A storm is brewing on today’s Right Hook, as George takes offence to the British Standards Institution’s new guidelines to making the perfect cup of tea.
Countering their advice, George will be telling everyone why milk in is never the right idea. Tune in live at 5.20pm: http://www.newstalk.com/player/
But did you know that every time you fill your kettle, there’s a direct historic line to the current political turmoil in Hong Kong? And it involves an awful lot of opium and a century of humiliation.
We all know that people in this part of the world really love a cup of tea. But in the middle of the 19th century, our palettes were more partial to swigging back cheap gin that the amber gold we’ve grown to love today.
That was because tea was an exotic and luxury item, and incredibly expensive. Being imported from China, where the authorities refused to trade it for anything less than silver, tea had its hay day when the temperance movement gathered steam across Britain and Ireland, sending demand for Chinese tea soaring.
More expensive than ever, the only way British traders could bring back the barrels of tea was to swap it for chests of opium.
The drug, which was banned all over China, was in powerful demand on the black market, and the British supply from India was in no shortage. So millions of kilos of tea made their way into Victorian teapots, while opium coursed through the veins of millions in China.
At one point, the Chinese addiction was so widespread that 90 percent of all the men under the age of 40 who were living along coastal routes were almost always caught up in the opium stupor. The impact on China was devastating, with the country’s economy ground to a halt as millions scrambled to get their next fix.
In 1839, the Chinese emperor made a move to crack down on the drug trade, raiding several British tea traders, and commandeering thousands of chests containing opiates. The tea craze, which had spread all across the British Isles and to every corner of the Empire, saw its supply cut off. So the Empire responded by sending the Royal Navy to China.
Over a period of two years, sixteen British warships blasted their way up the Chinese coast on their way to Shanghai, killing somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 Chinese soldiers. The navy only lost 69 men, due in large part to the drug-addled locals they were facing.
The war ended with China forced into signing a treaty which gave control of Hong Kong to the British, as well as opening five ports to British traders the funnelled opium back into the country. China also had to pay off the cost of the war to Britain, as well as the loss of income brought about by the raids.
So the next time you’re steeping a teabag during a commercial break of the Right Hook, bear in mind that sometimes the storm in a teacup can lead to war.
