The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social StructureChristoph Hess
In 19th-century England, afternoon tea would not have been complete without a serving of Keemun – one of the Victorians’ most prized black teas. This was not for a lack of choice. A secret operation headed by the Scottish botanist Robert Fortune, who donned Chinese-style garments to travel incognito to China’s tea regions, had seized the secrets of tea production and successfully established plantations in British India from the 1850s on. But many British consumers kept a taste for Chinese teas, especially the malty and slightly smoky Keemun, which, when scented with bergamot, made an excellent Earl Grey. What they may not have known was that their love for a cup of Keemun connected their warm salons to a group of Chinese serfs who picked the tea leaves from the steep mountain slopes of Qimen (old: Keemun) County in East China.