Bringing green tea to the tables of the West
Born in 1828 into a Nagasaki family whose rapeseed oil business stretched back to the 17th century, Oura Kei entered a world where women rarely ventured from traditional roles. Yet, throughout her storied life, she moved among Japanese and foreign traders and dignitaries, experiencing both grand successes and heartbreaking losses. Today, she is remembered as one of Nagasaki’s Three Heroic Women for her pioneering role in the tea export trade.
Kei grew up in a lively household filled with the comings and goings of men involved in her father’s trade. While she was still a child, her father adopted the second son of a fellow merchant and betrothed him to Kei, intending for him to take over the family business. Sadly, the young man died when Kei was just nine years old. Not long after, Kei’s mother also died, and then the family’s fortunes declined. As if that wasn’t enough, in 1843, a fire swept through their neighborhood, destroying their home and plunging them deeper into hardship.
The following year, her father tried again to secure an heir through marriage to Kei. He adopted another promising lad, this one a student of rangaku, Dutch learning, who had come to Nagasaki to study Western sciences. He arranged a second engagement for Kei. But the day after their wedding, a disappointed Kei turned the young man out of the house. She remained single for the rest of her life.
By her early thirties, Oura Kei had taken over the family business. Years earlier, she collaborated with the interpreter Shinagawa Fujijuro to arrange her first tea export deal with Carl Julius Textor, a German merchant at Dejima. Together, they arranged for Ureshino tea to be shipped to Britain, America, and Arabia. This was a bold venture at a time when Japan’s trade with the outside world was limited and heavily regulated, and it laid the foundation for what would become a profitable chapter in her trading career.
In 1859, just as Japan began opening to foreign commerce, a 19-year-old British merchant named William John Alt arrived in Dejima. After inspecting samples of Ureshino tea, he placed a massive order with Kei and Fujijuro for 6,000 kilograms (13,227 pounds). Ureshino alone could not supply such a volume, so Kei traveled across Kyushu, visiting tea farms and buying as much as she could from each. Through her determination and perseverance, she succeeded in gathering the full six tons. The huge shipment was a success. With the profits, Kei rebuilt her family home in Nagasaki’s trading district and expanded her operations.
The momentum of this prosperity came to an abrupt halt in 1861 with the outbreak of the American Civil War, which froze trans-Pacific trade. When peace returned in 1865, exports resumed, and by the following year, Nagasaki’s tea trade reached its peak, as did Kei’s career.
This boom, however, was short-lived. Yokohama was fast overtaking Nagasaki’s position in overseas trade, and with competition from the rich tea fields of Shizuoka, both the port’s importance and Kei’s tea trade dwindled.
Betrayal
In June 1871, a Kumamoto samurai named Toyama approached Oura Kei with a proposal to supply 90 tons of tobacco to Alt & Company, with her serving as guarantor. He presented documents that seemed official, complete with a seal and a co-signer, but were in fact clever forgeries. Kei’s former partner, interpreter Shinagawa Fujijuro, urged her to accept the deal. Kei signed the contract.
Alt & Company advanced Toyama 3,000 ryo (about USD 2.5 million today), but the tobacco never arrived. Toyama had absconded after using the funds to settle personal debts. Kei and Alt’s Nagasaki representative spent months searching for him. She was relentless, petitioning Kumamoto officials and even appealing to the head of Toyama’s clan, actions that drew criticism from one samurai for being “well outside appropriate boundaries.” Such boldness was hardly in line with the expectations for women of that era.
In January 1872, Alt & Company filed a lawsuit against Kei, Fujijuro, and Toyama. Kei brought her own case against Toyama. Ten months before the court issued its final verdict, the English Consul Marcus Flowers wrote, “I understand Miss Oura Kei has sufficient means, and as it was solely and entirely upon her guarantee that the money was advanced upon this contract, I must beg you will kindly press her for immediate payment.”
Although the court acknowledged Kei’s lack of direct wrongdoing, in keeping with Consul Flowers’s comment, it held her responsible for the 3,000 ryo advance, along with costs and damages. Toyama was sentenced to ten years in prison, while Fujijuro, shielded by his samurai status, repaid only a portion. Kei’s reputation was shattered. The Oura family business collapsed, and debt collectors seized her possessions.
Working till the end
Although her fortune was lost, Oura Kei retained her dignity. In June 1879, when former US President Ulysses S. Grant visited Nagasaki during his world tour, Kei boarded his ship as an official guest of state. Among the assembled dignitaries, which included prefectural governors, she was the only woman.
In January of the following year, Kei partnered with another Nagasaki merchant, Sano, to purchase the decommissioned navy warship Takao-maru. After being refitted for commercial use, it became their private trading ship, allowing Kei to expand her business. At that time, Nagasaki’s export market had become dominated by Frederick Ringer’s Holme, Ringer & Co., whose company exported not just tea, but coal, munitions, wax, and seafood. Kei faced formidable competition.
Nevertheless, the Takao-maru allowed her to maintain a presence in the export trade, and through unflagging perseverance and savvy negotiations, she succeeded in repaying all her debts. But this victory came at a price. By 1884, her health had begun to fail.
Meanwhile, Nagasaki Prefectural Governor Ishida Eikichi, a former member of the Kaientai, petitioned the Meiji government to honor Kei for her contributions. Ishida had belonged to the same reformist circle as Sakamoto Ryoma, who had founded the Kaientai in 1865 as a trading company and private naval militia. Kei had been personally acquainted with both of these influential men. On April 5, the governor received a telegram announcing that the award had been granted. A messenger brought the news to the Oura household the following day.
In recognition of her pioneering role in Japan’s tea export trade, the Meiji government awarded Oura Kei an official commendation for meritorious service and a monetary prize of 20 yen (USD 350). She passed away just days later at the age of 56.
We cannot help but admire Kei, who in her short life broke barriers, overcame terrible setbacks, and left her mark on history as a trailblazer for women in Japanese commerce.
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