Sara Rose begins her story "For All the Tea in China", this way. "There was a time when maps of the world were redrawn in the name of plants, when two empires, Britain and China went to war over two flowers: the poppy and the camellia." Could this actually have been the case? Were tea and opium of such great importance? Let us examine her case.
Centuries past, England's Queen Elizabeth gave the East India Company a monopoly of all British trade in the Far East. That included the control of India and all things produced there, like opium. For two hundred years thereafter the Company exported this addictive product from India to China. The Chinese, who had an almost complete monopoly on the production and processing of tea, exchanged this mild stimulant for the addictive opium: so history records.
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