Tasting the Teas of the Boston Tea Party |250th Anniversary| Ft. Samson Historical

December 16th 1773 that is when the Boston Tea Party happened in Boston Massachusetts on December 16th that is going to be the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party we're going to talk about that and we are going to try five of the actual te's that were dumped into the harbor on that day 250 years ago to enjoy these amazing historic teas today I want to thank our number one fans and our really good friends Samson historical for sponsoring this video and also for donating this amazing made in America tea set which comes with a beautiful teapot and four cups and you can get it from their website Samson historical. comom they're base out of Indiana and this T set is actually also made in Indiana and they have a limited time December only sale where if you spend over or at $150 you get free shipping on anything that you want so we absolutely love Samson historical and actually from head to toe I'm wearing Samson historical and I've had this outfit for a year now so we are super longtime supporters of them and they watch all of our videos they are just really really nice people they are genuine reenactors they go to the events and they know the lifestyle so Ron why are you wearing this outfit I am one of his Majesty's finest privates I cannot believe he joined the dark side even George Washington was a red coat at one point it's 1774 the or I'm sorry 1773 the revolution is not yet happened so this is appropriate yes the revolution has not yet happened now what started the revolution the American Revolution why do we celebrate the 4th of July how are all these things related to tea well believe it or not they are actually related so we are going to try five tea flavors that were actually thrown into the Boston Harbor on December 16th 1773 these te's are still in production today I know it's incredible and these are not the kind of teas that you can just walk into any grocery store and go to the tea aisle and buy these teas used to be extremely popular but they're not popular anymore they fell out of favor and I've only tried one of these before the boie I've tried yes I've tried the booi which is this one right here that's the most popular one in early America exactly have you guys has ever tried booie tea didn't think so now believe it or not this used to be the most popular flavor of tea in 18th century America and I think it was the most popular tea in 18th century England too it was so popular that booie actually was slang for just tea in general so you'd say give me a cup of that booie I did not know that okay take a sniff of that I already have my opinion on it oh my goodness it's smoky it's very smoky it almost smells like you're just smelling smelling charcoal charcoal or tobacco kind of smells like tobacco but more chests of this were thrown in the Boston Harbor than any other any other tea flavor but I'm going to save this for the very last because this is the grand finale the grand finale exactly so before we get into it I just want to Briefly summarize what the boss party even was that happened 250 years ago and what led to that day during the 7 years war England defeated France however the war had doubled Britain's national debt in order to recover from this economic loss Britain's Parliament decided that for the very first time that it was going to directly tax the colonists AKA us part of the money from the taxes was also going to fund a stronger military presence in in the colonies and it was going to fund the already 10,000 strong military force that was residing in the colonies at the time so what were these taxes on these taxes were on newspapers glass which could include Windows as well as drinking cups tea pamphlets legal documents actually all paper Dice and playing cards sugar wine coffee and textiles for making dresses clothes and and whatever else textiles involved all of these goods were required to be osed with a treasury stamp as proof of payment of the tax or they would have been seized now as you can imagine paying taxes to a country that is thousands of miles away that you've never even been to before and getting no representation for paying said taxes can be pretty frustrating that is why there was a lot of frustration among the early colonists against the British other incidences start to cause even more tension in the colonies including the Boston Massacre of 1770 in which five colonists AKA Americans were shot by British soldiers this tension got even higher in June of 1772 the gasby was a British ship commanded by a very unpopular Captain who was avidly pursuing Smugglers off the coast of New England for years he had for years has been described as a terror to the people of New England his crew routinely stopped Merchants who were both on Shore and in the water to force searches of their Wares these searches were described as being very aggressive in nature he did all of this while ignoring the O the orders of the local elected governor to make matters worse the ship Hannah became stuck in low Waters after being seized by Captain Dunston he needed to wait until the following day's high tide in order to free it that meant that he was a sinting duck that evening a group of men gathered on the shore and they discussed what to do about years and years of Captain dudingston holding them captive they decided to disguise themselves as Native Americans and they rode out to the British ship during the Skirmish the captain was shot in the groin ouch and his crew were forced off of the ship before his ship ship was set on fire Dunson survived but he was arrested soon after by the town sheriff after years of terrorizing the town and illegally ceasing cargo and ignoring the elected Governor's wishes well sure enough his friend English naval officer John montigue paid for his release he was then taken back to England and he was Court marshal for allowing his ship to be burned in the first place so what are some elements about that which happened a year before the Boston Tea Party that seemed very similar to what happened a year later well the first one to me is dressing up as a Mohawk Indian yes that's right and there's a reason for that now if you just quickly Google why did they dress up as Native Americans during the Boston Tea Party you're going to get that they wanted to be disguised but it's actually a lot more deep than that starting around the 1760s Native Americans became a symbol of American identity freedom and patriotism they were often featured in American political cartoons especially when they were trying to make the English look bad and the Americans look oppressed they would usually represent an American by having a native uh being forced to pay taxes by the British now the Sons of Liberty started to dress and describe themselves and even sign themselves as being the Mohawk Indians because of the liberty and the patriotism and the americanism that was behind that symbol and had been for about a decade now so that is why when they burned that ship they dressed up as Native Americans and why the following year in the Boston Tea Party they also chose to dress up as Native Americans because it put them aside from being British the British never dressed like Native Americans it was an American symbol right and at that time we were all British still yet there was no thought of the United States of America so disting to distinguish themselves as being uniquely American they dressed themselves as the natives by the time it was the following year 1773 there was a lot of animosity towards England and these taxes as you can probably understand in fact 86% of all the tea being consumed in America was smuggled Dutch tea that meant that 86% of all the tea that was being consumed was not taxed by England and the reason for that is because the Americans ref refused to pay taxes to England because of this the British East India Company which supplied the tea it was failing in order to try to rescue the failing company England reduced its prices to make itself cheaper than even the smuggle tea the Tea Act in of 1773 authorized the shipment of 5,000 chests of tea which is 250 tons worth to the American colonies to be sold there was a tax of 1,750 pounds on the shipment that is equal to 238,000 today now that tax had to be paid by the American importers when the cargo landed and that tax would go back to England bohi at the time was priced at 2 shills per pound The Smuggler Boh he was priced at 2 Shilling and 1 penny per pound so so after years of Americans not wanting anything to do with paying British taxes to the point where Americans were actually just growing their own tea in their backyard and they were paying for smuggled tea instead of going out and just buying the legit tea from the store the British Tea Company was failing miserably and it had hundreds of chests of tea just sitting in their warehouse and no one wanted it so in order to get around that the English Parliament said that we're going to reduce the price of the tea but we're not going to reduce the taxes on the tea we're just going to make the tea even cheaper than the Smugglers but they completely failed to realize that that wasn't the point the point was that the Americans just did not want to pay taxes to England because we thought that every single penny we were giving to them was coming back to hurt us because a lot of that money was going to fund more soldiers coming over here mhm and in other places of the world at that time Britain was had its fingers in every pot World almost every single country in the world on every continent on every continent yes and so Americans did not want to pay for that right well this plan failed miserably because instead of just paying for the cheaper tea in response on December 16th 1773 250 years ago a group in Boston called the Sons of Liberty who was an underground organization made up of men whose goal it was to resist the Crown's laws imposed in the colonies they disguised themselves as Mohawk Indians and in the middle of a cold and frosty December night they destroyed an entire shipment of tea that was sent by the East India Company as their way of saying no matter what your price is we cannot be bought we refuse to pay taxes to England we refuse to pay taxes without representation in fact their motto was no taxation without representation 30 to 130 men no one knows for sure because of course they were Anonymous they boarded three vessels and over the course of 3 hours they dumped every single one of the chest that they found 342 chests of tea into the Boston Harbor that was 92,000 of tea it was all reported lost by the British East India Company the next day and it was worth 9,659 lb in 1773 but can you guess how much that was worth in today's money you will not believe it can you guess so today's money then you said 900 or 9,000 lb yes 1773 in 1773 now I don't know the ratio of the pounds or dollar but I'm just going to throw out a number and say $10 million okay that's a little high it ain't $10 million now calm down inflation uh $2 million close in pounds it is worth in 2021 inflation dollars 1, 35,000 and in USD that is worth $1.7 million of tea I didn't even know te could be that valuable in March 1774 the sons of Li Liberty received information that there was even more tea being held in a warehouse in Boston so they yet again dressed as Mohawk Indians broke into the warehouse and destroyed everything they could find they broke in and they dumped the last remaining tea into the harbor so this continued for months and even years after the Boston te party and of course England fought back and they fought back hard two points uh on that the secer SE cuz we don't really know exact numbers it's you know could be like from 30 to 130 but I did come across an article I think it was about 1830 of a man who died and when he died he claimed to be one of them men revealing himself that he was one of the Sons of Liberty that was at the Boston Tea Party or as they called it at the time the destruction of the tea in the Boston Harbor now the first time that it's actually called the Boston Tea Party I believe is in 1825 1826 in a New York newspaper uh that's when they finally title it Boston Tea Party but before that was known as the destruction of the tea in the Boston Harbor now as Justine also said on my second Point here is that was just the main the main one the main one if you will there's a numberous other ones going down the colonies uh from Philadelphia the Jersey to New York uh down to South Carolina and Charleston they're they're stopping and you know boarding these Ships coming up these rivers and trying to get to the tea cuz they don't want it to be sold in the colonies they're trying to send a direct message to England that we don't want your tea we don't want to pay your taxes being that no one knew for sure who was the 130 men that were part of the Boston Tea Party England instead passed the Boston Court act because it couldn't directly execute the men instead it punished the entire city of Boston the Boston Port Act passed in March of 1774 closed Boston's Port from all Commerce and an order every single citizen of Boston to pay a large fine to England to compensate for all of the tea that was thrown into the river during the Boston Tea Party so it was punishing even the people that weren't involved the Boston Port Act was just one of the five laws passed by the British Parliament that same year 1774 one of these laws took away Massachusetts right to self-governance meaning that now all government positions in Massachusetts had to be appointed by the king Town meetings were also limited to only one per year which reduced their right to assembly tensions quickly escalated the Revolutionary War broke out in April of 1775 the following year and as you know that led to the Declaration of an independent United States of America independent from Britain in July of 1776 now still to this day every year we still will celebrate our Independence Day on the 4th of July you know you mentioned the uh the the port act that's that was wrapped up in a thing that we call here in the colonies or in America the Intolerable Acts U it also brought Mar martial law it also brought the fact that you had to quarter a soldier so I'm in your home make me something to eat I'm hungry so a red coat could just knock on your door and say or in your shop door it could be a business to and they could say that I need food I need water and I'm going to stay here for a week and you could not say no or else it would be considered treason against the British crown so imagine that and as you can imagine people did not like that and that's part of why we had the Revolutionary War that's right now to address a myth why do Americans drink more coffee today than we drink tea that I don't know but I do know both coffee and tea have been an American since the mid 1600s but I don't know why we I guess we prefer coffee more because it uh it gives you more energy that's interesting theory for me anyways hey it does have more caffeine than tea usually it tastes interesting Theory I haven't heard that one okay so a lot of people think that the reason why we drink coffee instead of tea even though I'm personally a tea drinker myself is because of the Boston Tea Party that it's a patriotic symbol that started from that time oh we don't want to drink no British tea that actually is completely not the reason why wait I got it why it's because it's cheaper to get here in the early years because it's in uh Jamaica Caribbean area whenever is coming from U the Asian area uh you nailed it that is the reason why so thank you eth grade social studies awesome I'm glad that some someone in education is doing the right thing but yeah he's right so starting early in American history coffee has always been cheaper than tea so that and that's because we just import it from uh Brazil the Caribbeans and tea on the other hand had a lot of taxes on it cuz usually there was a middleman England and so because of that as a country we slowly started moving away from drinking tea because of all the high taxes associated with tea that's our cat so I have a little information booklet that came with these te's and these te's were made by Oliver Pluff and Co which is another American based company and you can get these te's from Samsung historical Samsung sells each of these te's and cans yes with really nice laes so these are just kind of little sample sizes here this is enough for several Cups of Tea though and so you can go on Samson historical. comom and you can buy these teas and you can also buy this amazing tea set I like it I really it's a pretty color it's beautiful I agree so okay which one are we going to start with you said the Singo yes I'm going to start with the Singo te Singo te it gets its name from the region in China known as the singlo mountains UH 60 chest of this tea was destroyed during the Boston Tea Party 60 60 60 chests of Singo tea so I guess it was a more common tea of the era decently popular yeah because the other ones we're going to try besides the booie which had the most destroy but the others are like 10 13 chests yeah I would say this is like the second choice in the colonies the most popular number two te okay Ron so give it a sniff before we try it this is a singlo it smells better than the boie this is a green tea it is a green tea it smells like just a very pure green tea there's no weird smokiness going on no it's not smokey like the other one but it's also not you know it's not browned or black like the other tea leaves have been so I guess they've been smoked or roasted or something I'm not sure how you prepar it says the tea is picked later in the season it's pan fried and then it's curled and dried Le leading to a buttery green tea infusion with a plum like finish well let's serve it up that sounds good pan fried and butter all right I don't think there's real butter in it now don't get too excited here we go that looks hot I'll wait for you now I I have a mouth so I can't really drink super hot liquids oh we're about to do the most anti- correct thing to his Majesty's King George III yeah God Save the King you're not supposed to do that with tea it's on etiti eety well it's American true it's mellow I like that h yeah hm that's smooth it's very smooth it is definitely green tea it's not bitter at all no it's not it's not it's not bitter and Ron is not a much of a hot tea person I am obsessed with hot tea I'm a coffee guy it's true but this this is good that is good I do like that oh you actually like it yes right now that's in my number one spot okay and we are going to rate these so this will be the number one one spot and this will be number five but since this is the first one we've tried we can't really do much anything yet rating wise number one okay so right now it's the number one spot cuz we have nothing to compare it to H okay so what's the next one we're going to try the next one we're going to try is Young heis which is another green tea it was named for the Tea Merchant Philip heon it was a highly prized and highly taxed te it was actually taxed higher than any other tea so it was one of the more expensive ones it's created from green tea leaves that have been picked in Spring then they've been thinly rolled to have a long Twisted appearance in the Boston Tea Party 15 chests of heis were destroyed so it's not as popular if there's only 15 but yet this was Thomas Jefferson's favorite oh this was Thomas Thon favor te and we're about to try it instructions say to let it steep for 3 minutes so it it steep keeps pretty quickly and we have dumped out the previous tea obviously for it to be more accur more tasty yeah sure just a spot of tea please just spot of tea now be careful this is really hot this one is very hot I the steam coming on it I cannot drink hot hot things I'm I got a mou okay that one's more greeny te Greenery it's more green greener it doesn't look Greenery though it's it looks yellowish clear oh yeah a little yellowish but I'm not fond of that one so for now we'll put him in number two spot so the first one we tried was the uh um Singo which I I think we're in agreement that one's pretty good so far no you think this one's better I think this one's better ah what do you guys I just have expensive tastes though this is a more expensive tea all right it's expensive therefore I like it no I'm just kidding oh remember pinky up I'm try again El it is very strong it's not bitter or anything it's just intense I yes yes it's not bitter I only let it steep for 3 minutes like it says it's just it's very very intense if you love green tea and I love green tea but I'll admit this is a pretty intense I don't know why but it just is okay so you want this to be the number two spot but you already put it there it's your video you are the final judge here I'll leave it in the number two spot oh I'll admit it's it's pretty extreme okay so we're going to move on to the next one now number three lapsang suang it is a smoky black tea so we're moving on to the black teas now it is a it is described as being a strong and Smoky tea the Chinese offloaded the larger cheaper suong tea leaves to the British East India Company which included suang teas as one of its common Imports to America in the Boston Tea Party 10 chests of this tea were thrown into the harbor so this one's even less popular then cuz we had 60 with the Singo we had 15 with the young heis young heis and now we got 10 now this is 10 with the lapsang Shong yeah lapsang Shong say that five times uh so out of the three we've tried this is the least popular one in colonial America 10 chests were destroyed and actually out of the five we're going to try today this is this was the least popular one but there were still 10 chest there so someone must have liked it special order yeah special order someone must have liked it looking at it uh yeah you can definitely tell that this one's a black tea mhm it is visually quite black compared to the green te let's see what it smells like oh no it smells just like the booie it smells it's like tobacco like tobacco smoke toac nowadays I think a lot of people they want a fruity smelling tea some maybe floral this is the opposite this smells like something you would use to clean your shoes with shoe polish I mean it smells really really Smokey and tobacco wow it's incredibly Smokey I'm well let's try it smells like Liquid Smoke okay I'm going to go ahead and Brew it and we will give it a go it's says to brew this one for 3 to 5 minutes so we've been letting this steep now for about 4 to 5 minutes and the room smells like boiled beef jerky it does it smells very smoky and SMY yes I guess kind of like beef jerky too yes very manly oh and by the way if you're wondering about my pronunciation of some of these things I'm sure there is a correct way to pronounce lab say suang in Chinese however this is the way that the colonists pronounced it so I'm just saying it the way that us simpletons it's regal it depends on where you're standing even in America we say things differently in the South than we do in the north that's true but this is how the colonists would have pronounced it so we're going to try it and I'm a little worried cuz it smells like straight up shoe leather or something I put a little extra honey in it this time cuz I feel like it needs it so right off the back and I already see it's more of an amber color than it is yellowish clear yes it's pretty dark yeah do not I don't think I'm going to like this the the vapors are really nasty smelling smells like an old boot it smells like an old leather boot it has this Smokey it's like you bow my boot now it's not it's not a good wood smoke smell it's a liquid smoke that you what I'm scared just try it is it really hot no it's it's not so much the hot it's the taste that's quite bold ain't it I don't know how to describe that I guess I'd still say it's an old boot with jerky and tobacco all mixed together but it really punches you in the face I feel broken I really don't want to take another drink of about I feel broken that's why there was only 10 chest Stone in and I doubt anybody complained about that too I'll say it does taste better than I thought it was going to taste I thought it was going to taste like straight liquid smoke but it just tastes like liquid be I don't even know how to explain that I don't like it I don't like it either I refuse to drink this I I refuse okay next let's see I'm putting this at the very end yes go ahead and put him at the end I think it's going to be the worst one there's no I don't think anything could possibly be worse I hope I hope we have two left to go that was I got to I got to try to explain this I mean that really tasted like I just walked by a fireplace and went with the smoke that's a good and just took a big inhale of the smoke from some from a really dirty fire yeah it had leather and cigar Stone jerky yeah it's it's not good and I put extra honey in it too why would anybody drink this that's why there was only CH 10 chests of it as opposed to the 240 chests well of the boie okay so next we have kongu it is another black tea it's grown in southern China it is one of the great historical Che tees of China so it must have a lot of history the word kongu refers to a tea made with highest Mastery to produce thin tight strips of tea with without breaking the leaves the resulting toasty black tea is smooth and sweet with the flavor of baked apples okay I might like this one okay that sounds good and I think it's hilarious the previous one uh the lapsang suong it in the description it didn't even try to make it sound good it didn't describe what it didn't describe the taste now how many chest were of this was Stone over 155 15 chests were thrown so the same as the second one we tried yes as the young heis all right so the one we just tried the lapsang suong was 10 chests kongu is 15 chests so it was a little bit more popular well let's give her a Sniff and BR okay let's see this is a black tea to me it had it's a black tea with hints of fruit I don't smell the fruit I smell just a tiny bit of smokiness hm I smell I smell the Apple a little bit it's very mild compared to what we just had let's see if we can taste it we're getting close to the end here we only got two te's left so we're about to try kongu we've been letting it steep for 4 minutes now the room doesn't have a weird smell like it did with the last one mhm so let me serve you up okay it is about the same color as the last one be afraid I still don't smell the apples e now it doesn't smell good to me BBS up man I don't taste the apples they lied they lied they lied they lied there's no apples in here where are my apples it's if you took the U laps sushan that ain't that bad though and Mi it with the uh I'm sorry if you took the young heis and Mi it with the lap and suan and combined them that's what I'm saying this is it's not quite as smokey it's not bad but it's more weird like the yeah I don't like it though one sip is enough for me yeah I don't know about that what's the last one okay but first of all oh yeah yeah let's okay so here is not last place but second last yeah second to last and then there was one the most popular team America for a long time in the in the entire 18th century and most of the 19th yeah and most of the 19th booh te the tea with a funny name okay we're going to try it out some people probably say bohi but just once again depends on where you're standing I swear it's booy okay so this is a black tea you have to steep it for 3 to 5 minutes it's lightly Smokey it is a distinctive black tea blend with a light Smoky flavor it was so so popular in colonial times that booie became the common word for tea so it's slang for tea it was imported in larger quantities than all other te's combined in the Boston Tea Party 240 chests of booie were destroyed as opposed to everything else here 15 10 chests whatever except for the singlo which was 60 chest M 240 of the buhi now I do have a theory h was it still popular because it was the cheapest one or because it was the best tasting one these all the same price I wonder the only one that I know about the price was the young heis and that was the most expensive tea okay I honestly don't think this was the cheapest tea because the cheapest tea would have been the native grown root type herb teas disappoint did yeah that's just pure smoke smells like smoke who names these they should just name this Smokey extra Smokey lightly Smokey right this is this is pretty Smokey that's the smokiest of them all no I think that one was the smokiest I think this is the smokiest the the shoe the shoe Shan okay it was but it tasted it smelt like leather too smoky leather this is just pure smoke smell them both okay this is the shoe strong shoe strong I'm going play my nose palette here e okay you're right this is stronger this is stronger so this is probably still going to be at the very end but we got to figure out why was this the most popular tea so we're going to try it out we've been letting this steep now for 5 minutes it says 3 to 5 minutes so we're going to get the full effect here this is the grand finale this is the most popular tea in early America we're going to see why thank you thank you and then maybe at the end you can read your tea leaves and tell me my destiny okay okay I know nothing about that but all right okay it smells SMY smells very SMY it doesn't smell good at all I'm just a little traumatized by the suong one so I'm just worried I'm just going to have another cup of suang yeah it tastes like it oh really I think this was the cheapest and that's what made it the go-to cuz even today we have more expensive teas more expensive coffee so why wouldn't they have more expensive tea or more expensive coffee back then you know actually this isn't bad you like it kind of there you go I do not like it but not as bad as the lap say shushan that's the worst I'll admit the smokiness I have never in my life had a tea Smokey so this I really have to get used to this but I'm sure someone back then was used to it so they thought it was normal but it's a little offputting just having Liquid Smoke in a drink yeah it's not for me if in a drink it's a little strange to be drinking something this Smoky you're used to it in a brisket but not in a drink so it you got to get used to it there's kind of this mind game thing where at first you're saying I don't like this get it out of me but it's not that bad I'm very surprised that the one I like most is a green tea cuz today I do not like green tea um I'm a black tea drinker when I do drink tea U and preferably iced black tea oh you American yes I am take this off right now I'm switching sides switching sides yeah get off of me oh no it's become a part of him we like our ice tea in America see you okay but I think this this ain't that bad it really isn't that bad uh let's see where is I think it's where it belongs you can maybe switch it with number three you can switch it for number three that's fine yeah put it in the middle okay I'm putting it in the middle green tea wins and I am an addicted green tea drinker so that's not really surprising I have one to five cups a day um and then all the black tea is at the end cuz we're super VI uh so this is the order here let me read it out number one singlo number two young heis number three in the middle Colonial buhi and number four kongu and finally at the very end ain't nobody like you is laugh saying suang and even back then nobody liked you because there was only 10 chests of it thrown at the boss in t Harbor I agree with that that ranking okay so we we have our ranking we have tried all of these te's thank you so much for being here with us for the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Harbor in Boston Massachusetts we really appreciate you watching and thank you so much to Samson historical for sending us this really really nice teapot it's very nice it's very nice it's lightweight it holds the heat really well okay I sound like a salesperson but it's just a really nice teapot and I like it's made by a small business and it's made in America so I just really like it and I feel like it could fit a modern aesthetic historic comes with four cups thank you guys thank you Samson take care and have a good day bye-bye give me some coffee okay

Channel: Early American

Views: 69,822

Keywords: 18th century, 19th century, victorian, 18th century cooking, 19th century cooking, early american, 1820s, cooking with fire, survival skills, primitive cooking, asmr, asmr cooking, asmr food, history, food history, history cooking, historical, american history, victorian cooking, victorian food, strange history, weird history, food, cooking, fire, eating, diy, primitive, relaxing, unique food, girl, woman, relax, fall, silent, no talking, weird, no talk, tea, asmr tea, boston tea party

Id: tLAqDOrRG-U

Length: 39min 32sec (2372 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 15 2023