Dealing in Shanghai Tea Warehouses in Late Qing Dynasty:Based on Accounting Records of Jiang-Family Tea Merchants
After the opening of five treaty ports,tea warehouses,located in the ports and having both trade and finance functions,became an important part in the export of tea in modern times.Found in Fangkeng Village of She County in the 1990s,the account books of the tea merchants of Jiang family kept a good recording of tea exporting trade in Huizhou and Shanghai in the late Qing Dynasty.With the study of this bunch of business account books,it can be found that the tea warehouses in Shanghai provided an average of 40.72％of Jiang family tea merchants'an-nual total funds,in regular time and with a fixed sum for fixed purposes.The tea warehouses thus built up an effective channel for supplying boxed tea and controlled subsequent distribution channels.By dividing sales,the tea warehouses sold the boxed tea transported to Shanghai to different foreign firms,and the income of different kinds made in these transactions was actually collected by the tea warehouses,but flowed to the tea warehouses,foreign firms,and other in-stitutions.Without considering the interest on loans,the actual profit earned by the tea ware-houses in selling each batch of boxed tea could amount to more than 10％of the tea price,which was a substantial profit,though less than the 20％that was loathed by people of later generations.The marketing formats of Shanghai tea warehouses in lending,transportation,and sales,as presented by Jiang family tea merchant's account book,provide a possibility for fur-ther understanding the trade methods and regulations of the tea warehouses at ports and the ex-port of tea from Huizhou.
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