Tea Tasting A Historic-Anthropological Study of Tea Cultivation and Commodification

Date of Award

2006

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Baram, Uzi

Keywords

Tea, World-System, Marketing, East India Company, Drug-Food, Ethnography, Commodification

Area of Concentration

Anthropology

Abstract

This thesis follows a single modern commodity, tea, from its geographic origin of cultivation in southwestern China to its spread as a trans-nationally produced drug-food crop. I explore tea�s role in the world-system from a historical political economic perspective and examine the way it is marketed both on supermarket shelves and through an ethnographic investigation of a teashop. Discussing the history of the tea trade, I trace its trajectory and the web of human connections involved, with a focus on the British mercantile trade with China and the how tea came to be consumed in Great Britain and how it effected social practices and acquired symbolic significance from those who drank it. I argue that tea, as a capitalist commodity, is marketed to consumers in a way that silences the harsh conditions experienced by the laborers who manufacture the good. Ultimately, I use the historical context of tea consumption and commodification to examine various tropes evoked by tea marketers, including those who romanticize labor or use stereotypical images of Asian people to suggest the exotic.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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