The Fake Tea Research For Sino-US Tea Trade In 19^th Century

Tea is the bulk commodity of foreign trade in the pre-modern society. China linked the world actively through the tea trade. Academic research concentrated in Sino-British and Sino-Russian tea trade, and trading Conditions, silver flow and the reasons of decline were the focus of the researches. Because of the lack of historical materials, the technical research for Sino-US tea trade was rare. In addition, the research for the impact of false tea on Sino-US tea trade, and the change of pattern of world tea trade were still blank.The Influence of China tea on modern America was profound. Tea caused the outbreak of American revolution war, and the tea trade was the beginning of the modern history of Sino America relationship.The early Sino-US tea trade has brought huge benefits to the US,and got a lot of support of American government. In early 19th Century,The Sino-US tea trade has developed very fast, and American tea consumption market gradually formed.The thesis is based on the new founded materials—the record of tea trade data by an American businessman named Gideon Nye when he engaged in tea trade business in Guangzhou during 19th Century. We can see that it was the golden period of Sino-US tea trade in 19th Century twenty or thirty years. But it was also in this period, the fake tea seriously interfered with the normal development of the trade.Using the method of Economics, we estimate the inflow of fake tea in American market that time by the data recorded by Nye, and analyze the risk and motivation of selling the fake, and explore the influence of fake tea on Sino-US tea trade. By the late 19th Century, the tea consumption demand grew rapidly in the whole world, the new tea planted in India,Ceylon and Japan participated in international tea trade. But the production of Chinese tea has maintained at a low level long time,in order to make up for exporting,Chinese tea workers made focus on the fraud. It made the fake tea in China flooding, the foreign businessmen were hard to buy high quality tea. Chinese fake tea abused in American market second time. Meanwhile,The Japanese tea conquered American consumers by its stable quality,and the Chinese tea had gradually lost the American market. Due to the loss of international reputation by the fake, Chinese tea industry was incredibly fragile during the period of transformation that from monopoly to free competition. Although the Qing government had taken many measures to revive the declining Chinese tea industry in late 19th Century, It ended up with failure.This thesis focuses on the impact of fake tea on Sino-US tea trade,try to provide some references for the researches such as the decline of foreign tea trade in modern times, the change of pattern of world tea trade, and the endogenous reasons for the hysteresis of Chinese Modernization.