The global history of the Ottoman and Turkish tea trade

Abstract

This study aimed to write the global history of a commodity, namely tea, that was consumed in the late Ottoman Empire and early Republican Turkey but not produced locally and imported from various places such as China, Russia, Europe, South Asia and Japan. This research attempted to write the history of a product and how it connected people, places, and continents from a global framework, using primary sources in multiple languages, including documents from the Ottoman and Republican State Archives, British Trade Reports, Trade Statistics, advertisements, travelogues, and contemporary newspapers. Rather than presenting a single linear narrative, the current dissertation gives multiple viewpoints and insights based on a critical review of the sources and making connections that other scholars had not considered.