plants grown in Shanghai which enjoyed a tropical
climate and monsoons were of inferior quality.
Fortune devised a method to travel to the less desirable green tea
growing and processing plantations first.
He repeated it to travel to the black tea growing plantations
later. Even though he was quite tall, he
disguised himself as a Chinese Mandarin (a person of high social status), and
took with him native Chinese guides and coolies to make the trip. The chief guide was the son of one of the
green tea plantations and processing plants.
Fortune took the seeds and seedlings back in “wardian cases” or terrariums. After traveling to the green tea plantations,
he learned that the difference between black and green tea was in the
processing rather than the plants themselves.
The green teas employed a green dye which did not appeal to the English
as much as the black tea did.
Unfortunately, though he sent the wardian cases and seeds well packed to
India, first they were delayed by a doubling back by the shipper who received a
more lucrative contract and then by the caretaker at the second to last stop
who opened the terrariums. Opening the
terrariums was the worst action that could have been taken. Out of thousands of seeds and seedlings that
were shipped only 16 plants survived. The ultimate botanist occupant of the
final tea plantation was not much of a botanist either and he over watered the
seedlings nearly killing them.
Next Fortune traveled to the black tea growing regions again
at much personal risk. Again
masquerading as a Mandarin from a distant province (presumably a tall one) He
took and experienced guide who held a standard giving him the monarch’s
protection. This standard came in handy
at one troubling and possibly life threatening encounter. This time Fortune was even more successful in
obtaining tea saplings and seeds from Northwest China at the base of the
Himalayas. These were the tea stocks used to make the favored black tea. On his
return to Shanghai he prepared even more carefully for their shipment. However, at no place in the book does the
biographer explain why he did not accompany the shipment since the shipping
conditions were so crucial. These tea
plants survived and took hold. One brand
is called Darjeeling after the Indian tea plantations that grew and processed
it. Upon succeeding at this endeavor,
Fortune returned to England and made his fortune by importing Chinese
goods. The author opines that tea was
the impetus for the French building of the Suez canal, but I think it was for
trade in general. She also claims that
it helped maternal and childhood health as well as health in general which it
did. She portrays this as the greatest
theft of technology in history and perhaps it was. I think Rose overstates the importance of tea
as a reason to read her book. The book
is less than 300 pages. * If you are really interested in botany, particularly
tea botany than this is a well written biography. However, I think Pachinko, The Tea Girl of
Hummingbird Lane, and the Rent Collector are all better reads and you would be
more entertained by reading one of those. For that reason I am giving this 4
stars. I am just not that interested in
tea botanists. However, if you are a National Geographic and Economist reader
you might prefer “All The Tea in China “ by Rose. Of interest is the fact that this book
mentions a specific tea variety grown by an isolated tribe called the Hakha
tribe. The same tribe is mentioned in
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by See.
The Hakha tribe is so isolated and superstitious that the 1 child policy
did not apply to them.
The Russians were better at protecting similar state
secrets. Russian sables cannot be
exported alive and no one has been successful in stealing them. Someone should take a lesson from Robert
Fortune.
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