The Opium Wars, seen from the tea trade
Britain's tea purchases created a silver deficit; opium sold into China was the instrument used to close it; war followed when China tried to stop the opium. Tea is the demand at the start of that chain.
1839 to 1842, with a second war 1856 to 1860
A process, not a moment. This happened over a period rather than on a date, and the span is the honest answer.
Documented. Attested in the historical record, and sourced to it.
The version that circulates
That the Opium Wars are a separate subject from tea history, or that tea is a minor detail in them.
What the evidence carries. That tea was the principal British purchase and the reason the silver imbalance existed at the scale it did. The wars are not about tea, and the trade structure that produced them was built around it.
What happened
British purchases of Chinese tea were paid for in silver, since Chinese demand for European goods was minimal. Indian opium sold into China reversed the flow. Qing suppression of the opium trade led to war, defeat, the cession of Hong Kong, and treaty ports that ended the Canton system.
Why it matters
It is where tea history stops being a story about a drink. The treaty settlement opened China commercially, and the simultaneous British push to grow tea in India was in part an attempt to stop depending on a supplier it had just fought.
Who was involved
The Qing state
stateAttempted to suppress the opium trade, precipitating the conflict
Britain
stateFought to open Chinese ports and protect the trade
Lin Zexu
personImperial commissioner who destroyed confiscated opium stocks at Humen
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.