History of the tea industry

A multi-million dollar industry on which millions depend

The tea industry affects millions of people’s lives. 

It’s a multinational, multibillion dollar industry.

Tens of millions of people drink it. In fact no other drink in the world – except water – is more popular than tea.  

And around 13 million people depend on tea for their livelihoods. People who plant and prune the bushes, pluck the leaves, and process them in factories. Their families depend on them for their survival. Then there are the many companies that transport tea around the world, package it and sell it.  

Tea’s colonial roots

The taste for tea began to seriously take off around the world in the 1800’s. The tea trade was a major factor in underpinning the British and Dutch empires. They used it to raise taxes and to finance their empires. They even fought wars to gain control over the tea trade.

Tea was grown on plantations reminiscent of the cotton plantations of the Americas. People were transported from other – usually poorer – parts of their empires to work in the fields, sometimes under brutal and coercive conditions. Many were ‘indentured labourers’; they had to pay for their transport and employment and then were trapped in their jobs by their debt to the tea companies. Many tea plantation workers today are descendants of those labourers. 

Lower prices, lower pay

As tea became more and more popular, it also became cheaper so that more people could afford it. And to make it cheaper, processing techniques have been developed that have made it less special. Tea is now often sold in tea bags containing blends from several countries to ensure a uniform taste. This tea is often of a much lower quality than whole leaf or loose leaf tea. So many countries are producing tea now that there is also too much tea on the market and this is bringing prices down further. Cheaper tea means less money for the workers and farmers who produce it.

Enter the smallholder 

In the meantime, millions of smallholder farmers have also started growing tea around the world, attracted by the fact that it can be harvested all year round.  They have more freedom to earn money from different jobs and grow crops alongside tea. But they also face many different challenges – unless they join forces, they have little negotiating power, and they can’t benefit from economies of scale. But the biggest challenge they face is the same as that of plantation owners, the price we pay for tea is not enough to ensure that those who grow it can fulfil their human rights.

Time for a change

The old colonial ways of doing things on tea plantations are still used in many countries. But those ways are no longer in tune with today’s values and don’t always respect the human rights of tea workers. New challenges like the climate crisis are adding to the problem.

Although many tea companies and other organisations are working hard to improve the lives of tea workers and tea farmers, many of them arel stil trapped in low paying jobs, living in overcrowded, dilapidated houses, with poor healthcare and education facilities. 

THIRST is working with the tea industry, civil society and other stakeholders to try to find a way out of this situation. To try to create a resilient tea industry that is fit for the 21^st century. One that is fair for all.