We've Been Here Before...Get Rid Of The Tax On Our Tea...
The Boston Tea Party and Why the U.S. Has (Had) No Tea Tax
In case you are curious about how the tariffs are effecting our tea supply and the prices you are paying for your tea...wonder no more.
The reason we have/had no tax on tea is it represents our freedom as Americans. No tax on tea symbolizes the genesis of the American Revolution and the reasoning behind it.
The Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773, remains one of the most famous protests leading up to the American Revolution. At the time, the British government had imposed several taxes on the American colonies to recover costs from the Seven Years’ War. Although many taxes were eventually repealed, Parliament kept a tax on tea through the Tea Act of 1773—not to raise significant money, but to assert its authority over the colonies. To Britain, the tax was symbolic. To colonists, it was unacceptable.
The Tea Act also allowed the British East India Company to sell tea at reduced prices, undercutting local merchants. Even though the tea became cheaper, colonists saw the act as a threat to their economic freedom and as proof that Parliament could impose taxes without giving them representation. In response, members of the Sons of Liberty boarded ships in Boston Harbor and dumped 342 chests of British tea into the water. This dramatic act intensified tensions and pushed the colonies closer to independence.
After the Revolution, Americans remained wary of targeted taxes that resembled the ones that had sparked conflict. While the new government introduced other forms of taxation, it never re‑created a specific tax on tea. Instead, the United States gradually adopted broader revenue systems such as tariffs, income taxes, and general state sales taxes. Today, tea may be taxed like any other grocery item depending on the state, but there is no federal tea tax—a quiet legacy of the event that helped ignite a revolution.
While it is my opinion that targeted tariffs may sometimes be appropriate, wide ranging indiscriminate tariffs, inadvertently applied across the board, create untold damage to the end user of the product...you the consumers and many small businesses that acquire and provide the goods.
This is the exact case with tea. Although we do grow a miniscule amount of tea in America, the amount is insignificant to the consumption level of Americans...
Tariffs on tea are tax on tea, and you the consumer are paying for it. As a small business we have two options: raise pricing enough to maintain margins, passing the cost along to you, or closing the business...
Eliminate the tariffs on tea...
This is real Tea People, and it is happening now. Each tea shipment we receive carries a Duty Charge that we must pay before delivery is made. Adding insult to injury not only is the tea costing more, the indiscriminate tariffs are adding delays of weeks to months causing unpredictable stock outages and stress to operating the business.
Add on top of this the challenge of continually updating hundreds of products and size variations on our point-of-sale and e-commerce site and you can better understand how the tariffs are effecting us and all businesses.
Each day we face difficult decisions trying to balance between protecting our customers and protecting our margins...both critical to our long-term viability. The goal of course is to provide quality tea and manageable prices for those that understand and appreciate the difference in teas and that understand our work as purveyors acting in the best interest of our customers.
We saw online that in October or November the tariff on tea and some other items was supposedly lifted yet every shipment we have received from over seas has a tariff charge with it...It would be great if someone could explain that.
So here we are…we find ourselves after 250 years, actually the year of the country’s 250th anniversary going backwards to the time of the revolution that created this country and returning to a tax on tea.
How serendipitous, for us to be again turning back progress and violating what has to be considered a founding principle, albeit symbolic, but incredibly meaningful of the rights of people, of Americans to have representation in the decisions of the government and all this happening on a landmark anniversary for our country…
Together our tea community finds itself in the difficult position of deciding to accept increased prices on all goods that are impacted by the tariffs by paying increases, going without or lessening the quality of the goods they purchase.
What is it that we will do to weather this storm and see our way through to the other side? And in the meantime what will it cost us? Get rid of the tax on our tea...
