Just how much do the British love tea? Enough to start a war over it and make a country addicted to drugs? The short answer is yes, but the story is a bit more complicated. 

On this day in 1839 viceroy Lin Zexu seized 1200 kg of opium from Western merchants in south China and ordered it to be destroyed outside Humen. This event would spark the first Opium War between China and Britain and start the so-called 'century of humiliation': a period in Chinese history during which Western powers and Japan practically subjugated the country. So how did the destruction of some goods lead to a full scale conflict and subjugation of a country? 

In the 17th and 18th century the popularity of exotic goods from the Americas and Asia grew in Britain. There was an increasing demand for products such as sugar, coffee and porcelain. Tea in particular became a very popular drink in Britain, but the British had trouble meeting the demand for it for a couple of reasons. 1. China practically had a tea monopoly as it could not easily be grown in British colonies. 2. The Chinese didn't want any British products, only silver, which led to a huge trade deficit. 

The British tried to reverse the situation and eventually found a product that they could grow in their own Indian colonies and sell to the Chinese market: opium. It became a huge success. A large percentage of the Chinese population became addicted to opium, the trade deficit was reversed and silver was now flowing out of China. The Chinese banned the trade deeming the sale of opium as immoral, while the British protested this arguing for free trade, an argument made by many European nation who were frustrated with the closed off Chinese market.

As mentioned above, Lin Zexu was sent to stop the opium trade, but his actions escalated the conflict and led to the first Opium War. The Chinese junks were no match for the British Navy and the Qing armies were easily defeated. The 1842 treaty of Nanjing that ended the war forcefully opened up China to European trade. Apart from the British love for tea, it was mostly European imperialism and capitalism that sparked the Opium wars.  

Originally posted on Instagram on June 3, 2021