Funny story- Historic India got tea from northern china which is why Chai sounds like the Mandarin word for tea, "Cha". But because the British got their tea from Hong Kong, they learned the Cantonese word for tea, "te". So since they learned the Cantonese word first, " Chai" began to mean "indian-style tea" specifically, because Brittain never had real interaction with northern china.
Before clean water people drank weak beer to avoid illness (not knowing boiling water killed germs.) Tea did the same but without getting drunk. It also powered the industrial revolution making workers more productive!
Back in that day, Western nations didn't see Opium (or other addictive substance in that matter) as addictive drugs (because science didn't know it yet, chemistry still in its infancy), they were just other goods such as cocaine toothpaste(you can search for it). It's so happened to be one thing China wants so they just go for it as China didn't want to negotiate in their view. And Chinese actually has demand for opium long before British came in, Chinese drug runners have long been smuggling those into China from India to Persia. When British knew they made a monopoly on opium and sell in a stronger version (after Chinese people seems to 'like' them more when it more pure), and profit back from it.
they couldn't really grow tea at the time. China kept their tea plants under extreme security to avoid losing a monopoly on it. And trying to even sneak tea tree seeds or any other cultivar out of the country was punishable by death. Eventually a british spy managed to smuggle enough out to properly start a farm and that largely killed China's tea monopoly in a few decades once they were able to scale it up and Tea tree cultivars spread across the world to pretty much any area you could grow them. However that happens after the Opium War. A similar thing happened to Porcelain (another major Chinese export), with a british chemist eventually figuring out how to replicate it and make knock-off "china" ceramics.
Also: Tea was the first and only source of caffeine for most of Eurasian history, and didn't exist much in Europe until the 15-1600s.. It is often said that tea caused the enlightenment... In a continent that had never seen caffeine, tea IS A drug. Not a harmful one like opium obvs, but essentially natural adderall
I’m a bit confused as to why the narrator keeps referring to the British East India Company as “the honorable”. Hand it to Extra credits to sanitize such aggression by the HONORABLE British Empire.
Also, it’s not an illegal act to burn the opium if it’s being done by the government who have already made it illegal to have. It’s like saying American forces burning drugs they confiscate illegal.
I believe ‘honorable’ is a title the company actually had for itself and the narrator is emphasizing it for irony. It’s sarcasm, not sanitizing history.
Funny story- Historic India got tea from northern china which is why Chai sounds like the Mandarin word for tea, "Cha".
But because the British got their tea from Hong Kong, they learned the Cantonese word for tea, "te".
So since they learned the Cantonese word first, " Chai" began to mean "indian-style tea" specifically, because Brittain never had real interaction with northern china.
Before clean water people drank weak beer to avoid illness (not knowing boiling water killed germs.)
Tea did the same but without getting drunk. It also powered the industrial revolution making workers more productive!
Back in that day, Western nations didn't see Opium (or other addictive substance in that matter) as addictive drugs (because science didn't know it yet, chemistry still in its infancy), they were just other goods such as cocaine toothpaste(you can search for it). It's so happened to be one thing China wants so they just go for it as China didn't want to negotiate in their view.
And Chinese actually has demand for opium long before British came in, Chinese drug runners have long been smuggling those into China from India to Persia. When British knew they made a monopoly on opium and sell in a stronger version (after Chinese people seems to 'like' them more when it more pure), and profit back from it.
they couldn't really grow tea at the time. China kept their tea plants under extreme security to avoid losing a monopoly on it. And trying to even sneak tea tree seeds or any other cultivar out of the country was punishable by death. Eventually a british spy managed to smuggle enough out to properly start a farm and that largely killed China's tea monopoly in a few decades once they were able to scale it up and Tea tree cultivars spread across the world to pretty much any area you could grow them.
However that happens after the Opium War.
A similar thing happened to Porcelain (another major Chinese export), with a british chemist eventually figuring out how to replicate it and make knock-off "china" ceramics.
Also: Tea was the first and only source of caffeine for most of Eurasian history, and didn't exist much in Europe until the 15-1600s..
It is often said that tea caused the enlightenment...
In a continent that had never seen caffeine, tea IS A drug. Not a harmful one like opium obvs, but essentially natural adderall
3 million lbs of opium is roughly 1500 tons
For contry only have 100. Million pople. Is alot
Could you react to Monsieur Z’s “7 Ages of America and the presidents behind them”
I’m a bit confused as to why the narrator keeps referring to the British East India Company as “the honorable”. Hand it to Extra credits to sanitize such aggression by the HONORABLE British Empire.
Also, it’s not an illegal act to burn the opium if it’s being done by the government who have already made it illegal to have. It’s like saying American forces burning drugs they confiscate illegal.
@@ExE7333 good points
I believe ‘honorable’ is a title the company actually had for itself and the narrator is emphasizing it for irony. It’s sarcasm, not sanitizing history.
The Honorable was in their name
@@ExE7333 in a twist of historic irony, the Chinese are waging a low scale opium war against the United States.