the saying price of tea in china comes from economists.
where does the saying price of tea in china come from?
economists
a common form, "what does that have to do with the price of tea in china?", is a retort to an irrelevant suggestion. this facetious usage implies that the topic under discussion might as well be the price of tea in china for all the relevance the speaker's suggestion bears on it. it has been said that this expression has stemmed from economists, who describe everything economic as affecting everything else, trying to find an expression which denotes the farthest logical connection from their current economic focus, in a sort of butterfly effect. in this way, the price of tea in china was used to denote the farthest possibility. it can also be used to denote an irrelevant topic.
what's that got to do with the...?
when tea was first introduced to england, the british east india company was not directly trading with china and merchants relied on tea imports from holland. because this tea was so expensive and difficult to get, there was very little demand for it, except among the elite who could afford it and made special orders. it was not until after 1700 that the british east india company began to trade regularly with china and ordering tea, though not in large quantities. smith argues that the tea trade was actually a side effect of the silk and textile trade because these were the chinese commodities that were most desired at the time. in 1720, however, parliament banned the importation of finished asian textiles and traders began to focus on tea instead. this new focus marked a turning point for the english tea trade and is arguably why tea became more popular than coffee. once the british east india company focused on tea as its main import, tea soon attained price stability. conversely, the price of coffee remained unpredictable and high, allowing tea to grow in popularity before coffee became more accessible. furthermore, the rising demand for tea and sugar was easily met with increased supply as the tea industry grew in india, which prevented sharp price increases that would have discouraged people from buying it. in fact, the price of tea actually fell as it was becoming more popular among the upper-middle and middle classes. the significant drop in tea’s price between 1720 and 1750 was a major turning point for tea in england. the increase in supply of tea was one of the most important factors that boosted its popularity in britain and opened up the world of tea to new levels of society.
tea in the united kingdom