Whom Shall I Trust

: Commercial Relationships in Sino-British Tea Trade in the Early Nineteenth Century

Abstract

In the early-nineteenth-century economic exchange between Qing China and the British Empire, tea trade accounted for a significant portion, exceeding half of the total value of exports from China to Britain. Previous research on the nineteenth-century Sino-British tea trade mainly concentrates on the financial side of the tea investment or its general global impact, while this thesis argues that it was the trust system created by different actors that underpinned the tea trading chain. Merchants across geographical distance, different cultural norms, institutions, laws and languages were linked together by the tea trade. They formed ways to construct a mutual understanding of trust which was fundamental in maintaining balanced relationships and the smoothness of trade. So, the central question of this research is: how did merchants of different backgrounds and cultures develop and maintain commercial relationships in cross-cultural tea trade in the early nineteenth century?
This thesis deploys a cultural approach to economic history and emphasizes the fundamental cultural aspects of long-distance trade. It explores the interpersonal, inter-organizational and institutional trust along the tea trade route between China and Britain in 1810-1836. It clarifies how cultural norms, including languages, laws, social networks, power and socio-economic institutions, structured and affected trust system in cross-cultural trade. By following the geographical route and chronological order of the tea trade, this thesis is structured via the thread of upcountry planters and tea brokers in inland China, Hong merchants in Canton, the East India Company (EIC), Jardine Matheson & Co, and tea dealers based in London. The structure of the thesis allows it to decentre the role of the East India Company in this tea trade, and the ‘seeing history for the moment’ approach makes it possible to see the tea trade as it was and distance it from the Opium War.

Date of Award	17 Jun 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Amy Edwards (Supervisor) & Robert Bickers (Supervisor)