It was the Americans who introduced the streamlined and yacht-like clipper ship to international trade, substantially reducing the time it took to transport goods across the globe. By the early 1850s Britain had its own fleet of fast new ships. They would set off from China for Britain on the same tide and race back to collect a prize for the crew, and the supreme prize for the first tea delivered from the racing vessels.






The romantic age of the clipper races continued for twenty years, until the clippers were replaced by steamships. Tea was no longer a toddler by the time it reached Britain from China and India; when the Suez Canal opened in 1869, its journey time meant that it was a mere babe of three months when it fetched up in the basin of the Thames.