Consequences

Consequences of Increased Tea Trade __**British Consequences-**__ **T** **he huge demand of tea by Britain caused a huge out-flow of silver to China. This giant trade deficit caused contention in British ranks and eventually lead to the trade of Opium to China. The need for more tea at cheaper prices lead to increased trade and control by the East India Company in India.**   **Commentator Jonas Hanway, along with others was perplexed and irritated by the widespread popularity of tea:**  The young and the old, the healthy and the infirm, and the superlatively rich, down to the vagabonds and beggars, drink this enchanting beverage when they are thirsty, and when they are not thirsty. It is the foolishness of folly. **   **He thought that "the labourer and mechanic will ape the lord'. And all of them seemed unhappy unless they were able to `consume the produce of the remote country of China'."
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__ Chinese Consequences- __ The trade of tea was provided a massive boost to the Chinese economy. The need for tea, along with that of Chinese fabrics and other supplies, drained Britain of its bullion and created a huge trade surplus for China. Long term, China becomes damaged by the trade of opium and the Unequal Treaties. **   Cultivating and Processing Chinese Tea  After the use of tea began to spread during the Tang dynasty, the internal and external tea trade became an important facet of the Chinese economy, providing tax revenues and adding to China's traditionally favorable balance of trade. When tea-drinking became a national habit in England, Chinese tea imports rose from some 2.6 million pounds in 1762 to 23.3 million pounds in 1800, and thereafter averaged about 25 million pounds per year, constituting 90-95% of England's total imports from China. This huge increase in turn stimulated the further growth of tea plantations throughout the Yangzi basin and the southern Chinese provinces 

<span style="display: block; font-size: 140%; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">Chinese Tea Merchants <span style="display: block; font-size: 110%; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">Exports of Chinese tea, however, continued to increase, from some 30 million pounds in 1830 to 150 million pounds in 1880. Thereafter, the price of tea and the size of Chinese exports fell dramatically, due to the rise of more efficient tea plantations and competitors in India, Ceylon, and Japan, and a whole sector of the Chinese economy was ruined. This development was, at least in part, a delayed effect of the 1830s theft of Chinese tea plants by British botanist Robert Fortune for cultivation in India.