Tag: Robert Fortune
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The Wild Heart of Assam: A Secret Hidden in Plain Sight
In 1823, a Scottish adventurer named Robert Bruce was trading in Assam when a local nobleman directed him to a Singpho tribal chief, and to a wild tea plant the tribe had been brewing, smoking, and eating for generations. The British authorities dismissed it as too coarse for civilized tastes. It took an industrial spy,…
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Why I Traded the “National Drink” for the Big Mug
Why I traded Finnish coffee culture for tea. Discover the story of the Great Tea Heist of 1848 and how Robert Fortune smuggled 13,000 plants out of China to break an empire’s monopoly.