The Great Tea Race, 1866

May 1866, the Pagoda Anchorage on the Min River below Fuzhou. Sixteen of the fastest ships in the world lie at anchor with their holds open, waiting for the season's first tea to come down the river. Whoever lands it in London first takes the premium, and every crew on the water knows it. Five of them actually race: Taeping, Ariel, Serica, Fiery Cross and Taitsing.

Ariel finishes loading first, at two in the afternoon of 28 May, and then a weak tug and a low tide hold her in the river — so Fiery Cross reaches open sea fourteen hours ahead of her. Ariel, Taeping and Serica cross the bar together on 30 May. Ninety-nine days and more than fourteen thousand miles later, those same three come up the Thames on the same tide. Taeping docks first, by about twenty minutes, according to the journal kept by Ariel's own captain — who noted that the newspapers were calling it half an hour.

What was in the holds were not brands but sorts. Bohea meant tea from the Wuyi Mountains of Fujian, the range early Western writers called the Bohea Hills, and it was the commonest leaf afloat. Souchong meant a small sort, the fourth and fifth leaves off the bush. Congou was the everyday black. The greens were sorted through twankay, hyson skin, hyson, young hyson and gunpowder — tightest rolled, and last.

Four of those sorts are still on the shelf. Lapsang Souchong, Organic is Wuyi souchong finished over pine smoke, and it is the only China black here that a sailor in 1866 would recognise. Gunpowder, Organic is the pellet off the end of that sorting, rolled tight enough to survive months of packing and salt air. Precious Eyebrow, Organic is zhen mei, named for the curve of the leaf. Congou Rose is a congou scented with rose petals.

The rest of the ship ate out of barrels. Sea Salt, Coarse and Pickling Spice are what went into them at Fuzhou and what came out ninety-nine days later. Lemon Peel, Granule is the jar the cook kept back for himself — the one bright thing in a galley where everything else had been packed since China.

Seven products. Ninety-nine days, and twenty minutes in it.