2004
Volume 56, Issue 2024
  • ISSN: 2589-4617
  • E-ISSN: 2667-2081

Abstract

Abstract:

This article shows how knowledge about tea circulated through the Dutch East India Company’s (VOC’s) information network during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Knowledge about tea was not only an example of the scientific advances Europeans made regarding Asia, it can and should also be seen as a commercial product in itself. The production and circulation of tea knowledge was nourished in considerable part by the efforts of VOC employees, with varying rates of success. In their endeavors, they found themselves often supported, yet occasionally also obstructed, by the VOC. While scientific activity under the VOC has often been described as either deliberate business policy or as an unintended offshoot of commerce, the story of tea serves as a compelling case to argue that the hodgepodge of actors and materials moving through space and time calls for more nuanced historiographical examination of long-distance information networks.

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