Who Grows the Tea

Goal: After this lesson you can hold two truths at once, tea's refined culture and the colonial and plantation labor behind it. Subject: Social Studies | Run time: about 7 minutes

Quick recall

Last time we covered the Boston Tea Party. Two quick questions. One: by 1750, about how much of British government revenue came from tea taxes? About 10 to 15 percent (Rappaport, 2017). Two: how much tea was destroyed in Boston on December 16, 1773? 342 chests, about 92,000 pounds, worth about 12,000 pounds sterling (Carp, 2010).

Why this matters

So far this episode has shown you tea as art and ceremony, a writer's careful treatise, a tea master's quiet room. Now turn the cup over and look at the bottom. Behind a great deal of the world's tea is a story of plantations and people who did not choose to be there. Both things are true. That is the skill this lesson asks for, seeing how the system works, not deciding how to feel about it.

The idea

In the 1840s, the British established tea plantations in Assam, in northeastern India (Sharma, 2011). They needed workers, and they recruited them from tribal communities, then held them in place through debt (Sharma, 2011). This is called indentured labor, work under restrictive terms with little freedom to leave. The plantations were isolated, and the debt made leaving close to impossible (Sharma, 2011). The same pattern spread. In Ceylon, the island now called Sri Lanka, the British brought Tamil workers from southern India to labor on the tea plantations (Sharma, 2011). Different island, same design, a workforce moved far from home and tied to the estate. This is not only history. The International Labour Organization, the ILO, has documented ongoing concerns about wages and conditions on tea plantations across India, Sri Lanka, and Kenya (Sharma, 2011). And the workers have pushed back. In 2015, the Darjeeling strikes brought about 300,000 plantation workers together to demand fair wages (Sharma, 2011). There has also been an organized response from the buying side. Fair trade tea certification began in 1988, an attempt to tie a higher, more reliable price to better labor standards (Rappaport, 2017).

Picture it

Picture two images side by side. On the left, the plain room and the careful bowl from the ceremony lesson, tea as refined art. On the right, a row of plantation workers on an isolated Assam estate in the 1840s, recruited from far away and held by debt (Sharma, 2011). Now hold both pictures at once without letting either erase the other. That double vision is the point.

Remember this

The fact to carry out: the same tea that became a ceremony also became a plantation crop, and the British colonial system built it on indentured and relocated labor in Assam and Ceylon, with conditions the ILO still flags today (Sharma, 2011). You can love a thing and still look squarely at how it is made. Seeing the system clearly is not guilt. It is just sight.

Quick check

Quick check. In 2015, how many plantation workers joined the Darjeeling strikes, and what were they demanding? About 300,000 workers, demanding fair wages (Sharma, 2011).

Key Takeaways

In the 1840s, the British built Assam tea plantations using indentured labor recruited from tribal communities and held by debt (Sharma, 2011).
In Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, the British brought Tamil workers from southern India as plantation labor (Sharma, 2011).
The ILO documents ongoing wage and conditions concerns on plantations across India, Sri Lanka, and Kenya (Sharma, 2011).
In 2015, the Darjeeling strikes saw about 300,000 plantation workers demand fair wages (Sharma, 2011).
Fair trade tea certification began in 1988, tying price to better labor standards (Rappaport, 2017).

Sources

Carp, B. L. (2010). Defiance of the patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the making of America. Yale University Press.
Rappaport, E. (2017). A thirst for empire: How tea shaped the modern world. Princeton University Press.
Sharma, J. (2011). Empire's garden: Assam and the making of India. Duke University Press.