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The great tea robbery: How our cuppa wouldn't exist if an amazing Victorian hadn't stolen the secret from China's warlords
By Tony Rennell for MailOnline
Updated: 17:47 EST, 4 March 2009
Now, in the likely event that you are at this very moment drinking tea - likely because, as a nation, we pour 150 million cupfuls down our throats every day - you might care to give a nod to the memory of a tall and lean Scotsman by the name of Robert Fortune, a forgotten hero for the millions of us who swear by the amber nectar, the 'liquid jade', the cuppa, a brew, char.
Fortune was a seeker of the exotic, an explorer and a student of plants, just like his Victorian contemporary and fellow botanist, Charles Darwin, who is much discussed at present on the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work On The Origin Of Species.
But where Darwin discovered the key to life, it was the little-known Fortune we can thank for making it infinitely more pleasurable and relaxing.
Brit favorite: Tea drinking in Britain could have died out if it wasn't for the efforts of a Victorian adventurer
Camellia sinensis - tea - was his favourite species and the closely guarded secrets of its origins were what he sought, found and then stole, to the benefit of us all.
What he pulled off, according to author Sarah Rose, in a new book that gives Fortune his proper place in history, was the greatest theft of trade secrets in the history of mankind.
Con't->The great tea robbery: How our cuppa wouldn't exist if an amazing Victorian hadn't stolen the secret from China's warlords | Daily Mail Online
By Tony Rennell for MailOnline
Updated: 17:47 EST, 4 March 2009
Now, in the likely event that you are at this very moment drinking tea - likely because, as a nation, we pour 150 million cupfuls down our throats every day - you might care to give a nod to the memory of a tall and lean Scotsman by the name of Robert Fortune, a forgotten hero for the millions of us who swear by the amber nectar, the 'liquid jade', the cuppa, a brew, char.
Fortune was a seeker of the exotic, an explorer and a student of plants, just like his Victorian contemporary and fellow botanist, Charles Darwin, who is much discussed at present on the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work On The Origin Of Species.
But where Darwin discovered the key to life, it was the little-known Fortune we can thank for making it infinitely more pleasurable and relaxing.
Brit favorite: Tea drinking in Britain could have died out if it wasn't for the efforts of a Victorian adventurer
Camellia sinensis - tea - was his favourite species and the closely guarded secrets of its origins were what he sought, found and then stole, to the benefit of us all.
What he pulled off, according to author Sarah Rose, in a new book that gives Fortune his proper place in history, was the greatest theft of trade secrets in the history of mankind.
Con't->The great tea robbery: How our cuppa wouldn't exist if an amazing Victorian hadn't stolen the secret from China's warlords | Daily Mail Online