Adulterated tea and the birth of food law
Eighteenth and nineteenth-century tea was routinely bulked out with other leaves, spent leaves redried, and coloured with substances that were not food. The scandal is a direct ancestor of modern food safety legislation.
Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with legislation from the 1860s and 1870s
A process, not a moment. This happened over a period rather than on a date, and the span is the honest answer.
TeaHQ synthesis. TeaHQ's own reading of well-attested general knowledge, with no single source behind it.
What happened
High duty made tea worth faking. Ash, sloe and other leaves were substituted; used leaves were dried, re-coloured and resold; and green tea in particular was faced with colouring agents including copper and lead compounds. Microscopic analysis published in the 1850s made the scale visible, and a sequence of Acts culminating in 1875 established analysis, penalties and public analysts.
Why it matters
Tea is one of the foods that produced modern food regulation. It also connects two other records: high duty created the incentive, and the Commutation Act removing the duty removed a great deal of it. And it is the historical reason for a piece of advice a reader still meets — that a suspiciously uniform bright green is worth questioning.
Who was involved
Arthur Hill Hassall
personAnalyst whose microscopic surveys of adulterated food were published in The Lancet
The British Parliament
stateLegislated food adulteration controls culminating in the Sale of Food and Drugs Act 1875
Connected events
What this touches
Producing countries
Compiled from published sources by people who are not historians of this region or period. Where accounts conflict the disagreement is reported rather than settled.