A tea plantation in China: workers tread down congou tea into chests. Coloured lithograph.

[Guangzhou] : [approximately 1800]

1 print : lithograph, with watercolour on paper

Packing tea for Europe (congo only is packed in this manner)

Exhibited in “Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights” at Wellcome Collection, 19 September 2024 – 27 April 2025

Wellcome Collection 25238i

One of a series of twelve scenes of tea cultivation

This print depicts the tea being packed down into chests for shipping, which would then be weighed on the tripod in the centre. Chinese suppliers and European merchants are depicted making business arrangements in the foreground. The tea referred to in the inscription 'Congo' is also known as Congou, a black tea used as the base of English Breakfast Tea in the 19th Century.

From around 1750 to the late 1830s, Guangzhou was the only port in China open for foreign trade, making it the likely subject and place of production of this print. Tea was the main product of export, transported by river to Guangzhou, where it was packed before being shipped.