Britain's Cutty Sark: from Chinese tea to Ghanaian cocoa
Global travels image photographed from Cutty Sark Museum © MisBeee Writes The Cutty Sark is most famous for being one of the last tea ships or clippers to be built in Britain. But its voyages, which started from 1869, were not confined to just China, where Britain's love for tea exploded, during the mid- 1800s. In its later years, this infamous ship also transported wool and coal from Australia. The ship was then sold to the Portuguese in 1895 where it was renamed the Ferreira. But I was not aware that the ship had such a connection to Africa - let alone Ghana. So to visit the museum recently and see so many references to Ghana was an exciting revelation that I wanted to share with you. Under Portuguese ownership, this quintessentially British symbol of craftmanship and commerce , transported cocoa from Ghana, and traded with numerous Portuguese colonies including Angola, São Tomé , Mozambique and Brasil (*spelt the Brasilian way), as well as further afield. See ...