1. The European market for tea and the Swedish East India Company c
Hanna Hodacs & Leos Müller
(University of Warwick & University of Stockholm)

2. Key commodity in 18th century Eurasian trade
Tea
Key commodity in 18th century Eurasian trade
Part of new trade; together with Atlantic sugar, coffee, porcelain and cottons
Compared with ”old” or ”VOC” 17th-century trade in spices and silks
, a shift:
EIC and Ostend Companies shaped new trade patterns in which Canton played a key role.

4. What characterised the 18th century trade in tea?
Chinese market for tea
Global monopoly on tea
Hong merchant encouraged competition between European purchasers but kept control over supply
European Market for tea
Small companies provided for markets outside the realm of the state in which they were based (via Smuggling to Britain)
Created a competitive Pan-European market for tea

5. Ostend Company and SEIC
EIC, VOC, Ostend Company:
The key actors introducing tea in Europe.
Direct trade from Canton/VOC imports tea from Batavia
: a window of opportunity
Ostend Company: a Flemish and Scottish enterprise
Imported as much as EIC, the two actors accounts for 84% of total European tea imports!
: trade suspended
Anglo-Dutch political pressure
Shift to Gothenburg, SEIC established in (Colin Campbell, Niklas Sahlgren, Scottish/Flemish network)

6. SEIC,
”The most successful enterprise in Swedish history” (E. F. Heckscher)
131 expeditions, 4 charters,
An important actor in the tea trade
carried 10-15% of the tea imported to Europe
Same volumes as the French, Danes and Dutch
A ”Canton Tea Company” , hardly no India trade!
Business strategy:
know-how, money and people from Ostend (especially between )

7. Layout of paper:
Introduction (Ostend connection) + description of different types of tea
Analysis of tea in sales catalogues
Printed catalogues with annotations
Volumes, buyers, prices
Analysis of correspondence between traders in tea
Charles Irvine’s letters, Ostend man, SEIC supercargo
On competition, the circulation of quality and price information
Conclusion

8. 18th-century tea types Chinese origin – Chinese terminology
Black teas:
Bohea, Soatchoun, Congo, Peckoe, Linchisin
Green teas:
Heysan, Heysan-Skin, Bing (imperial tea), Singlo
Earl Grey, Darjeeling, Ceylon tea, etc. all 19th century products.

9. Sources – Sales Catalogues
Unique material
Tea the dominating good (in volumes and value)
Printed information:
Information on the number of chests, later on cattees, Swedish pounds, including package (weight of chest)
Annotations:
Buyers, prices per pound
Quality
Chest identity number:
Followed chest from Canton to end retailer in Britain?

10. Catalogue of Fredericus Rex Sueciae, 1733

11. Detailed information on cargo

12. Ship Gothenburg 1742 (tea unit is catee)

13. Diagram 1: SEIC’s tea imports, 1742-1759 (Swedish pounds= skålpund)

14. Diagram 2: Congo, Peckoe, Soatchoun and Singlo, 1742-1759 (Swedish pound=skålpund)

15. Volumes and types Sales: an increase in volumes More sales per year
E.g. 1754, three ships returning 2.3 million pounds tea for sale!)
Diminishing variety
Bohea: 85% over the period (in volume)
The rise of Congo in the 1750s

16. Prices – trends
A large number of lots sold at same prices (Bohea) but also diffentiation (between 27 and 38 öre smt per pound)
Exclusive teas: more price fluctuation
Grill paid 124 öre smt per pound Soatchoun!!!!
Green teas more expensive
On average Hysan above 100 öre smt per pund

17. Table 1: Ship Prins Carl (1756) Buyers
All tea
lots
Bohea
Lots
Congo
N Sahlgren
297
135
110
C Arwidson
200 73
C Arfwidson 85
J Scott 65
C Irvine 42
G Carnegie 33
J More 63
Scott & Comp 37
J Irvine 62
R Parkinson 30 31
M Holterman 59
A Grill 27 26 53 25
Bagge & Comp 23 50
C Campbell 21 47 15
Beckman & Beyer 19
G Bellenden 13

18. Buyers A few dominating buyers 55 buyers all in all
Niklas Sahlgren 297 lots of 1463
Christian Arfwidson 200 lots of 1463
55 buyers all in all
The 10 most prolific buyers bought 943 lots (64%)
The 10 least prolific buyers bought 17 lots (1%)
Group 1: Scottish/British buyers: J Scott, J More, Charles and John Irvine, George Carnegie, Robert Parkinson, J Chambers, W Chalmers
Group 2: Swedish buyers: Sahlgren, Arvidson, Holterman, Bagge, Ström, Sandberg
Group 3?: German buyers: Schale, Scholl

19. The correspondence of Charles Irvine
Fierce Pan-European competition!
Public sales (Company auctions or whole sellers’ auctions)
Price and quantity information widely avaliable – well functioning Pan-european market for tea?
Trade networks (Scottish connections)
Circulation of insider information re. quality of specific chests or sequences of chests

20. Hypothesis
Publically available information (re. e.g. quantities of tea for sale each season) influenced prices at first round of public sales (Company auctions)
Insider information, circulated among networks, on qualitative aspects, influenced prices at second round of public sales (whole sellers’ auctions)

21. Expert knowledge on tea
Whole sellers in the Low Countries (Amsterdam and Rotterdam)
Final words assessing qualities of tea
Access to tea imported by all continental East India Companies
Access to market for tea

22. Tea stapel market Amsterdam & Rotterdam Information nodes
Staple market for Chinese tea
Information nodes
Interconnectedness, linking Canton, to Gothenburg, to Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Hamburg
Producers (inland China) or consumers (in Britain) not (yet) included in the correspondence
Quick development

23. Tea and the European market for Chinese goods
Tea – became the most important goods in the Eurasian trade (second half 18th century)
Europeans could not grow tea at home (while they could produce silk and porcelain)
Is tea therefor irrelevant in a history of how Asian imports influenced European production (and consumption)?

24. No… Consumption Logistics Transaction costs
Tea was served in Chinese porcelain
Logistics
Porcelain a ballast for the tea
Transaction costs
A mass market for tea helped lowering transaction costs on porcelain, silk, lacquer wear etc

25. The Swedish tea trade and a geography of consumption of Chinese goods
Most Swedish tea – re-exported to the Low Countries
What happened to the other Chinese goods?
Did the Swedish imported silk and porcelain continue to travel with the tea?
Or did the mass market for tea in the Low Countries and Britain give the poor people of Sweden access to Asian luxuries which otherwise would have been beyond their means?
The Swedish tea trade can help illuminate a geography of consumption of Chinese goods that does not necessarily match the geography of European wealth

26. The chronology the trade in Chinese goods
Tea:
a perishable good
Europeans wanted a regular supply
Silk and porcelain:
Objects with different life span
European silk and pottery producers pushed new trends which influenced taste & fashions
The consumption of Chinese goods in Europe had different rhythms
A disharmony between the tempo of the tea trade and the trade with more durable goods?

27. Questions…
Can a geography and chronology of the tea trade help illuminate what might have been only partially overlapping markets for Chinese goods in Europe, working out of sync with one another?
Is this maybe why the Swedish East India Company imported an ever smaller variety of Chinese goods?
Or does it reflect advances in European manufacturing? Or both?