academic paper: analysis of tea leaves in glass bottle

Tea has a long and fascinating global history, yet in the context of the Massachusetts Historical Society and their digital collection, there is much left to be desired. Consider the following object title: Tea leaves in glass bottle collected on the shore of Dorchester Neck the morning of 17 December 1773. Certainly factual and almost point-blank in nature, the dates correspond with the infamous Boston Tea Party, and the locality suggests the sourcing somewhere in what we might call the South Boston or Dorchester Heights region (“Dorchester Heights”). One’s imagination might end there, a small bottle washed ashore, by chance unbroken or slightly cracked, intact with its seal and contents, stuck among the rocks on the South Boston shore. Who picked it up? When was it labeled? Why save it at all? What kind of tea was it? Where was it grown? So many questions, so much potential.

Let us imagine some titles that might lead to further exploration, curiosity, or representation: From tea to shining sea, A message in a bottle, Floating forgotten fruits of Asian labor. Perchance there is an opportunity to explore this object outside of its existence as part of a digital collection. Contextualization of material culture within digital collections, while exemplified explicitly and clearly by the Massachusetts Historical Society, needs to rely heavily on related textual support and almost tangential historical records. What the material object and accession information lacks in its record makes up for in the potential to fill - nay - overflow a hole of interpretation that imagination and proper research could fill.

From tea to shining sea could be the story of the tea itself. Was it Souchong in its sultry and smokey state that so swiftly made its journey from the cargo of the Beaver, Dartmouth, or Eleanor to the shores of Dorchester Neck? Or was it the bastardized Bohea that bravely bounded from the deck (Richardson)? It might even have a salty secret in its chemical composition, absorbing air through its slim crack from its trans-oceanic ventures and final dip in the harbor, telling us where it’s been and what storms it weathered. How would it be enjoyed or destroyed? Perchance it was saved from some tea-drinking novice, undoubtedly bound to scorch its delicate foliage and ruin its inherent flavor profile, or maybe it was yearned over by the many tea aficionados this side of the Atlantic (Walsh). Here lies an opportunity to instruct and demonstrate proper tea brewing and care. Though taking the step to actually break the seal and research closely the contents of the bottle may be off the table for museum professionals, the fact that it was left intact is powerful in and of itself.

To take a more mysterious spin, let us ponder on A message in a bottle. Is this symbolism staring at us in the face? As a remnant of the Boston Tea Party, a surviving bottle of the exact cargo intended to be destroyed, it is hard to overlook the sheer defiance and tenacity this object inherently holds within its existence. Who can claim this symbolism? On one hand, the British may note that it is a clear indicator of imperial strength - not even a mob of colonists can destroy every last piece of cargo destined for our far-reaching shore! On the other hand, the American colonists might suggest that it shows defiance and perseverance in a long-fought endeavor for liberty and justice for all! And on the less obvious hand, the countless traders, businesspeople, farmers, growers, and laborers could attest to this one bottle representing the remaining evidence of a long chain of effort, time, and life even, all dashed to the bottom of a harbor for the sake of a struggle in some faraway land! Exasperating, no doubt, but an opportunity to expand further on the lenses in which the historic event could be viewed and interpreted. Additionally, we cannot not address the glaringly obvious and literal message on the bottle. When was the label written, and by whom, and how was it affixed, and with what? If it was “gathered up,” what other debris was there? Certainly many unanswered questions that might boil down to hypotheticals and dead-end answers, but could also provide a chance to display first-hand accounts of quotidian life at the time.

And finally, Floating forgotten fruits of Asian labor undoubtedly speaks to a more somber and less symbolic interpretation of this material object and explores the new era of representative interpretation. From the Wuyi mountains to the Boston harbor and through lands and seas between, tea production, supply, and transport was hardly romantic. Enjoying their monopoly on trade and power in the East, the struggles and challenges faced by the East India Tea Company are hardly representative of those that were responsible for the “Tea” part of their title. Countless enslaved individuals from Madagascar, Mozambique, Indonesia and beyond, as well as Mughal officials and countrymen, assuredly could provide challenging and juxtaposing accounts of the romantic and inspiring business venture also known as the Honorable East India Company (Dalrymple). Involuntary privatization, plunder and looting, forced labor, enslavement, and military conquest more accurately represent this imperialist stronghold in the Asian continent at the time. Where tea time is seen as a “warm cuppa” shared with a friend or neighbor, as is with many other commodities at the time, hardly does the dialogue surrounding tea production reflect the sheer amount of death, natural destruction, inequity, and instability required to produce that pleasant brew. Opening a dialogue about the history of food commodities and trade could be at the forefront of this method of interpretation. It is the historical accounts, records, and artifacts relevant to the object that are sorely missing from the contextualization of this bottle of tea.

From physicality to symbolism to historical context, material culture as digitized in the Massachusetts Historical Society could provide for expansive yet immersive contextualization. In a world where click-bait and Wikipedia wormholes can swallow whole bored teenagers and graduate researchers alike, there is great potential and opportunity for including and supporting outside sources with digital collections, even if that means veering away from the organization’s site. Creative contextualization - as we will informally call it - has the unique position in the digital world to expand search parameters, incite intrigue, and launch a wave of exploration on the world wide web.

Works Cited

Dalrymple, William. “The East India Company: The Original Corporate Raiders | William Dalrymple.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 4 Mar. 2015, www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/04/east-india-company-original-corporate-raiders.

“Dorchester Heights.” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 18 Mar. 2018, www.nps.gov/bost/learn/historyculture/dohe.htm.

Richardson, Bruce. “The Boston Harbor Tea: Boston Tea Party: East India Tea Company.” Boston Tea Party Ships, 8 June 2020, www.bostonteapartyship.com/tea-blog/types-of-teas-destroyed.

“Tea Leaves in Glass Bottle Collected on the Shore of Dorchester Neck the Morning of 17 December 1773.” MHS Collections Online, www.masshist.org/database/viewer.php?item_id=231.

Walsh, Samantha. “‘People Generally Are Improving in Their Knowledge of Good Tea’: 19th Century Americans & Tea.” New-York Historical Society, 2 Sept. 2015, blog.nyhistory.org/people-generally-are-improving-in-their-knowledge-of-good-tea-19th-century-americans-tea/.

Written for: Harvard Extension School, Museums & Material Culture, Gochburg, October 21, 2020