Chinese-Russian tea trade

История начала поставок чая из Китайской Империи с Российскую по материалам статьи Алексея Волынца.

The most popular drink appeared in the country in the 17th century, and after another two centuries its use became widespread.

Probably, Russian merchants and travelers to the East could learn about tea in the days of the Horde. But the documentary history of Russian tea begins only on September 5, 1638, when from Tomsk, then the main center of Russian colonization in Siberia, the embassy went to the Mongolian Altyn Khan.

Mongols tea was known at least from the era of the Chinese Song Dynasty, when at the beginning of the XII century, Emperor Huijun, captured by nomads, was an unlucky ruler, but a sophisticated Taoist philosopher, the creator of the tea ceremony and the author of the China Treatise on Tea, was held captive on the Mongolian border and Manchuria.

In 1689, Russia concluded the first contract with China, and state-owned fur caravans began to be sent from Moscow to Beijing, which was also exchanged for tea. Systematic trade with the most populated and richest country in the world at that time was considered in Moscow as the most important source of income for the state treasury. By the end of the reign of Peter the Great, about 3,000 poods (48 tons) of tea were imported from Russia to China each year.

In 1727, Russia and China signed an agreement on duty-free border trade, which was carried out on the modern border of Mongolia and Buryatia in the town of Kyakhta. And over the next ten years, the import of tea in Russia grew by an order of magnitude - up to 30 thousand pounds per year.

throughout the XVIII century, the scale of the import of tea is constantly growing: if in 1749 tea was purchased for 4 thousand rubles, then in 1780 it was already 28 thousand, and in 1792 by 399 thousand rubles. By the end of the century, tea was firmly established in the life of the upper strata of Russian society, nobility, and merchants. At the beginning of the reign of Alexander I, the most expensive types of tea were sold in Russia at a price of 10–12 rubles in banknotes per pound, about two or three peasant cows. According to the recollections of those close to him, Emperor Alexander I every day since morning "ate tea, always green, with thick cream and toasted croutons and white bread."
Translate from Alexey Volynets article "Short story about tea in Russia"

Map of the tea trade chain in XIX century was a part of the book "Tea trade in Russia" which was sold in our antique shop.

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