The Dutch East India Company's tea trade with China, 1757-1781

Liu, Y. (2006)

Doctoral Thesis

This case study of the tea trade of the Dutch East India Company with China deals with its most profitable phase, when a direct shipping link was established between Canton and the Dutch Republic in the second half of the eighteenth century. It focuses on the questions why and how the tea trade was taken out of the hands of the High Government in Batavia in 1757 and put under the supervision of the newly established China Committee in Amsterdam, and explains in detail what factors contributed to the phenomenal rise of this trade and its sudden decline in the 1780s.

• Tea
• Trade
• Dutch East India Company
• Dutch Republic
• China Committee
• Supercargo
• Batavia
• Canton
• China
• Dissertation

• All authors: Liu, Y.
• Supervisor: Blussé van Oud-Alblas, H.J.
• Qualification: Doctor (dr.)
• Awarding Institution: Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University
• Date: 2006-12-06
• Court: LEI Universiteit Leiden
• Sponsorship: The TANAP Project (Towards a New Age of Partnership: A Dutch-Asian-South African Historical Research Project), the Kong Koan Project (Research Project of the Kong Koan Archives of the Chinese Council in Batavia/Jakarta), the CNWS (Research School of Asian, African, and Amerindian Studies), NWO (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research), and the Universities of Leiden and Xiamen.