| In Qing Dynasty, there were many places planting and producing tea in our country, and the tea quality is much better compared to the tea of other countries. However, China’s tea market share in the world has gradually reduced since the20th century. Though the rise of India, Ceylon tea is an important factor, but the neglect of our improved the quality of the tea merchants and tea trade unreasonable process is the underlying causes of the decline of China’s tea trade.As a tea-producing country, tea planters often cultivate tea in the hillside zone where the ground is not suitable for crops, and the tea is not valued by the tea farmers. No large-scale tea plantations are formatted then. There are also some problems in tea packing and production. China’s tea transport routes is quite different before and after the Qing Dynasty, tea is transported via Guangzhou because of the single port system. In modern times, Shanghai, Ningbo, Xiamen, Fuzhou and Guangzhou ports were open, so the tea transport routes changed. The tea trade process is very complicated, which reasonable or not is to determine the price of tea in a key factor, but also affect the competitiveness of Chinese tea in the world tea market.Fujian Province, one of China’s major tea-producing province, bohea tea produces in Chong an County is one of the earlier varieties of tea output in Qing Dynasty, before the opening of the Guangzhou port, bohea tea is loved by the British consumer. After five ports opening and Taiping Rebellion, the Fujian tea output route is also undergoing changes. This paper takes the trade of bohea tea as an example, to analyze the purchase, transportation and performance of tea with new historical data, and study the decline of tea trade on this basis. |
