American Revolution Tea

Elmwood Inn Fine Teas received a commission from the National Archives in Washington to produce a private label tea commemorating one of the pivotal events in the colonists' struggle for independence, the 1773 Boston Tea Party.

We now offer this historically-correct Chinese hyson green tea to all our customers. There were five Chinese teas aboard the three ships in Boston Harbor, three of those teas were black and two were green. All 340 chests of loose tea went overboard on December 16.

You will find this tea in all the National Park Gift Stores across New England and in the gift shop at the Boston Tea Party Ships Museum, where our owner Bruce Richardson is the tea history consultant.

Contrary to popular opinion amongst both Civil War and American Revolution reenactors, brick tea was not found in the soldiers' kits during either conflict. Chinese brick tea was transported out of Northern China and into Mongolia, Tibet, and Russia. European tea merchants imported only loose tea.

Gunpowder green tea was originally from China. By the late 1800s, 40% of the green tea in America came from Japan.

Read more about the history of tea in A Social History of Tea by Jane Pettigrew and Elmwood Inn Tea owner Bruce Richardson.