East India Company: Still Brimming With Life and Spice
You can almost smell the juniper berries in the heart of Mayfair. Just as representatives of the East India Company (EIC) used to enjoy sipping their stengahs as the sun went down over the Far East in Elizabethan times, so their modern descendants will soon be drinking in the same spicy floral aroma.
For three years EIC experts have been re-creating the original for the delectation of modern palettes.
'It's all developed through the history of the EIC, the ingredients, the processes, the botanicals, the spices, the woody flavour and flowers from EIC territories,' says Sanjiv Mehta, chairman and managing director of the resuscitated company that created the British Empire, drew the parameters of the modern Commonwealth, originated the concept of globalisation and brought tea and exotic spices to the tables of middle England. At its height it controlled the global trade in indigo dye, cotton, silk, opium and tea before it ceased trading in 1874.
Or, as The Times put it in January of that year: 'It accomplished a work such as in the whole history of the human race no other company has attempted and is ever likely to attempt in the years to come.'
Mehta has made it his life's work to create a new international luxury brand on the basis of this remarkable commercial pedigree of which he is now the guardian.
The attention to detail in the re-birth of the company's gin marks out the degree of responsibility that now resides in him and it is typical of the man whose watchwords are authenticity, quality and homage to history.
Unfazed by the company's not always salubrious history as an opium trader and oppressor of his fellow countrymen, he points to the EIC's propagation of the English language, the creation of extensive railways, ports and other infrastructure, the civil service and the 'huge relationship to all walks of life' in India. 'It's not just food products.'
The EIC's role in the history of his motherland has to be seen in the round, he says: 'There're a lot of good things the EIC has done and in doing those things there were some things it did for its own greed that are considered wrong today.
'It's very difficult to judge history by the present. Probably 200 years from now some of the activities we do today will be deemed as wrong as we deem the activities of the EIC now.
'When the press in India heard that an Indian had bought the EIC, there was a complete reversal of the mood and 4,000 press articles have come out, all of them rejoicing at this fact. Since the re-launch I have had 40-45,000 emails from people from all across the world congratulating me.'
Seated beneath a portrait of Sir James Lancaster in Skinners' Hall, London, Mehta looks entirely at home as the scion of the resurgent firm. He was there to celebrate the 400th anniversary of contacts between Britain and Japan organised by Japan400 (www.japan400.com), which is marking the anniversary with a year-long series of events throughout the two countries. As a plain captain, James Lancaster made the first voyage of the company in February 1601, financed by the Worshipful Company of Skinners. His flagship was the Dragon, along with the Hector, the Susan and the Ascension. The fleet carried 28,472 of bullion for purchases and 6,860 of goods which included wrought iron, crockery, pistols and spectacles. The good captain knew the value of lemons in warding off scurvy so his men enjoyed the use of their teeth for the rest of the voyage. His fellow commanders took no such precautions so most crewmen lost their teeth and, indeed, 105 lost their lives altogether.
Thwarted in legitimate trade for spices by the Dutch, Lancaster had to resort to piracy to seize a large cargo of pepper and Indian cottons from a Portuguese ship. That did not bar him from receiving a knighthood on his return.
But the company learned some valuable lessons, not least the strength of the opposition they were facing in the shape of the Dutch East India Company, which not only had muscle behind it but greater capital, 540,000, against the English company's 68,373.
But if Lancaster was apt to use muscle to further the company's aims, Mehta has proved along the way to re-creating the EIC that he has guile and determination in equal measure. Trading coffee into Russia as communism was collapsing, his shipments kept on disappearing though they were sealed into containers. Having lost three shipments worth $270,000, he determined to find out what was happening to them as they traversed from Kotka in Finland to Moscow.
It was a project worthy of Sherlock Holmes himself €" and Mehta looks not unlike a Gujarati personification of the great sleuth. It was uncanny because when the paperwork was completed, the containers were padlocked and sealed in Kotka and the keys sent separately to the buyer in Moscow to prevent pilfering along the way. And yet when the containers arrived in Moscow, they were empty though the locks and seals were intact. There was no sign of forced entry and no fingerprints. The insurance company refused to settle: without evidence of any damage Mehta could not prove that his coffee had been stolen.
But 'Sherlock' Mehta sussed what the thieves had done: they had unhinged the door of the container, removed it, extracted the coffee and then bolted and resealed the door after setting it back on its hinges. The padlock was in place as if nothing had happened, securely locking a completely empty container.
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For three years EIC experts have been re-creating the original for the delectation of modern palettes.
'It's all developed through the history of the EIC, the ingredients, the processes, the botanicals, the spices, the woody flavour and flowers from EIC territories,' says Sanjiv Mehta, chairman and managing director of the resuscitated company that created the British Empire, drew the parameters of the modern Commonwealth, originated the concept of globalisation and brought tea and exotic spices to the tables of middle England. At its height it controlled the global trade in indigo dye, cotton, silk, opium and tea before it ceased trading in 1874.
Or, as The Times put it in January of that year: 'It accomplished a work such as in the whole history of the human race no other company has attempted and is ever likely to attempt in the years to come.'
Mehta has made it his life's work to create a new international luxury brand on the basis of this remarkable commercial pedigree of which he is now the guardian.
The attention to detail in the re-birth of the company's gin marks out the degree of responsibility that now resides in him and it is typical of the man whose watchwords are authenticity, quality and homage to history.
Unfazed by the company's not always salubrious history as an opium trader and oppressor of his fellow countrymen, he points to the EIC's propagation of the English language, the creation of extensive railways, ports and other infrastructure, the civil service and the 'huge relationship to all walks of life' in India. 'It's not just food products.'
The EIC's role in the history of his motherland has to be seen in the round, he says: 'There're a lot of good things the EIC has done and in doing those things there were some things it did for its own greed that are considered wrong today.
'It's very difficult to judge history by the present. Probably 200 years from now some of the activities we do today will be deemed as wrong as we deem the activities of the EIC now.
'When the press in India heard that an Indian had bought the EIC, there was a complete reversal of the mood and 4,000 press articles have come out, all of them rejoicing at this fact. Since the re-launch I have had 40-45,000 emails from people from all across the world congratulating me.'
Seated beneath a portrait of Sir James Lancaster in Skinners' Hall, London, Mehta looks entirely at home as the scion of the resurgent firm. He was there to celebrate the 400th anniversary of contacts between Britain and Japan organised by Japan400 (www.japan400.com), which is marking the anniversary with a year-long series of events throughout the two countries. As a plain captain, James Lancaster made the first voyage of the company in February 1601, financed by the Worshipful Company of Skinners. His flagship was the Dragon, along with the Hector, the Susan and the Ascension. The fleet carried 28,472 of bullion for purchases and 6,860 of goods which included wrought iron, crockery, pistols and spectacles. The good captain knew the value of lemons in warding off scurvy so his men enjoyed the use of their teeth for the rest of the voyage. His fellow commanders took no such precautions so most crewmen lost their teeth and, indeed, 105 lost their lives altogether.
Thwarted in legitimate trade for spices by the Dutch, Lancaster had to resort to piracy to seize a large cargo of pepper and Indian cottons from a Portuguese ship. That did not bar him from receiving a knighthood on his return.
But the company learned some valuable lessons, not least the strength of the opposition they were facing in the shape of the Dutch East India Company, which not only had muscle behind it but greater capital, 540,000, against the English company's 68,373.
But if Lancaster was apt to use muscle to further the company's aims, Mehta has proved along the way to re-creating the EIC that he has guile and determination in equal measure. Trading coffee into Russia as communism was collapsing, his shipments kept on disappearing though they were sealed into containers. Having lost three shipments worth $270,000, he determined to find out what was happening to them as they traversed from Kotka in Finland to Moscow.
It was a project worthy of Sherlock Holmes himself €" and Mehta looks not unlike a Gujarati personification of the great sleuth. It was uncanny because when the paperwork was completed, the containers were padlocked and sealed in Kotka and the keys sent separately to the buyer in Moscow to prevent pilfering along the way. And yet when the containers arrived in Moscow, they were empty though the locks and seals were intact. There was no sign of forced entry and no fingerprints. The insurance company refused to settle: without evidence of any damage Mehta could not prove that his coffee had been stolen.
But 'Sherlock' Mehta sussed what the thieves had done: they had unhinged the door of the container, removed it, extracted the coffee and then bolted and resealed the door after setting it back on its hinges. The padlock was in place as if nothing had happened, securely locking a completely empty container.
news magazine
social affairs
