Tea is a wonderful part of my life. I get up in the morning excited to brew my first cup. I scramble through my half-asleep brain to decide what I’ll drink today. The day hasn’t truly started until I pick the proper water temperature on my water kettle. Just writing about it, I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s cup!
But beneath that pleasure is a profound respect for the tea and where it came from. There is a deep sorrow and anger at the conditions tea workers have to endure on many farms around the world. There is also a shameful knowledge of how capitalism and white supremacy have shaped the industry, both abroad and here in the United States.
This is the second of two articles discussing the colonization of tea. The first article focuses on the history of colonization, and this article will address how colonization continues to impact the tea industry. I spoke with two amazing tea company owners, Jamila Wright of Brooklyn Tea and Ranmu (Maggie) Xue of Us Two Tea. They gave their insights and shared their experiences as women of Color in the tea industry.
Throughout its colonial history, and still today, working conditions on many tea farms were and are inhumane.
According to the Solidarity Center, “an estimated 13 million people in 48 countries work on tea plantations around the world, mostly women who are paid low wages and have few or no health and safety protections. Tea plantation workers are often forced to rely on their employers for food, housing and education, adding to their vulnerability.”
The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre spoke to Rebecca Nyakondo, a Kenyan tea worker, whose back was so damaged from picking tea, the pain stopped her picking up her youngest child. For 17 years, she said, she was paid as little as $1.90 per day to pick for 12 hours with a basket carrying up to 44 lb strapped to her back.
It is also leading to environmental issues, from the use of pesticides to deforestation. How are these things tied to colonialism? We can only imagine what tea production would look like today if the British had not capitalized on tea’s popularity using espionage, sabotage, theft, addiction, inhumane labor practices, and so on.
A tea farm at dusk
Know Who Grows Your Tea
Much of this dehumanization and carelessness for the earth can be traced back to the wealth generated by tea being kept from those who produce it. Tea workers in Assam, India made about $1.50 a day in 2015, and in 2018, tea workers in Kenya made about $3.50 a day. That’s around $850 a year, compared to the estimated cost of living in Kenya, which is around $5,913 a year for a single person – and this estimate doesn’t include rent. In contrast, Lipton had a brand value of over $10 billion in 2022.
“A lot of people don’t know that most of the tea comes from places with Black and Brown folks, right? So, you have that to teach people and then to say, ‘okay, now, look at the most wealth generating tea companies out there.’ And they’re typically not Brown and Black folks, right? They’re typically white males, right? … So, it’s just this longstanding history of the folks who are doing the day in, day out labor not having any access to the generational wealth that’s accumulated around tea.”
Jamila Wright, Co-owner of Brooklyn Tea
A tea tasting in Malawi
White Supremacy in Tea
The issues faced by farmworkers and the ecosystems around farms is a result of operating within a white supremacist capitalist system. White supremacy keeps white people at the top of these systems – think Bigelow CEO Cindi Bigelow, Twinings USA CEO Gavin Vandeligt, CVC Capital Partners (owners of Lipton brands) CEO Rob Lucas, and many smaller tea brands. Capitalism keeps consumers in the dark about company affairs, values and practices, making it hard for tea drinkers to decide what companies to support.
“I was searching, and I found out at that time – it was 2019 – there are not a lot of Asian owned brands… So, I started thinking, why there’s no Asian-owned tea brand.”
Ranmu (Maggie) Xue, Founder of Us Two Tea
Housing for tea workers
A Concentration of Wealth
This erasure of where tea comes from leads to consumers not being able to make informed choices. Moreover, it provides us with an inaccurate idea of what tea is and who produces it.
“A lot of times, all this tea is being white labeled – no pun intended – and repackage, and there is no talk of the history, where it comes from, right? And so you can get someone who bags a tea that was made in Kenya or China, but they repackage it. They sell it in your local Target, Walmart, and there’s no connection to the history.”
Jamila Wright, Co-owner of Brooklyn Tea
This repackaging and rebranding of tea away from its origins and towards a whitewashed product can also create challenges for folks who identify as a member of a tea-growing culture.
“I can tell the difference between Chinese-American kids and Korean-American kids. There’s a lack of cultural confidence because people think the product related to China is shitty quality, and there’s a bad image when Trump was president. So, you can really tell they’re not proud to be Asian or Chinese during that time. So it really hurts me.”
Ranmu (Maggie) Xue, Founder of Us Two Tea
An Example of Tea Responsibility
In 2020, Yorkshire Tea told critics of the Black Lives Matter movement on Twitter to not buy their tea. The move was met with a deluge of comments, mainly from white people, challenging the brand’s stance on racism. Obviously, many of these tea drinkers have forgotten where their tea is sourced from. Indeed, much of the black tea we sip in the U.S. and the U.K. comes from former colonial tea plantations in India and several African countries, including Rwanda and Kenya. This includes the tea used in Yorkshire Tea products, and the alternatives people threatened to switch to after Yorkshire’s Twitter comment.
Please don't buy our tea again.
We're taking some time to educate ourselves and plan proper action before we post. We stand against racism. #BlackLivesMatter
There was also a reply in the Twitter thread suggesting Yorkshire Tea should change its name to Kenya Tea. This is an important point to make. The U.K. and the U.S. grow almost no tea on their own land. It cannot be forgotten that Black and Brown people have been the workforce behind the classic black teabag for centuries. It also cannot be forgotten that tea has its origins in China. Removing Chinese, Japanese and Korean culture from tea is a form of violence towards Asian people. This is not a point of politics, it is a demand for ethics, anti-racism, human rights, dignity, compassion and understanding.
Well done for shaming the racist, but now that you have used the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag may I suggest a rebrand to give credit where credit’s due. #KenyaTea perhaps?? As #Yorkshire is to tea what Elvis is to rock and roll.
Many white westerners – myself included – have taken immense pleasure in the celebration of tea. We’ve studied, sipped, tested, and tasted all types of tea. Some have led with cultural appreciation, some with cultural appropriation. For those of us whose culture is not one steeped in tea – it’s cultivation, it’s production, it’s importance – and for those of us whose ancestors were not slaves on farms reaping crops that made many others rich, we have to remember that tea is a sacred gift that we enjoy only because of centuries of colonization, warfare, torture, indentured servitude, and slavery.
Vietnamese peace worker, author and Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh explains how, with a mindful existence, you can see in a piece of paper the tree, and the sunshine the tree drank in, and the drops of rain that watered it. I try to do the same when drinking tea; to see the person who picked the tea, or rolled the tea, or pan-fried the tea, and the sunshine that bathed it, and the soil that nurtured it – all in one cup.
This same mindfulness can show us the history of tea. It is a history of great beauty and cultural significance. It is also a history of colonization, trickery, slavery, and white supremacy. Therefore, it is important to be aware of the history of colonization as it pertains to tea so that we can address its continuing impacts and create an equitable landscape for producers, distributors, creators and drinkers.
This is the first of two articles discussing the colonization of tea. This article will focus on the history of colonization, and the next will address how colonization continues to impact the tea industry.
I believe that, as a white person, it’s important to talk about these histories, discuss the challenges they continue to create, and work to dismantle systems of oppression. I’ve done extensive research for this article, but most of these resources are based in white-supremacy, and I recognize that some of the facts, figures and stories here will be through that lens.
Furthermore, I will be making mistakes. In fact, you may even see mistakes in this article. My goal is to listen when mistakes are pointed out, apologies with humility and sincerity, and work to not make that mistake again.
Bodhidharma
Cultural Significance of Tea
To better understand the overwhelming impact of colonization, specifically with tea, I want to give a little cultural and historical background.
It’s said that in 2737 BCE, Emperor Shen Nong told his people to boil their water for safety. While he was boiling his own water, the wind blew some leaves into his pot. He was delighted by the elixir! Those were tea leaves!
Another version of that myth states, according to Tea Drunk, “during a long day spent roaming the forest searching for edible grains and herbs, the weary divine farmer Shen Nong accidentally poisoned himself 72 times. But before the poisons could end his life, a leaf drifted into his mouth. He chewed on it, and it revived him, and that is how we discovered tea.”
Yet another legend says that the monk Bodhidharma, an Indian Buddhist missionary in China, was frustrated that he fell asleep during meditation, so he cut off his eyelids, and where they fell on the ground, a tea plant sprung up.
The East India Company
Around the 1600s, tea was gaining popularity in Europe. The East India Company was a trading Goliath, moving goods to and from England at the time. One of these goods was tea. By the 1700s, the demand for tea in England was massive, and the East India Company had a monopoly on its trade.
During this time, the Chinese government had strict policies around tea trading with European countries. Traders were not allowed further than a day’s walk into the country from the ports. This insured the cultivation and production of tea was kept a closely guarded secret.
The word “monopoly” was also used to describe Chinese control of tea at the time. I believe there is a difference between controlling a market to maintain profit, and protecting a cultural staple to preserve the livelihood of a country’s population. We have to remember, tea was a luxury in England, and a pillar of society in China. So I don’t think the word “monopoly” applies to China’s strict regulations around tea trading the same way it applies to the East India Company’s iron-clad grip on tea trading in England.
In addition to regulations, China would only trade tea for silver. This was unfavorable for the British. In order to gain more access to tea, the East India Company, which at the time was partially under the control of the British Parliament, smuggled opium, mostly from India, into the country. This was illegal under Chinese rule, and had devastating effects. Widespread addiction to the drug crippled the Chinese society and economy.
British warships attacking a Chinese battery on the Pearl (Zhu) River during the First Opium War, 1841
The Theft of Tea
Despite winning the first Opium War, through which the British gained access to 4 additional trading ports in China and very unfavorable trade agreements for China, the British still did not want to be subjected to China’s dominance in tea. In order to gain the control they wanted, the East India Company sent a Scottish botanist named Robert Fortune to the heart of China’s tea industry. Dressed in “mandarin garb,” Fortune stole tea plants, seeds, and production secrets, and brought them to company-controlled farms in India. This usurped the dominance of the Chinese tea trade, and changed the industry forever.
India, under colonial British rule from 1858 to 1947, remained the top tea-producing country until the 21st century, when China took the lead again.
An illustration from a book published in 1851 depicts the cultivation of tea in China
Tea Slavery
Tea and slavery are inextricably linked in many ways. The tea trade moved in the same circles as the slave trade, along with the sugar trade. Because of the British obsession with tea, and their unaccustomed palates to its bitterness, sugar was a very important import. Sugar was grown, harvested and produced using enslaved people.
Modern slavery still exists today on tea plantations around the world. But that will be covered in the next article, because it is a topic too important to cover in one article.
Remembering the Past and Challenging the Present
Many white westerners – myself included – have taken immense pleasure in the celebration of tea. We’ve studied, sipped, tested, and tasted all types of tea. Some have led with cultural appreciation, some with cultural appropriation. For those of us whose culture is not one steeped in tea – it’s cultivation, it’s production, it’s importance – and for those of us whose ancestors were not slaves on farms reaping crops that made many others rich, we have to remember that tea is a sacred gift that we enjoy only because of centuries of colonization, warfare, torture, and indentured servitude.
