The history of Asia could (and does!) fill huge volumes of text. So, let us focus on one subject: the China Tea Trade. In the early 1800’s, not long after the end of the Opium Wars, trade with China began to really expand.

Large numbers of American merchants wanted to get in on the opening of China, and they negotiated access to several ports: Canton, Shanghai, Ninghsien, Amoy and Foochow. There followed an explosion in interest in the exotic varieties of teas. Suddenly, Americans were drinking Lumking, Imperial, Gunpowder (yes, that is the name of a tea!), Bohea, Oolong and Mowfoong.

As tea is a perishable product, it became critical to get it from the various Chinese ports to New York and Boston as quickly as possible. Many of the opium clippers – extremely fast ships – switched over to the tea trade. Once the tea was in the holds, the race was on to cross the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, loop around the Cape of Good Hope, and then navigate up the Atlantic to reach the American ports.

One of the first American companies to get into the tea trade was the Low Brothers. They were the twelve sons of Seth Low, a drug merchant from Salem, Massachusetts. Abiel Abbott Low spent seven years dealing in the tea trade, and he made quite the interesting discovery early on in his career.

As tea needs to be kept dry, he decided to buy some cheap Chinese dishes and stack the crates of it in the hold, so that the tea would be up high and dry. He was quite pleased to discover, upon reaching Boston, that the china sold for enough money to pay for the entire voyage! In the years to come, one Low brother after another followed him out to China and continued the family business.

Over the course of many decades, many fortunes were made – and lost – in the China tea trade. The history of Asia is as broad and varied as the history of the entire world. This may have something to do with the fact that Asia encompasses the largest continent in the world.

To focus on only trade would still cover a vast range of subjects. After all, China is known for many things: jade, rice, tea to name only a few. Of course, expanding that list to illegal substances would include opium and other illicit drugs. To look at just one item – tea, can also include many things. After all, families around the world have been tied to that business. So, consider how powerful the subject of tea must be for it to influence the lives of a family in far off Salem, Massachusetts.