admintea from deep within China and took it to India in the mid-1800s, changing history.
His venture required years of toil up China’s rivers by boat to places where no Westerner had gone before, overcoming illness, pirate attacks and untrustworthy associates in the quest for tea seeds and plants that could be grown in India.
For much of his second journey, he dressed in Chinese clothes, a fake queue of hair down his back. “People had tried to do what he had done, people had tried to sneak it out via the treaty ports, people had tried to appropriate tea seeds and take them to India, and it ended in failure,” said writer Sarah Rose, who spent weeks tracing Fortune’s trail through China.
“The plant hunters were the R&D men of the (British) Empire. They took raw materials and said, what can we do with this, and created an entirely new world. And he was one of the very last guys to do that.”
Rose’s efforts resulted in a book, “For All the Tea in China,” that chronicles Fortune’s journeys, which finally enabled tea to be grown in India and broke China’s monopoly on the beloved beverage for good.
The son of a Scottish farm worker, Fortune’s knowledge of plants and science came from practical experience, not higher education.
His low social station meant he was only grudgingly provided with weapons by the Royal Horticultural Society, which sponsored the first of his plant-hunting journeys. – Reuters Life!
Online Reporter
- Herald
- July 24, 2026
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