Nothing to Brewed About

“By the middle of the nineteenth century, the British East India Company had held a monopoly on the fantastically lucrative tea trade with China for two centuries. But the British Crown had just rescinded the monopoly, and China was threatening to grow its own [limited legitimate need] opium, long used [by force – the Opium Wars – when deemed necessary] to finance its tea purchases. If the company was to stay in the tea business – if it was to survive at all – it realized it would need to grow its own tea on territory it controlled in the Indian Himalayas…

“The Chinese had fiercely guarded [its tea growing, picking and processing] secrets deep within the country’s mountainous inland tea-growing regions, long closed to foreigners. The only way [to obtain such secrets], it became clear, was to steal them. So in 1848 the company dispatched Robert Fortune, a Scottish gardener, botanist, and plant hunter, on an extraordinary quest.” For All the Tea in China (jacket inset) by Sarah Rose. Disguised as a Chinese person (folks inland didn’t know there were non-Chinese on earth!), Fortune (pictured above) and his Chinese crew made several trips inland, down rivers and across mountains, eventually extracting enough plants and seeds (along with knowledge of how to grow, pick and process tea) to establish massive tea plantations in the mountainous northeastern p art of India, particularly in the Assam region. For many in Europe and the United States, tea production became synonymous with India… and not China.

So how does Dekom work this ancient trade theft into a relevant contemporary issues analysis? By noting that global climate change is now threatening the very productivity of those same Indian tea plantations. Assam is the main tea-growing region of India: “Assam produces nearly 55 percent of the tea crop in India, a nation that accounts for 31 percent of global tea production. But the region's tea production has dipped significantly, and plantation owners fear it will drop further as temperatures rise and rainfall patterns change… Assam produced 564,000 tons of tea in 2007, but slipped to 487,000 tons in 2009. The 2010 crop is estimated to be about 460,000 tons, said Dhiraj Kakaty, who heads the Assam Branch Indian Tea Association, an umbrella group of some 400 tea plantations…

“Mridul Hazarika, director of the Tea Research Association, one of the world's largest tea research centers, blames climate change for Assam's shortfall. He said the region's temperatures have risen 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over the last eight decades.” New York Times, December 31^st. Prices have risen by 10% as a result of this reduction in output.

Rising temperatures in the region have produced not only reductions in yield, but a change in the underlying flavors and quality of what is produced: “In this humid, lush region where an important part of the world's breakfast is born, the evidence of climate change is - literally - a weak tea… Growers in tropical Assam state… say rising temperatures have led not only to a drop in production but to subtle, unwelcome changes in the flavor of their brews… The area in northeastern India is the source of some of the finest black and British-style teas. Assam teas are notable for their heartiness, strength and body, and are often sold as ‘breakfast’ teas… ‘Earlier, we used to get a bright, strong cup. Now it's not so,’ said L.P. Chaliha, a professional tea taster…

“Nor are tea growers alone in their concern about how the climate is changing the taste of their product. French vintners, for instance, have seen the taste and alcohol content change for some wines, and are worried they could see more competition as climate change makes areas of northern Europe friendlier to wine-growing… The U.N. science network foresees temperatures rising up to 6.4 degrees Celsius (11.5 degrees F) by 2100. NASA reported earlier this month that the January-November 2010 period was the warmest globally in the 131-year record. U.N. experts say countries' current voluntary pledges on emissions cuts will not suffice to keep the temperature rise in check. ” The NY Times. In some subtle ways – and in some not so subtle (like more intense hurricanes and typhoons) – our lives are changing because of the way we have used nature’s resources. Choosing to do something about global climate change takes courage… because the solutions are also highly disruptive.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as I read the tea leaves of global political and economic change, I am hoping that there will indeed be tea leaves to read.