Sugar and Tea: A Tale of Trade and Taste
We all love a good cup of tea, whether it’s a sizzling hot summer afternoon or a chilly winter morning. Everyone’s got their way of making that perfect cup, but one thing we can all agree on is throwing some sugar into that bubbling pot of tea leaves and water. India, being the tea capital, takes the crown as the biggest tea consumer in the world. But the origin of sweet tea, especially the one we all adore, isn’t just about India and China; it’s a tale that involves Britain, the West Indies, and the birth of the world’s first agro-industrial factories. To understand where our sweetened tea comes from, we need to hop back to those early days when the welfare of the workforce played a secondary role in production demands. I am talking about the agro-industrial revolution, churning out sugar on a commercial scale. This whole story links Britain, the West Indies, India, and China, woven together with slavery, addiction, and corruption.
Sugar
In the 17th century, people in Barbados were cultivating cassava with just a few slaves. However, things took a turn when English settlers arrived, eager to experiment with different crops. Sugar wasn’t their first choice; initially, they found profits in growing cotton and indigo. But as the market got saturated, they shifted gears and ventured into sugar. As they delved into sugar cultivation, settlers got savvy about the details — experimenting with harvest times, duration, and juice extraction. They even figured out how to grow sugar in batches for a continuous harvest, paving the way for big sugar factories. Given the labour-intensive nature of sugarcane plantations, a substantial number of slaves, both white natives and black individuals, were brought in. Over time, landlords favoured black slaves for their ability to handle more work. By the 1660s, Barbados had a staggering 20,000 enslaved Africans enduring harsh conditions — long hours, meagre food, and resorting to theft.
In 1640, Barbados exported sugar worth 3 million pounds. The scale of production called for the division of labour, with workers assigned to specialized planting, weeding, and cutting gangs. Slaves were organized into shifts to maintain a continuous production process. Sugar plantations are often seen as a manifestation of capitalism in its most aggressive form, with both white and black slaves toiling on the land. Apart from the sugar that England obtained from the West Indies, they reaped benefits from the deforestation that occurred to make way for sugar plantations. England exported coal to fuel copper production. Additionally, they were actively exporting various goods to the colonies, including linen, rugs, stockings, shoes, and black ribbon. By the 1680s, Barbados alone consumed one-third of all the exports sent by London to all the colonies.
By the late 17th century, sugar wasn’t just a spice; it had become a key ingredient in an increasing number of recipes. Through sugar, the West Indies became the heart of the first British Empire, creating a network of exchange that interconnected all the colonies. The trend of serving sweet dishes as a separate final course gained popularity. Having sugar at the end of a meal induces a feeling of satiation. Sugar transitioned from its high-status position in the culinary world to becoming a mundane store cupboard staple. This web of trade stimulated the growth of maritime skills, knowledge, industry, and financial services.
Tea
One of the most valuable cash crops for the British in the 18th century was opium. Now, you might be curious about the link between opium and this entire tea saga. Let’s dive into this narrative in China, the major player in exporting tea to the Empire. By the 18th century, the British were smitten with sweetened tea from all walks of life. The tea craze was here to stay. However, when it came to trade with the Chinese, they weren’t exactly thrilled with what the East India Company had to offer. Despite English wool, Indian cotton, and a few exotic goods, the company found itself stuck trading tea for silver — the currency of the time. So, the East India Company embarked on a mission to find something that could crack open the Chinese market. Tobacco played a role. The story goes that European traders introduced tobacco to China in the late 16th century, and it caught on, especially when paired with tea. Fast forward to the early 18th century, and tea house owners introduced a sophisticated tobacco-opium blend. By the end of the century, the elite abandoned tobacco altogether for pure opium, considering it a status symbol. The East India Company realized that the Indian district under their rule was sitting on a potential goldmine. In 1773, they took control of opium production and sales in Bengal, even providing loans to farmers for rent, seeds, fertilizers, and more. One snag: China had a ban on opium imports. But where there’s a will, there’s smuggling and corruption. Opium shipments sailed in under the cover of night, greasing the palms of customs officers and soldiers on patrol. By 1835, European and Indian traders were furnishing China with enough opium to supply 2 million people with a daily smoke. All this manoeuvring was orchestrated to maintain favourable terms of trade with China, and of course, due to the ever-growing demand for tea.
Sweetened Tea
Tea was one of the last new colonial groceries to hit the English market. It was a bit hazy when sweetening tea became a thing in England, and it wasn’t a practice originating from Asia. However, this habit became so widespread among the elite class that, by the late 17th century, physicians were pointing fingers at sweetened tea for causing an epidemic of tooth decay, corpulence, and gout. They might have had a point, given that between 1663 and 1773, sugar consumption per person shot up twentyfold, while tea consumption increased fifteenfold. As the demand for sugar rose and technology improved, sugar production increased, and prices fell. Cheaper sugar meant more people could afford it, making sugar a part of even the ordinary person’s diet. Tea followed a similar trajectory. Once the infusion became widely available, the practice of afternoon tea spread throughout the entire population, embraced even by the most humble.
In the 1760s and 1770s, poor harvests followed by the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars from 1792–1815 led to high inflation. Brewing beer became a costly affair, prompting many labourers who couldn’t afford to brew their beer to turn to sweetened tea as a more budget-friendly alternative. Tea had the added advantage of suppressing appetite. Fueled by the illusion that the excess sweetness in tea provided more energy, labourers shifted away from beer. With further increases in fuel prices, brewing beer continued to decline among the elite class as well. By the late 18th century, the poor were spending 10% of their annual income on tea and sugar, and the elite class also found themselves increasingly favoring tea sweetened with sugar over beer.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, a bunch of tobacco, sugar, tea, and spices from the British Empire flooded in, and suddenly, everyone in Britain got a taste for the good stuff. The whole nation turned into a bunch of eager customers. Fast forward to the 19th century, sugar and tea became the power duo, fueling the workers to spin cotton, weave, and forge steel for all those cool British goods. By the mid-19th century, there was nothing more British than a cup of sweet tea. And yet, this beloved drink was a brew of a Chinese plant acquired in exchange for opium grown in Bengal.
