One of the strangest links between Gothenburg and Britain involves something very British indeed: tea. During the 18th century, enormous quantities of Chinese tea reached Sweden through the Swedish East India Company. Much of it was never really intended for Swedish teacups.
Britain had a huge appetite for tea, but high taxation made smuggling enormously profitable. Tea arriving in Gothenburg could be sold at auction and then moved through European ports before being smuggled into Britain.
“Gothenburg tea” in Britain
According to Gothenburg City Museum, there was also direct illegal trade between Gothenburg and Scotland. The smuggled product became familiar enough to be openly advertised in Britain as “Gothenburg tea”.
It is a wonderful reversal of the usual image of British tea culture. Chinese tea travelled to Gothenburg aboard Swedish East Indiamen and then found its way illegally into Britain, where consumers were eager to avoid the taxes imposed on legally imported tea.
Britain changes the rules
The trade continued until the 1780s. In 1784 the British government dramatically reduced tea duties through the Commutation Act. Legal tea suddenly became much more competitive, undermining the smuggling business that had helped make Gothenburg merchants rich.
The consequences reached all the way back to Sweden. The Swedish East India Company was heavily dependent on tea, and the changing British market contributed to its decline.
For British visitors to Gothenburg, this is a brilliant piece of shared history. The city’s East India story was not only about Sweden and China. Britain was quietly sitting in the middle of it too – sometimes legally, sometimes very much not.