Tea Race
F1. Maritime HistoryDefinition
Annual nineteenth-century clipper races from Foochow to London.
The tea races were the annual contests among British clippers to bring the first of the new-season tea from Foochow and Shanghai to London in the 1860s, when speed commanded a premium price and public attention. The 1866 Great Tea Race, when Taeping and Ariel docked within minutes after a 99-day passage from China, is the most celebrated. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the rise of the steamer ended the sailing tea trade within a few years. Cutty Sark survives from this era.