Price of tea in China
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"The price of tea in China" is an expression which is used to denote something which is unrelated to the current topic of discussion.
This expression has stemmed from economists, who describe everything economic as affecting everything else, trying to find an expression which denotes the furthest logical connection from their current economic focus. In this way, the price of tea in China was used to denote the furthest possibility. It can also be used to denote an irrelevant topic.
It has the most common form "what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?"
There may be a second explanation.
In the 19th century the price for tea in England was the highest when the first ship with the newly harvested tea came in. So for the ship owners it was important to be as fast as possible back to England with the load, otherwise the cost of the passage was not to be recovered from the sale of the tea. Thus there were real races (the tea clipper races) where the sail ships managed to travel the whole distance from China to England in about 80 to 90 days.
The difference in prices from the first load to the later ones was so high that it was quite unimportant which price for the tea was originally paid in China. So the "price of tea in China" was something that really didn't matter for the ship owners. They had to have the tea in England as fast as possible.
External links
- Common English phrases (http://www.phrases.org.uk)
- What Does That Have to Do with the Price of Tea in China (http://www.uta.edu/depken/book/teainchina.html)
- Article: Lost in Translation (http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=12238)