Current Research

The Biocultural Diaspora of Tea in the 21st Century

About | PhD

My PhD research project was intentionally designed to be interdisciplinary and developed in partnership with Royal Holloway, University of London, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, to address the new geographies of tea production in the 21st Century.

Tea cultivation is experiencing a renaissance in Europe and North America, with an expanding number of tea growers and makers supplying niche speciality teas to consumers globally, chiefly facilitated via Internet marketing. I find this human behaviour, paired with its historical context, fascinating. Therefore, my research examines the implications of this phenomenon for cultures of tea production, our understanding of tea’s geographies, and, importantly, tea’s biodiversity as we all face climate uncertainty and stress.

This project has evolved from my research into the historic tea specimens in the Economic Botany collection at Kew. This work, discussed below, highlights the significance of these specimens in documenting the successive introductions of tea cultivation, first in Assam, then in Sri Lanka, Jamaica, Kenya, and other colonies within the British Empire. My doctoral research builds on this to investigate contemporary introductions of tea in the United Kingdom and the United States.

DO YOU GROW TEA (Camellia sinensis) in the UNITED KINGDOM or UNITED STATES??

Bushes to acres—

I want to talk to you.

Please tell me your story via: aurora.prehn.2023@live.rhul.ac.uk

Tea in the Economic Botany Collection at Kew Gardens

About | EBC, Kew

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a large botanical institute southwest of London, England, today housing one of the most diverse living and preserved botanical and mycological collections in the world. Founded as royal gardens in the 18th century, Kew came under government sponsorship in 1840, with its first director, Sir William Jackson Hooker, assuming the post in 1841. The first scientific collection to be established at Kew was the Museum of Vegetable Products, which opened to the public on 20th September 1847, at a time when tea was beginning a new chapter as a global commodity. Soon renamed the Museum of Economic Botany, it displayed raw and processed plant products — both nature and culture — from around the world, serving as both an aid to manufacturers looking for reliable information on raw materials and as an educational attraction for the visiting public.

Over the next 60 years, a systematic effort was made to gather plant products from around the world through personal, official, and industrial contacts, as well as through exchanges with overseas institutions. Tea was well represented among these products, and by 1855, when the first guide to the Museum was published, it already comprised an extensive collection; many of these specimens are still in the collection today. Kew’s tea collection is distinct from those of most other museums and archives in that it is composed primarily of tea leaves, rather than teaware or documents. Collecting activities declined in the twentieth century as other institutions took over the Museum’s role as an interface between global producers of raw materials and manufacturers in Britain. In 1987, the contents of the former Museum buildings were moved to a purpose-built research storehouse and renamed as the Economic Botany Collection. At present it is the most extensive collection of its kind, containing around 100,000 specimens, 425 of which (and growing) relate to tea, with the majority coming from Asia and collected between 1847 and 1914.

For a visual introduction to the collection and areas of research, please visit YouTube for a new series.

About | Research

Now expanded into a doctoral project, this work represents the first extended research into Kew’s tea collection in the last century. It was initially prompted by two research questions: the first asks how the history of plantation crops, such as tea, is relevant to understanding their global position today. Widely traded, consumed, and culturally valued plants such as tea, cotton, and rubber have a correspondingly wide array of complicated, often contested histories. I am curious as to how Kew and other agents of British commerce and empire were connected to today’s global cultivation of tea. To what extent did Kew’s collection represent export commodities or local products? What did the acquisition of specimens tell us about Kew’s networks, purpose, and relationship to industry? The second broad question asks whether artefacts found in material culture collections such as Kew’s can offer different, complementary insights to the text and image-based resources that are more usually the basis of historical research. To do this with the help and guidance of curator and professor Dr. Mark Nesbitt, we combined our skills in collections history (MN), ethnobotany (MN/AP), and tea (AP), enabling us to elicit data from at times unassuming material - jars and boxes of old tea - taking care to draw both upon the stories of Kew, and of the communities from which these teas were sourced.

Methods include analysis of the textual evidence that accompanies objects, such as the Museum Entry Books, digitised catalogue, and materials in Kew’s archive. I also conducted a physical analysis, engaging in a holistic review of the objects, beginning with the labels—the basis of the textual data—and then examining the non-textual evidence through sensory interaction with the objects, using sight, touch, and smell. This method was revealing and exposed details, similarities, and themes not evident in the written record, thereby helping to understand the collection as a whole. Prior to the pandemic's arrival in England, we also arranged workshops in winter 2019, hosting visits to view the collection by approximately 50 members of the UK and Irish tea industry—a format we hope to continue with different stakeholders. With plans to return and complete this project in spring 2020 interrupted, I continued working remotely in the USA until summer 2022, when I returned with the generous sponsorship of Denys Shortt OBE. Research on this collection has continued in my doctoral project in the Geography Department at Royal Holloway, in Egham, Surrey, United Kingdom, beginning in 2023.

About | Browsing the EBC Catalogue

The EBC is physically organised by plant family (Theaceae then Camellia then sinensis) and so is its database. The collection is best searched broadly by the plant family, then by genus and species. Simple searches, such as a donor name or location, can also be used in tandem. For tea, the collection can be searched with terms such as ‘Camellia’. The online database is updated periodically, and Kew is in the process of adopting a new campus-wide database, so stay tuned and in the meantime reach out directly with any research requests.

Further, if you are curious to read the museum’s early entry and exit books, beginning in 1847 up until 1920, they have been digitised and are available through the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Other historical material and related books can be found in Kew’s Library, Art and Archive collections located on the Garden grounds and online.