Authori-tea: The VOC, natural knowledge, and how the West came to learn about tea
Summary
Like tea, knowledge often flows – but not always in a steady stream. Sometimes it pours, drips, or evaporates. It may be barely enough to fill your cup, or spill over the edge. Either way, one is usually thirsty for more, and there is always someone in charge of serving. This thesis explores the extent to which the Dutch East India Company (VOC) attempted and managed to exert authority over the natural knowledge produced by its long-distance information networks in the seventeenth century. It will do so using tea as a case study. First, an overview of the VOC’s knowledge directives created throughout this period will be provided. By carefully analyzing the available archival material, it will be argued that the Company’s administration, apart from being a political, military and colonial enterprise, can and should also be regarded as a producer of knowledge, with strong ambitions pertaining the authority over this knowledge’s content, transmission and security. Then, to better understand to what extent these directives were actually followed, a closer look will be taken at the endeavors of VOC officers to gain natural knowledge of tea and the tea plant. This will be done by first focusing on the information acquired and produced by the Company’s overseas knowledge networks, and then addressing the reception of this knowledge in the Dutch Republic. As we will see, careful (re)consideration of the stories of tea and authority leads not only to new historical insights into both of them, but also to the refutation of the specious dichotomy between restriction and circulation. It will be argued that instead, the VOC’s attitude towards its knowledge-producing activities can better be described as aspiring ‘restrictive circulation’. The story of tea shows that irrespective of this ambition, the hodgepodge of actors and materials moving through space and time calls for more nuanced and varied approaches to the history of commerce. Operating from the field of history of science, this thesis aims to do its bit.