Contrary to what the American media have been reporting these past few weeks, no “Tea Bags” were thrown into Boston Harbor during the American Revolution. The colonial tax protesters threw crates of tea into the harbor, which may have contained these oven-baked “Tea Bricks.” There was NO SUCH THING as a “Tea Bag” in those days. The Boston Tea Party happened in 1773. The “Tea Bag” was invented 135 years later, in 1908.
Our colonial ancestors were protesting the raising of taxes without representation when they stopped purchasing and drinking British tea. When the brave Bostonians of so long ago, participated in their Boston Tea Party, there was no such thing as a “Tea Bag” anywhere in the world. One method of shipping tea to colonial America was to pack the dried leaves into heavy, compressed, baked bricks, as illustrated above, tightly packed in wooden crates. This protected the tea leaves from mildew and dampness during the long months at sea and in storage.
America’s media such as Chris Matthews of MSNBC and Anderson Cooper of CNN got it wrong when they described these current tax protests as “Tea Bag” Parties.
UPDATE: Here is a great photograph of some of the original tea which washed up on the shoreline after the Boston Tea Party of 1773: Massachusetts Historical Society
The image, Tea Bricks – NOT Tea Bags!, is subject to copyright by barneykin. It is posted here with permission via the Flickr API by barneykin.
June 28, 2009 at 10:47 pm |
Actually it wasn’t brick tea either. I only know this because I thought the same thing but reading accounts of the day I discovered that it was loose leaf tea that was thrown into the harbor. Brick tea was around but not popular in the Colonys. There are also lists of the type of tea and in another surprise much of it (but not all) was green tea. Only some of it was the Bohea tea mentioned in period songs.
June 29, 2009 at 8:50 am |
Some of the museums of Revolutionary War items have on display the original chests that were thrown into the harbor. The chests were designed to hold bricks of tea, not loose tea. If you can give links to where this information exists, I would appreciate it. This is the first I have ever heard that they threw tea leaves into the harbor.
June 29, 2009 at 8:55 am |
George Hewes was a member of the band of “Indians” that boarded the tea ships in December 1773, and he wrote about it. Note there is NO mention of “Tea Bags.”
From: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/teaparty.htm
June 29, 2009 at 1:29 pm |
In re: “Some of the museums of Revolutionary War items have on display the original chests that were thrown into the harbor.”
To my knowledge, there is one possible surviving chest from the Boston Tea Party, now owned by the company working to rebuild the Boston Tea Party Ship and Museum. Nothing about that chest indicates that it was designed for tea bricks.
So we have to go to documentary sources, such as the shipping records (reprinted in B. W. Labaree’s Boston Tea Party) and recollections of participants such as Ebenezer Stevens. Those indicate that the wooden chests were wrapped in canvas and full of loose leaves of particular sorts of tea, most black and some green.
There are no remarks in those documents about tea bricks, nor in other depictions of tea-drinking in British North America. Such bricks were a technological solution to the challenge of transporting tea over land to markets elsewhere in Asia.
It’s true that tea bags were just as unknown in Britain’s North American colonies as tea bricks.
June 29, 2009 at 11:12 pm |
Everything I’ve read so far confirms my impression that it was NOT loose tea thrown into the harbor.
Here is another firsthand account which does seem to imply they were not hard bricks of tea (http://www.boston-tea-party.org/account-Samuel-Cooper.html):
July 1, 2009 at 12:06 pm |
The first account mentioned from George Hewes record of events says this also.
“During the time we were throwing the tea overboard, there were several attempts made by some of the citizens of Boston and its vicinity, to carry off small quantities of it for their family use. To effect that object, they would watch their opportunity to snatch up a handful from the deck, where it became plentifully scattered, and put it into their pockets. One Captain O’Conner, whom I well knew, came on board for that purpose, and when he supposed he was not noticed, filled his pockets, and also the lining of his coat. But I had detected him, and gave information to the captain of what he was doing.
Then later
Another attempt was made to save a little tea from the ruins of the cargo, by a tall aged man, who wore a large cocked hat and white wig, which was fashionable at that time. He had slightly slipped a little into his pocket, but being detected, they seized him, and taking his hat and wig from his head, threw them, together with the tea, of which they had emptied his pockets, into the water. In consideration of his advanced age, he was permitted to escape, with now and then a slight kick.
There is also a surviving bottle of tea from the tea party at the Massachusetts Historical Society
http://www.masshist.org/objects/2006february.cfm
I do wish we could all just go back in time with a camera and get some good pictures.
July 1, 2009 at 7:36 pm |
Thanks for that great link Dan. My impression had always been that tea was shipped in those baked bricks as a way of preserving the tea from mildew and dampness which would have ruined it. Perhaps my impression was not accurate. I cannot find anything to document exactly how the tea was shipped. Hopefully, someone will be able to do so. I am revising my post. But one thing is certain. The tea was not shipped as TEA BAGS!
July 2, 2009 at 11:05 am |
I don’t think you will find any argument on the Tea Bag issue.
I really enjoy your site and I believe the more people talking and thinking about the Revolution the better.
Tea Parties have become as iconic as flags behind a politician. I have seen everything from anti war tea parties to anti big government tea parties. The connection to the Boston Tea Party is really only the spirit of American protest. I like them all because they provide a chance to talk about the 1st tea party just as your blog did. The discussion also forced me to go back and find some of my old research on the subject to explain why I believe what I believe. I still haven’t found one of the letters I was looking for but I found a few new things by accident.
Thanks for keeping a great and important conversation about our Country’s founding going.
Dan
August 11, 2009 at 10:43 pm |
The only way to follow what “They” say is to know that I am the man in the Mirror?!! I always look at what I do so i can be Aligned with God. If only the Tea parties were really Patriotic Movements. “They” take names and don’t kick a_ _. I wonder Who would be doing this?!! Maybe the cia or some other type or form of our goverment. They Hate crime. (their version of it anyWay!!!) A man that loves GOD!