Episode 12: Tea
The Steep that Steered the East India Company
Part 1 of Our Mini-Series: “Is ‘History Repeats Itself’ Redundant?”
It’s all in the Tea-Tails! After learning about the main types of tea and how tea plants are processed to create one of our favorite drinks, we’ll dive into the complex and often dark history of tea. The introduction of tea to the Western World is embroiled in colonization, smuggling, scandals, and wars. One of the main culprits behind all of this mayhem was the East India Company. Did you know the Opium trade and Opium Wars are closely tied to the tea trade?
Discussion Includes:
The Main Tea Plant
Types of Teas
Tea Processing Methods
The Colonization of Tea pre-East India Company
Tea Smuggling
Tea, Opium, and the East India Company
©️Wolf and Stag Productions LLC, 2025Images:
References:
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By File:Teaprocessing-small.png - File:Teaprocessing-small.png, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11447174
By Bimal K C from Cochin, India - Top Station - Munnar, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4545605
Painted by Captain John Platt, Bengal Volunteers. Engraved by John Burnet. - Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12229605
By Franz Eugen Köhler, Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen - List of Koehler Images, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=255290
