The American Consulate in Xiamen's Gulangyu, Thriving on Tea
The Boston Tea Party in December 1773 is often cited as the beginning of the American Revolution. Where did the Chinese tea come from? Was it from the port of Guangzhou or another port at that time? According to my current knowledge, scholars in China have not paid attention to this detail. In 1925, the English-language magazine “The China Weekly Review” (also known as “Millard's Review”) published in Shanghai carried an article titled “Xiamen Tea Initiated the American Revolution,” which quoted information from the National Geographic Society of America: “It was in Xiamen, one of the world's main tea ports, where tea loaded onto ships in December 1773 led to the American Revolution a few months later.” “Few people know that the port of Xiamen has a place in the history of the American Revolution.”
**The Starting Point**
During modern times, the Black Tea consumed by Europeans mainly came from Fujian tea regions centered around the Wuyi Mountains. Tracing back to history, it was from the port of Xiamen that the British East India Company began its tea trade with China.
As early as 1644, the British East India Company established a trade office in Xiamen, primarily for the purpose of exporting Wuyi tea from Fujian. In 1678, the Batavia headquarters of the British East India Company even planned to make Xiamen the headquarters of its Chinese trading post. In 1681, the London headquarters dispatched four merchant ships carrying Silver coins, velvet cloth, lead, and other goods to trade for tea and other items in Xiamen. After Emperor Kangxi pacified Taiwan, the Qing government relaxed restrictions on coastal port trade, and Xiamen reopened in 1685. By 1704, there were records of frequent visits by British East India Company merchant ships to Xiamen to transport tea, porcelain, and other goods. Ports such as Xiamen, Ningbo, and Guangzhou, where foreign ships conducted transactions, saw regular visits by East India Company ships, a situation that continued until 1730.
In 1757 (the 22nd year of the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty), the Qing government issued an order allowing European merchants to trade only in Guangzhou. To effectively collect tea taxes and reduce the problems associated with domestic officials and merchants dealing with foreigners, the Qing government strictly ordered tea merchants from Fujian and Anhui to not directly trade with foreign merchants through the coastal ports of Fuzhou and Xiamen but instead to transport their goods through inland customs checkpoints to the port of Guangzhou, where they would conduct trade with Europeans through the Thirteen Factories. However, behind the prosperity of the Canton System, its flaws became apparent, as Van der Kellen pointed out in his book “The Canton Trade” that “smuggling along the coast grew increasingly rampant.” Clearly, the ships of the British East India Company did not comply with the Qing government's order limiting trade to only Guangzhou, instead sailing directly to ports like Xiamen, engaging in smuggling activities.
Due to the unofficial nature of the trade, the British East India Company provided unclear records about the ships that transported tea from Xiamen. The “Chronicle of the British East India Company's Trade with China” by American historian Morse is one of the most important historical references for early Sino-British tea trade, but in the first volume, the connection between the export of tea from Guangzhou and the outbreak of the American Revolution is not clearly recorded, with Morse himself stating that the records for the 21-year period from 1754 to 1774 are “missing.”
Considering that Xiamen itself was a center for the southern Fujian tea trade, with a long-standing tradition of tea cultivation and processing, and with active tea trade, transporting tea directly to Xiamen could bring greater profits. Most of the tea-processing monks in the Wuyi Mountain area came from Jinjiang, and the managers of the Xingcun tea market were also “from Zhangzhou and Quanzhou.” Hokkien merchants played a significant role as intermediaries in the modern trade of Wuyi tea. After the opening of trade in Guangdong, the volume of Wuyi tea increased significantly, extending to Zhangzhou and Quanzhou. Coastal smuggling was difficult to eradicate, otherwise, the Qing government would not have repeatedly issued orders to prohibit direct maritime trade from tea-producing areas. Moreover, there was close economic and personnel exchange between Xiamen and Guangzhou along the Chinese coast. Hokkien merchants like the Wu Bingjian family from Anhai and the Pan Zhencheng family from Tong'an served as compradors in the Thirteen Factories, and their role as a bridge in the communication of Sino-foreign tea trade under the Canton System cannot be overlooked. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that in 1773, the ships of the British East India Company directly transported tea from the port of Xiamen.
Thus, the Chinese tea port directly related to the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution was not Guangzhou, but Xiamen. Robert More, in his article “Chinese Coastal Cities: Xiamen,” described the port of Xiamen, Fujian, as a critical link in the American Revolution: “The tea that was dumped during the famous Boston Tea Party was loaded onto British ships and departed from Xiamen.”
In 1789, in a letter to John Adams, the first vice president of the United States, James Bowdoin discussed the decrease in the price of Boston Wuyi tea due to a reduction in tea tax, making it more acceptable to local consumers. Later editors of the Adams Papers specifically annotated Wuyi tea as a “black tea and oolong tea (oolong) from China.” The oolong tea referred to by American tea merchants and consumers mainly came from the port of Xiamen. Modern oolong tea refers to semi-fermented tea, distinct from fully fermented black tea, but in earlier times, foreign consumers and tea merchants distinguished oolong from Green Tea based on the color of the infusion, considering it a variety within the broader category of Fujian black tea (Wuyi tea). Overall, oolong tea was particularly favored by American consumers when it entered the market.
**Prosperity**
The American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 forced the British Empire to change its colonial trade system. On one hand, Britain's ability to acquire silver from South America declined, making it difficult for the British East India Company to sustain the supply of silver in its trade with China. Britain turned to importing Indian-grown opium into China, replacing cotton as the major commodity traded with China. On the other hand, American independence prompted Britain to strengthen its control and exploitation of its Asian colonies, and the evil of British opium trade and its aggressive ambitions raised concerns in the Qing court.
In 1813, the Qing government again issued an order prohibiting the direct export of tea from Fujian's mountainous regions via sea routes. Lin Zexu's campaign against opium in Guangzhou struck at the direct interests of British opium merchants. In 1839, Britain launched the Opium War, forcing the opening of five treaty ports. In 1844, the United States took advantage of the situation by concluding the Treaty of Wangxia, establishing consulates in Fuzhou and Xiamen, bringing them closer to the Fujian tea regions.
In 1853, the Boston-based Jardine Matheson & Co., taking advantage of the Taiping Rebellion and the uprising of the Small Sword Society in Shanghai, which disrupted trade routes in the southeast, traveled up the Min River from Fuzhou to reach the Wuyi tea region. This not only directly opened a transportation channel between American tea merchants and Chinese tea regions but also broke the dominance of British merchants over high-quality tea sources in Fujian. The Qing government allowed the export of tea from Fuzhou, leading to a sharp increase in the export of tea from the port of Fuzhou. Xiamen also leveraged its convenient shipping and proximity to tea-producing areas to develop its tea export business. Boston merchants invested in innovative fast clippers for tea transport, competing with London merchants in tea ports such as Fuzhou and Xiamen. The maritime shipping routes connecting Fujian's tea regions with trade hubs like Fuzhou, Xiamen, and Hong Kong became increasingly dense.
In the 1860s, the major commodities exported from the port of Xiamen were tea and rock sugar, among which black tea was the most valuable and important commodity. The main types of tea exported from Xiamen included Congou tea, oolong tea, lapsang souchong, and Anxi tea. American companies such as Jardine Matheson & Co. and Jardine &