5th lecture: Colonial Commodities II

Question 1

Psychoactive substances in tea

Answer 1

• 4% of coffeine in tea
• Nicotine
• Theobromine
  Theophylline

Question 2

Short history of tea

Answer 2

• Earliest traces of tea drinkin in china ->
  then brought to japan
• Then colonial trade routes / trade
  companies brought it to europe
• 18th and 19th cent: esp East India
  company brought tea to UK

Question 3

Why did tea become popular in Britain?

Answer 3

• Industrialisation -> workers couldn’t be
  drunk in factories (safety and production)
  (before it was beer as standard as water
  too dirty)
• Cheap source of calories (milk and sugar)
  for workers
• Important source of revenue for the crown
  in england

Question 4

Robert Fortune 1812-1880

Answer 4

• Botanist and plant hunter
• Was send to india and china by brits to
  learn about tea (growing and
  manufacturing)
• brought in the plants to india and also
  chinese workers as tea experts (not clear if
  voluntarily))
  ○ Chinese labor very important
  ○ Ended disastrous as many of them
  died of deseases or escaped
• Govt cleaned up land and gave it to tea
  plantation owners (europeans)

Question 5

Problems for the Tea Production in India (in the beginning)

Answer 5

• techniques for farming and manufacturing,
  transprtation (esp in assam and eastern
  bengal)
  ○ Very hilly -> railway system hard to
  build, expensive
  ○ Land had to be cleared - lots of forest
  had to be cut down for plantations
• Labor as problem -> high intense human labor that can’t be replaced with technology
  -> child labour

Question 6

Labour Relations during the Tea Maniac (1860s onwards)

Answer 6

• New form of labor relations: Indentured
  labor (contract based)
• For colonial plantations within brit empire
  all over world after abolition of slavery
• Contracts binds you to one plantation,
  can’t be “switched”
• Incentive “gift” to family in the beginning ->
  had to be paid back with the salary
  ○ Housing, food etc deducted from
  salary
• Workers not allowed to leave the estate or
  plantation on their own will
• Creating plantations as little states under
  kingship of owner
• Slave-like situation of labor relation