Tea Tax And Tea Trade System

Tea drinking with Asian tea sets was very popular in Tang Dynasty. As Old Book of Tang had it, "tea is food, no different than rice and salt. It catches on far and near. It dispels tiredness and appeals to all. Farmers working in the field were particularly fond of it." When tea became "food" "appealing to all," the free trade and enjoyment of tea came to an end. Noticing how important tea was for common folks, the ruling class realized it was a nice means of increasing financial income, so they began levying taxes on tea. In 780, Tang government levied tax on tea to augment military budget in order to suppress mutiny, and that was the earliest tea tax. But tea tax then was merely wartime expedient, and was stopped after mutiny was put down. After 16 months, Emperor of the time issued an edict of self-criticism, which showed that the ruling class then didn't think tea tax to be a reasonable measure. Nevertheless, at the end of Tang Dynasty, seeing the successive military chaos, imperial court had to put tea tax in their schedule again, even in an intensified form. Tea was levied according to its weight rather than actual price. Later, authorities implemented full-scale exclusive sale, not only unitively purchasing all tea to be made by government, but taking the cultivation of tea into exclusive possession of government, forcing tea farmers to transplant tea trees and bum their stored tea leaves. Through these measures the Tang government was in full control of the production, processing and circulation of tea and made huge profits. The cultivation and making of tea in Tang Dynasty has reached a certain scale. A large many people of tea areas lived on tea. The completely exclusive sale of tea ridded numerous people of income and caused tremendous public resentment. Tea farmers in a region between Yangtze River and Yellow River announced in public that if the imperial court didn't change its decision, they would launch a rebellion. Fortunately the chancellor who suggested entire inhibition of tea trade was killed then. His successor abolished the old system and adopted partial exclusive sale. From then on, although rulers of different dynasties adopted various policies about tea, tax levying and exclusive sale have always been in action, and was only thoroughly cancelled until the middle of Qing Dynasty.