Robert Fortune
person
Robert Fortune (1812–1880) was a Scottish botanist and plant collector who, in 1848, was engaged by the East India Company — on the recommendation of the botanist John Forbes Royle — to travel into China's closed interior tea districts, disguised and in breach of the restrictions on foreign movement, and to remove tea plants, seed and manufacturing knowledge for use in British India. This was industrial espionage carried out for a state-backed commercial monopoly, and should be described as such rather than as exploration. He used Wardian cases, sealed glazed containers, to keep living material alive on the sea passage, and he recruited Chinese tea makers to accompany the plants to India. He also established, for British readers, that green and black tea are the same plant differently processed.
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Evidence · 2
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Connections · 3
- English (later British) East India Companycreated_by
- Shanghailocated_in
- Royal Botanic Gardens, Kewmember_of
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