What was the (Honorable) East India Company?

The Honorable East India Company was a state supported, privately owned English trading company that had an enormous impact on world trade.

Founded in 1600 and disbanded in 1858, the East India Company created valuable trading links between Asia and Europe and helped establish English trading dominance throughout the world.

Using the backing of the English Crown, the East India Company became a state in its own right and its actions, while profit driven, were not always honorable. Many abuses and much corruption characterized the activity of the company particularly in the latter years of its existence,

One of its most profitable products was tea. Without a doubt, the East India Company was the driving force behind the growing, transportation and marketing of tea throughout the world.

The East India Company controlled all aspects of the world wide tea business and was largely responsible for the tea industry as we know it today.

China and Tea

Many historians believe that tea was first introduced and cultivated in Yunnan Province (located in southwestern China and bordering on present day Burma, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand) in a rich, lush area of jungle that was favorable to the growth of the tea bush.

What China added to the world of tea, however was an advanced society with an efficient bureaucracy that supported the spread of tea consumption in a methodical and rapid way. And, equally important, tea transition from a basic food to a valuable medicine under Chinese management.

By the third century AD in China the story of tea and its benefits were well known, but it was not until the Tang Dynasty (618 CE - 906 CE) that tea officially became China's national drink. During this time the word ch'a was used to describe tea.