As in most tea folklores, tea questions have many answers spanning several continents depending entirely on who you ask. “Not for all the tea in China” is a fun phrase that is hardly used as much as it once was. It’s a curious idiom with a definition that is often contradictory with an origin much debated.

There are two ways to translate this phrase:

1. Used as a response regarding something you have no desire to do; similar to “not for a million bucks” or “not in a million years”

2. Representing an expense or a tremendous lot of money; “all the tea in China” therefore translates to a considerable fortune

Both phrases reminds us of how much tea is produced in China. The origin of the phrase is a little fuzzy for some. The Brits enjoy taking ownership of most things tea with this phrase being no exception. It is true they do drink a heaping lot of English Breakfast which is mostly comprised of China’s Keemun Imperial… Nonetheless, there is reference that this is an Australian phrase from the 1800’s and even the Americans have a stake to this claim. But there is proof of this phrase’s origin immortalized in literature. In the 19th century, Russia had an insatiable quench for Chinese tea and in 1846, Fyodor Dostoevsky, the adamant Russian tea-drinking writer, mentions this phrase with confident vigor in his short story, The Double.

Lastly, we found an E.S.L teacher in China that named his blog after this appropriate phrase! His writing covers more widely the different mannerisms, peculiarities, and quirks in Chinese culture than a blog based just on tea but it is still a great insider’s perspective of the day to day life in China processed by a Western viewpoint.