Trade with China started soon after the Portuguese rounded the Cape in Africa and set out for Asia. Initially, paranoid Chinese officials forbid trade with the “Foreign Devils” creating a windfall for pirates and smugglers on both sides. Forty years later, the Chinese finally accepted the reality of international trade with the foreign devils and the great race for European dominance in the area was on. England eventually gained dominance and enormous amounts of tea was exported into England. Unfortunately, the still paranoid Chinese refused to accept European styled banking terms and required payment in silver for all products. England was facing economic ruin. By the early 19th century, a plan was devised to grow opium in India, which England controlled, sell it in China for silver and use the same silver as payment for tea and silks. The result was opium going into china, tea coming out and silver staying safely in English banks. Crisis avoided. Unfortunately, six million Chinese were addicted to opium and Chinese efforts to stop the trade ended in two opium wars in the 1840 – 1842 and again1857 that ended with England expanding influence and acquiring territory, like Hong Kong, in China. Enter the Scottish duo, Charles and Robert Bruce.

The discovery of the Assam Tea plant, one of the world’s best, has been attributed to two British brothers, Charles and Robert Bruce, veterans of the Napoleonic Wars. Robert was sent to Assam on a trading mission in 1823 where he met, Maniran Dewan, a Singpho Chief, who introduced Robert to the wild assamica tea plant. Before arrangements could be made to transfer plants to reluctant British scientist for inspection, Robert died. His brother Charles then took up the cause and sent seeds, plants and prepared tea to the new John Company Tea Committee in Calcutta to investigate the possibility of growing tea in India. The John Company had lost its monopoly on the Chinese Tea Trade with India in 1832 and was desperate to replace this loss windfall. The discovery was hailed, “by far the most important and valuable that has ever been made in matters connected with the agriculture and communal resources of this empire”, by the Tea Committee.

On May 8, 1838, 350 pounds of Assam Tea were shipped to London and sold there at India house on January 10th the following year. It was a success; Bruce and Dewan began clearing forests for planting. Chinese planters were imported, the British sensing some inherent ability to grow tea. Many died from jungle borne illness. Maniran Dewan, on the basis of an intercepted letter, was hanged on February 26, 1858 charged with participation in the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857.

The Bruce Brothers today are celebrated in India as founders of the very large and successful Assam Tea business and tea growing in general in India. A local Assam grower, however, tells me that the Bruce’s original description of “wild Assam tea” describes it as growing in rows of roughly rectangular plots. The plant is also mentioned in Sanskrit literature as … It’s still chewed in many remote areas on Assam today.

But to give credit where credit is due. The Bruce brothers were instrumental in, if not discovering the Assam tea plant, then at least in making it available the world over.

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Thanks, George

Past Issues:
November 2005 Newsletter