The Dutch East India Company's Tea Trade with China, 1757-1781 (Tanap Monographs on the History of the Asian-European Interaction)

This book is a case study of the Dutch East India Company's tea trade with China, dealing with the phase of 1757-1781, the longest and most important and profitable phase of the Dutch Company's China trade. It focuses on the question why and how the tea trade was taken out of the hands of the High Government in Batavia and put under the supervision of the newly established China Committee in 1757. Various factors which contributed to the phenomenal rise of this trade and its sudden decline are dealt with in detail. This study fills in some of the lacunae left open by previous research and is a contribution to a more comprehensive understanding of the VOC trade with Asia.