Category: Book

In space, no one can hear you scream

I was reading a sci-fi book (not linked to the title of this post as it would be too obvious and by know I think you know me) set in a very far-away future where mankind is no more and what remains are a full nation of huge spaceships that have to deal with an extraterrestrial threat. Don’t worry, I won’t bother you with a summary of the two books and their more than 1,000 pages but get straight to the point (without teasing just in case) and to the tea.

At the end of it, two of the main protagonists are watching something happening above them and trying to figure out what to do and one of them drinks a liquid just before this small dialogue takes place (the translation being mine and only mine, all mistakes are also mine):

  • This infusion has a strange taste to it.

  • This is no “infusion”, it is tea. The drink of a civilisation that no longer is.

And then they keep on looking at the skies where a space battle is taking place and talking about what to do and what not to do.

Apart that I was delighted to see in a book I was reading someone thinking that tea would still be around in the future, which means that I am not the only one thinking about tea in the future (apart from a bunch of Stormtroopers), it made me think about a couple of things.

Even if there is no human around and probably because the protagonists were in a way created by human beings, they value the products of the different civilisations originating from Earth (or at least one of them and no it has nothing to do with the British Empire). This means that by saying “the drink of a civilisation that no longer is”, it puts tea above every other drink, giving it a quasi mythological status and enabling the two characters drinking it to access to a quasi “human being” status because they act like ones even though the last human disappeared a long time ago.

What I find even more interesting is that for the writer in the future (and we speak of thousands of years) and in spite of the fading memories of everything linked to human cultures, drinking tea is still linked to moments of calm, meditation… I know this is a personal view but it reminded me of the legends of Shennong or Bodhidharma discovering tea while or after meditating. Perhaps the author knew about this because one of his two protagonists, the older one, the one that knows abou tea was at some point in its history the gardener of a stone garden, a bit like the zen gardens, the ones that are designed to imitate the essence of nature and not nature itself in order to help the gardeners to meditate on life.

And the last interesting thought I had is that tea is indeed a civilized drink as it is used to foster conversation and to do it in a civilized way while contemplating a space battle with thousand of deaths. Does it give the people drinking it the capacity to absorb themselves into something else or does it have something to do with being drunk slowly over and over, which makes people more likely to try to do something like small talk while waiting for the next gulp? Does it bring people to another plan of existence that makes them more gentle and likely to talk?

Because of what I wrote before and the thoughts these few lines brought to my mind, I couldn’t picture any other drink that could do the trick but perhaps I am biased. So tell me if you share this analysis or if I am completely wrong.

But beware of who or what might be roaming in space and in the far away future as “in space, no one can hear you scream” and I highly doubt tea will be able to save you.

Go West

No, this has nothing to do with the famous Pet Shop Boys’ song. What? No one else remembers this song? Such a shame. No, this one is not from the Pet Shop Boys but from Talk Talk.

Come on guys, know your classics or perhaps I should get back to tea? I think it is safer if we all agree to take the second option.

Go West is just the physical movement of the tea going from China to Russia, which will be our topic today. As my last post, I wrote this article after reading a book by Martha Avery titled The Tea Road, China and Russia meet across the steppe, a book which gave me a lot of information on this peculiar road (historical, economical,…).
The first recorded Russian experience with tea happened during the first recorded Russian embassy to the Khotogoit in 1638, the Khan made them try a “strong and bitter, green and fragrant” drink and then gave them some to bring back home, hoping to start a profitable business and to earn firearms to deal with the Manchu and the Chinese.

However, some Russian habits like a likeness to drink tea in glasses suggest that they might have had access to tea via the Persians, who drank tea like this and not the Chinese who drink tea in cups. And the first recorded trade agreements with people from this southern tea trade road were recorded during the reign of Ivan IV (1538-1584).

054 - Russian tea glass

An example of a Russian tea glass

“Podstakannik mit Gold” by Jürg Vollmer / Maiakinfo – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons –

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Podstakannik_mit_Gold.JPG#mediaviewer/File:Podstakannik_mit_Gold.JPG

It seems that, in spite of the early reserved reactions, a taste for tea had developed by the end of the 17th century.

Following the first treaties between the two great powers, a border was defined and several fortresses were built on the Russian side; one of them being Kyakhta (funded in 1728), which became a major trade city for the Tea Road thanks to its status as the Russian one and only open trade city.

The Russian tea road

The Tea Road, source: CCTV News

The tea trade grew steadily until it reached its highest level in the 1850s with for example in 1851, over 9 million pounds of leaf tea and over 4.5 million pound of brick tea going through this town.
The rise in fast oceanic trade (and textile from Great Britain and cotton goods from India) led to a fall in these figures but the “lower quality” brick tea made for non-European Russians continued for a while to flow through Kyakhta.

A view on Kyakhta

A view on Kyakhta

http://www.vintage-views.com/RussianPictures/images/0124k5-plate2.jpg

Another sector that kept on following the inland road was the best teas or family teas, produced in the Southern China Fujian plantations, with families owning since generations these “gardens” and their name being used as a sign of quality. This was so important that until the 20th century, any good Kyakhta tea merchant had to know a list of these plantations and be able to recognise them.

And since the Russian drinkers of these higher teas needed less roasted teas, which suited overland transport (and not oceanic ones), Kyakhta was also used as a major trade gate for these teas.
I guess you will all agree with me that the typical image of the Russian tea is one of a roasted tea with a camp fire smell and taste to it, which was only a small part of the business (and probably not the most lucrative one).

Funny isn’t it?

Another proof can be found in a book titled Report on the Russian Caravan Trade with China by Harry Parkes where he looks at the trade going in and out of Russia with an eye for tea.

What does he say about it? “The superiority of the tea consumed in Russia to the generality of that imported in the United Kingdom may be accounted by the circumstance of its being a more costly kind, unsuited on account of its expensiveness to our markets, where, if imported, it is only used to mix with or flavour other teas.”

It seems that at that time (1854), Russians were known to drink high quality teas (and also lower ones as we saw above), whereas England was a country where people drank low quality teas or where people were unwilling to pay for a good quality tea.

I think this had something to do with the way, tea was being imported in both countries. The early maritime shipments produced a low price tea which seems to have been heavily roasted and was not always of the highest quality available, whereas the non brick teas imported through the Russian merchants were from specific and well-known plantations, with a lighter taste and a population willing to pay for it (Russian Europeans in Moscow and Saint Petersburg).
However in the end, the rise of the British East India Company, the opium solution (see here for more detail), the increased speed of the clippers, the Suez Canal, steam combustion, the appearance of tea plantations in Darjeeling and Assam made the Tea Road decline evermore and before the end of the 19th century, it was no longer an attractive place to trade tea through (and Kyakhta had also to face competition in the 1860s after the opening of the whole Russian-Chinese border to trade).
Such is history; some routes, countries and places flourish when those from before struggle and in the end vanish.

Now my eyes are turned from the South to the North

I began reading The Tea Road by Martha Avery or how China and Russia meet across the steppe (the original subtitle). As could be expected from it, it is far more than a book on tea and contains a lot on Russian-Chinese relations and how the steppe influenced both of them (at least where I am in the book right now).

However, what I found really interesting was the chapter on Da Sheng Kui or “Great Prosperous Chief” an unknown (to me) Chinese conglomerate that came to dominate the trade with Mongolia and the tea trade with it and this post is written thanks to elements from the book as I couldn’t find elsewhere information on this company.
So I would first like to thank the author Martha Avery for her work on this unknown (to me) topic.

Why focus on this company? I will give you some figures taken from the book to explain my choice. 9 Chinese firms were dealing with Mongolia but the largest was Da Sheng Kui.
It was active in business from 1700 to 1929 and at its height, it employed 7,000 people and had a turnover of 10,000,000 silver dollars (19th century currency unit).

After the Quing took the power, China recovered from the difficult economical conditions of the late Ming period (mostly caused by the Little Ice Age and several natural catastrophes, which in China produce quite often a change of dynasty).
An increase in general welfare, population and less taxation created the right conditions for the merchants to flourish, even if the Quing limited the contact with outsiders and wary of the power of wealthy merchants limited their trading licences to better control them.

The history of Da sheng Kui is closely linked to the Quing dynasty and to their conquest of Mongolia.
His founder Wang Xiangqing sold his services to Manchu forces guarding a passage in the Great Wall before going with them in Mongolia to supply them with local and Chinese products (mostly tobacco, food, tea, livestock…) and at the same time, making useful contacts with the Mongolian tribes.

When they had taken control of most of their nomad neighbours, the Manchu established new trading rules abolishing the previous horse markets and issuing licences for lü meng shang or “travelling Mongolia companies”.
These companies could not have fixed places of residence in Mongolia, could only follow a predetermined route, could not pay for goods with silver (the metal more sought after by the Chinese) and could not stay in Mongolia for more than one year.

However, Wang Xiangqing first followed its “tradition” by providing the military and administrative base close to the Western parts of Mongolia (as some tribes still fought up to the mid-1750s) with the logistical network to bring them supply.

What really gave Da sheng Kui its competitive edge came in line a little bit later as under Jiaqing reign (1796-1820), the company was one of the two issued a long piao or Dragon Ticket, a ticket that was not only a licence to commerce but also one to become a kind of bank.
This was a very effective syphoning tool as the Mongolian nobility that wanted to buy good either for themselves or to sell to their “banners” (the area under their rule) would ask for a loan to the agent of Da Sheng Kui making their “banners” accountable for these loans that were paid back mostly in livestock.
When combining high pricing (for selling), low pricing (for buying), high interests and monopoly, it is no wonder that the company made huge profits.

This banking office was really important in their trading process as it gave them the money to caery their other businesses.
And the loaning office became even more important as after 1789, the Mongolian princes had to make regular visits to Beijing to pay tribute and attend at the Manchu court. Without the money to travel or unwilling to keep so much silver on them (as the travel, “proper face” and tribute expenses were quite high), they had to request the bank to loan them an amount of money determined according to the number of adult males in their “banners”. The bank personnel travelled with the princes and paid for everything.

But let’s get back to tea, somewhere in the 18th century with enough resources and in order to maximise profits, the company developed many specialised subsidiaries specialising in selling and buying different products from the whole China.
For tea, the company was San Yu Chuan or Three Jade Rivers, which mainly sourced its tea from selected locations in Hubei and Hunan.
In the early years of the 20th century, it bought between 6 and 8,000 cases per year for Mongolia (something between 380,000 and 510,000 kilos), with more being bought to be sold to the Russians.
San Yu Chuan mixed the origins and supply sources to adapt to the demand both in terms of quantity (just in case one area could not produce enough tea) and quality (through improvements in terms of process).

Without the right to settle, Da Sheng Kui had to use caravans to go and distribute its products to its customers and back to China with a maximum of 15 caravans on the road at one time, each of these including 14 smaller ones (nearly 3,000 camels).
The cases containing tea were filled with bricks of different size and the number in one case was the name of the product sold to the Mongolians (which preferred certain products of certain origins to others).

This successful company disappeared in 1929 for an unknown reason but probably because of the political turmoil in China.

What I find interesting in this history is how the political, financial and trade systems were combined together to create a monopolistic system that supplied tea (among other things) and took away all the resources from an area.
Tea as an instrument of power? Who would have thought that?

I find however that the amount of information on this company and on the others is not really big. Perhaps in Chinese? Do you know anything about these trade companies? About this trading-political system?

Without the answer to these questions, I will stop and resume my reading of this interesting book and see if I can find more information on this tea road between East and West.

Of tea and strategy

The Republic of Tea by Mel & Patricia Ziegler and Bill Rosenzweig

And no, this is neither a post on whether or not Sun Tzu, Clausewitz or any other general or theorist ever drank tea nor a real review of The Republic of Tea book.

What I intent to do here is to see if the story in this book can fit into an existing model of strategy formation.

But first, what is in this book?

It contains the various letters and faxes between Mel Ziegler and Bill Rosenzweig in 1990 and 1991 when they worked on what would become in 1992 the Republic of Tea company.

In it, they cover everything from motivation, product ideas, marketing, packaging, relations with business angels. If you want to look how a business comes out of an idea, this is a good book.

You will even be able to find their complete business plan at the end of the book.

What is “funny” and irritating at the same time is the main difference between Mel Ziegler and Bill Rosenzweig.

The first one will focus on a philosophical approach to business while the second one tries to get the practical things first while not being really willing to fully commit itself into the business.

I looked at the Republic of Tea website before writing and although the original founders sold their company in 1994 what I found the business is still in line with their original plans (for example, the children teas or the products that were launched over the years) but is not what they originally devised or had in mind (and this changed along the book too).

My analysis is that this results from a non conscious effort between the both of them to bring together two different concepts for strategy (the deliberate and the emergent one) into something else, the realised strategy.

But first, let’s define what these concepts are and then see if I am pushing the model or if it really fits here.

For this work, I am going to use the model provided by Mintzberg and Waters in their 1985 Of Strategies,Deliberate and Emergent; Strategic Management Journal, 6, 257-272.

Realised strategy is the strategy that is actually implemented.

Intended strategy is when an organisation has decided on a consistent course of action and when all its energy is focused on realising it, it becomes a deliberate strategy.

Unrealised strategy is what I call a good idea that was not practical enough to be implemented or that was no longer adapted to the context.

Emergent strategy is the answer to unexpected opportunities or to the lack of intentions.

The way all these concepts work together is described in the picture below.

As far as the Republic of Tea is concerned, the realised strategy is pretty obvious, it is the one that has been implemented.

The other ones are probably less obvious but can be found through the whole book.

Here are some examples coming from the book.

Mel Ziegler: “The fact is that creation is a projection of what already exists. What I am saying is that The Idea existed but had not manifested.”

Bill Rosenzweig: “what is the philosophy behind the Republic of Tea?”

Mel Ziegler: “To show through the metaphor of tea, the lightness of taking life sip by sip rather than gulp by gulp.

What would you say is the business behind the philosophy?”

Bill: “The business of The Republic of Tea is to sell (which means first we have to find) the best tea on Earth.”

Bill Rosenzweig: “the game, as you have so cleverly identified it, encompasses creativity and the process of being creative.”

Bill Rosenzweig: “4. In the middle of the night last night I woke up with ideas about the structure of our organization. I roughed them out on the attached sheet. I hope you can read the writing. Feel free to build on this and let me know your thoughts. And just for the challenge of it I took a stab at the first ten-year plan. This is a good exercice, even if it has nothing to do with what we end up doing, because it forces me to think where we want to go.

5. As I roughed out that org chart last night I realized that we need to write a “product charter” that guide our product-development process.”

Bill Rosenzweig: “Here are some more down-to-earth replies:

1. You’re right about painting our world too small […] I also find the packaging and pricing very intriguing. […]

I am working on a new diagram for us to show categories and distribution.[…] Waiting to have some information to come in before I can complete it.

3. Industry research. […] It will be important for us to feel confident about our point of entry.”

Bill Rosenzweig: “Last night it struck me that maybe it’s time for me to get somebody who’s a little less emotional about tea to tale a look at the business, and so I’ve appointed the other half of my brain as The Minister of Research, and here for a start is what I want him to find out:”

This is followed by a complete description of what is a tea industry analysis.

Mel Ziegler: “The key will be to find the right-talented like-minded people to own the offshoot business, and to lure them into helping the Republic of Tea creates itself.”

As you can see, we have two different strategy processes going on at the same time.

One that is rather predetermined and consistent all along the way, this is the intended/deliberate strategy.

The other one is dependent upon the circumstances and evolves all along the creation of the Republic of Tea. It is the emergent strategy that shapes the intended/deliberate one into what become the realised strategy.

Following Mintzberg and Waters’ classification of the different types of strategy processes, we are here typically in what they call a process strategy where the leadership focuses on designing the system that forms the ground from which the different patterns of action comes out.

You will say that this is what all new businesses do.

Perhaps but it is the first time I see this written in a book as most of the time, you only hear about how the creators had a wonderful idea, made it and sold it.

This alone makes the book worth reading.

Tea and Opium

For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World’s Favorite Drink and Changed History by Sarah Rose

 

To summarize it in a few words, this books is the story of how Robert Fortune stole the secrets of tea for the British East India Company to bring them from China to India in the middle of the 19th century.

Yes, this is right: tea was right in the middle of a James Bond novel, perhaps not the modern James Bond but at least a Victorian one.

But this is not what is really interesting in this book (or at least not for this blog). What I found truly fascinating are the reasons behind him stealing the secrets of tea.

Let’s sum up thFlag of the British East India Companyings: the introduction of tea in India and in the Darjeeling Estates is the result of an immune system, the immune system of one of the first megacorporation known to the world: the East India Company or British East India Company.

But in order to understand this, two little steps back in time are needed:

First, how was the trade balance between European powers and China? To be honest, it was not good: demand for Chinese products (tea, silk and porcelain among others) was high while China had no need for European products and wanted silver. For the mercantilist economists that ruled in Europe during that era, this resulted in a impoverishment (as the prosperity of a State depended on the amount of precious metal it owned) and this was not a viable solution on the long run. For the United Kingdom, it was even worst as it no longer used silver standard but gold one and it had to buy silver from other European countries, losing a bit of money each time.

This is why the East India Company, which held a monopoly over trade with the Far East (via a royal charter) decided to sell a high value commodity: opium (produced in the Bengal area, that more or less belonged to the British East India Company since Clive’s victory at the battle of Plassey in 1757).

Ship of the British East India Company

The high prices and increasing demand (from an estimate of 15 tons in 1730 to 900 tons in the 1820s) made sure that the trade balance was improving (Great Britain even fought two wars against China to keep this business running).

 

Then why did the East India Company needed to steal the secrets of tea? There are several answers to this question: first of all, they were slowly losing their trade monopoly (first with India and then with China) and were unable to cope with the new competitors (including other countries); they also needed more money to deal with wars and expansion on the Indian borders (which the Company paid for); last but not least, they were afraid that China might legalise the cultivation of opium and/or steal it from India (the Bengali opium was of higher quality than the Chinese one).

In order to solve all these problems, the British East India Company decided to produce their own tea in Darjeeling, a place that seemed well suited for these products. The first intents used tea found in Assam and tea smuggled of Canton but it was not a success and quality was low.

Now, you get the overall picture. The British East India Company had to deal with a big problem as they needed more money but had to give a lot of it to their suppliers.

This is the reason behind their first move: replacing money by another product, one that they could produce rather easily and that was highly addictive (making it even more profitable): opium.

The next evolution came from the increased competition (with the end of the trade monopoly) and the fears that China might become a competitor for the Indian opium. The only solution the British East India Company found was to keep on producing opium for the Chinese while at the same time, they tried to launch their own production of tea to take away that market from China.

The end result was an increase of the profits as once the quality had increased and the industrial processes were known, the Indian production could be sold on the London market while being promoted as safer as the Chinese one (as the Chinese used some dangerous chemical products to make their green leaves greener as Westerners always wanted the greenest ones).

 

In modern times, we would use words such as trade war, industrial espionage, marketing,…

Without judging its ethics or its success, it seems that the British East India Company was rather modern when it comes to business survival and evolution and that it was indeed the first megacorporation (in a true cyberpunk way) in history.