A tale of two addictions

China, wrote Adam Smith, is ‘one of the richest, that is, one of the most fertile, best cultivated, most industrious and most populous countries in the world’. It was an obvious exemplar for a man who was trying to write An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. In the late 18th century, when Smith published his seminal work, Britain had not only already begun to build an empire; it was about to learn from the experience of losing parts of it too, as the colonies in North America detached and went their own way.

Despite the shock of the US Declaration of Independence — in the very same year that The Wealth of Nations was published — it was Asia that was much more important, lucrative and interesting than the Americas to the British. Asia was the source of spices and silks, gold and jewellery; it promised great rewards for those willing to head east and with a sufficiently ruthless streak not to let anyone stand in the way of their fame and fortune.

To start with, those who gazed at China did so with admiration, noting — like Smith — its order, sophistication and wealth. Although there was plenty of demand for products from all over Asia, the British became addicted to one commodity in particular. Described by Peter Mundy in the 17th century as a drink ‘which is only water with a kind of herbe boyled in it’, tea soon took over polite society.

As Stephen Platt writes in this entertaining and well-paced book, imports rose from 250,000 lbs in 1725 to some 10 million lb by the early 1800s — a rise of 10,000 per cent. It became so lucrative that, by that time, it represented two-thirds of the revenue of the East India Company, and was so important that the government in London ordered that a year’s supply be held in reserve.