For all the Tea in China by Sarah Rose Essay Example for Free

For all the Tea in China by Sarah Rose Essay â€Å"For all the Tea in China -How England Stole the Worlds Favorite Drink and Changed History † as the subtitle foreshadows the story already. Before I had even read the book I assumed it would be a journey of betrayal, action and only closed off to the events that occur res as Robert Fortune underhandedly takes chinas precious tea right from underneath theyre own noses. But little did I know that it Sarah Rose has incorporated all the events essential to the to cultivation of tea in the mid Nineteenth-century. In Audition to this Historical non-fiction story that may be boring to others, or as one of my fellow classmates would put it â€Å"Ive been spacing out throughout the book† I Believe that Sarah Rose Has painted a Vivid image of the nineteenth century, with out a single page, paragraph, or sentence wasted with unnecessary knowledge to the readers view from how the Royal Horticultural Society of England and the East India Company affected Englands economy, traditions were also created based off of tea shipment such as the Annual Tea race. And how World Changed Englands East India Company to officially close down. Robert Fortune, a Scottish gardener, botanist, and worlds best plant hunter, famously known for his The British tea Heist which Sarah Rose writes passionately and was inspired by Scott Anderson in this book, and in audition famous for bringing back and documenting new oriental plants from China to England. Such as lovely tree peonies, and the uniquely streaked ornamental plant Hosta Fortunei. which was named after Robert fortune himself along with some other oriental plants found under his own travels not during the multiple expeditions he was sent to do by the East India Company. Fortune while undergoing the process in sending India seeds that are healthy and germinated.. but how?Fortune had realized that transporting the seeds in side packages while shipped doesnt stop the life cycle so the seeds that were in anything but soil were unsuccessful because the environment was unsuitable for the next step of its life which was the sapling. Buy having the tea seeds in the layers of soil and in the warden cases protected from sea spray forced the seeds to germinate with little watering because, of the warden cases the water that evaporated would just collect and drop back to the tea plant because of the morning due. Which has never been done before and changed the way of transporting seeds across seas for decades to come, and also solved the problem of transporting larger plants such as towering red woods and,England were now able to transport a whole species in there easy to tend to seed forms. The reason why Fortune had to take on this task of stealing Chinas tea secret was because. In the early nineteenth century China and Britain had a shaky relationship of trading Englands opium that China was so addicted to for theyre finest tea which grew high among the finger like mountain karsts of Wuyi in the Fujian provenances. But it was China who Threaten to grow and sell there own opium, and Britain couldnt let that happen because England relied on that finance to fund there tea budget And so if China wanted to play that way so will the British, therefore they sent Fortune. Poorer Qualities of tea already existed trying to compete with chinas finest tea in the Experimental grounds a part of the Himalayas in India run by the British. But could not duplicate the process of making tea itself or how its grown with out the precious knowledge china was keeping from them world. When Fortune succeeded it had Put Britain at the center of trade because there companies would produce safer qualities of tea because the Chinese where slowly killing people with dyes and pigments used in paints to color green tea, which sealed Britains choice with the already popular black tea. And also the hold of opium production as well as tea production, and civilization helped. Fortunes First 12 month period trip was spent travelin g to the Zhejiang and Anhui provenances for Green Tea. He had to disguise himself as a well paid merchant which wasnt enough to get noticed but held enough respect he usually was given. He needed to do deceive the local Chinese and Tea producers in order to get the information but there was no detail in how he did it, which I thought it would be a lot more exhilarating to know the master plan of how he was able to deceive so easily and to be trusted with that much valuable information, and most importantly needed the information of how to process and grow tea or it would be useless to get the thousands of seeds and saplings necessary to start a growing tea profitably with out having a clue of doing so and let them die. Also During Fortunes Expedition it would be impossible to travel the multiple provenances of China with out a Guide or Help to carry his Warden cases by him self hence he had to hire servants a collie whom preferred to be called that and Wang a business negotiator which served well but was easily influenced into trouble to a common trait that most Chinese did at the time it was called the â€Å"Squeeze† which was extracting money illegally from someone trying to earn a few bucks. And handful of trouble came from Fortunes servants betrayal because Fortune would treat them as any regular employee as they made mistakes or bad decisions that would jeopardize his goal he would punish them fairly but backfired. Another tradition the Chinese have Is called Face which is the equivalent of dignity or prestige, but the actual way it works is still really foggy due to lack of detail about this subject. So when Fortunes two servant were hired to serve him and he relied on them a lot which gave them a large amount of face, but because of a situation when his collie pulled a â€Å"Squeeze.† It Jeopardized his masters safety but it was fortune who settled the feud by having him return the money and apologize which humiliated Collie that caused him to lose face. During Fortunes second expedition to retrieve black tea from the Steep mountain of Wuyi, since both teas were so different and should be treated as two different plants there for Fortune was ordered to take two separate trips. Fortune had hired another servant named Sing Hoo he wasnt was a collie but he was strong and he was intelligent but not a businessmen man, the new loyal servant of Fortunes â€Å"had once been in the service of a high-ranking mandarin affiliated with the imperial family at Peking.† and also bore arms of his former office of the imperial court signified as a flag and serves as a passport throughout the country, it was a gift from the a former master. And during this second trip Fortune disguised himself as a high ranking mandarin from beyond the Great Wall of China which I thought would be hasty compared to lying low on the first trip. Also I thought it was amusingly clever that he chose the people from beyond the Great wall because, they were known for being abnormally taller height than the rest of the population in china which gave an explanation for Fortunes height while infiltrating China. If not for Fortunes treacherous task and constant awareness no matter what might of happened to make Fortune hate the country, he could probably hate every single thing in china but I doubt he would never be able to hate Chinas beauty from there great dense bamboo Forests off theyre proud mountains to the peaceful city of serenity named Zhejiang. Fortune was also a naturalist who was touched, and changed, by China and its treasures largely unseen by western eyes, in which found even more beautiful than the landscape of his own country. Green Tea was a failure because they had withered even before it had reached India of the improper shipping technique. Even though it had failed Black tea was a success which Changed history Forever in Britains favor Trade wise. I had also thought even though its not a picture book I would recommend a diagram of important people of the East India Company and The Royal Horticultural Society of England. And definitely a Map of Fortunes Travels Both trips to India and Maybe that trip to Japan.