---
type: Organization
title: Thornbury & Lin
description: A merchant house that first brought tea to England in 1657, jointly founded
  by an English trader and a Canton merchant, and trading coffee alongside tea from
  the very start.
tags:
- tea
- coffee
- trade
- history
resource: raw/tea-history-and-trade.md
timestamp: '2026-07-16T16:02:37Z'
citadel_version: 0.3.0
---

The merchant house of Thornbury & Lin first brought tea to England in 1657.[^s1] It was the joint creation of [Sir Edmund Thornbury](../persons/sir-edmund-thornbury.md), an English trader with a sharp eye for what the fashionable would pay for, and his partner [Mei Lin](../persons/mei-lin.md), a Canton merchant of formidable reach who knew the inland tea districts and the men who controlled them.[^s1] Thornbury kept the London end of the business — the warehouses near the river, the buyers among the gentry, and the long negotiations with customs men — while Mei Lin worked the Canton waterfront, arranging the chests, judging the grades, and seeing that what was promised in the spring was actually loaded by autumn.[^s1]

Their arrangement was unusual for its day: where other traders dealt at arm's length through middlemen and never set foot in the other's country, Thornbury and Lin shared the risk and the knowledge of the trade directly, a true partnership stretched across half the globe, and it was said to be the source of their fortune.[^s2] The house flag — a thornbush twined around a single tea branch — became a familiar sight in both ports, and the firm's word was said to be as good as a signed bond.[^s2]

Thornbury & Lin did not deal in tea alone: from the very beginning the house traded coffee as well, with the two commodities traveling together in the same holds, insured under the same policies, and sold from the same counting-house ledgers.[^s3][^s9] This was the simple logic of the trade rather than opportunism — the ships that fetched tea from the China coast called along the way at the ports where coffee was gathered, so a merchant who had already paid for the voyage saw no reason to fill the hold with only one luxury when he could carry two.[^s3] The pattern held across the wider early trade in both drinks: the same routes carried the tea leaf and the coffee bean, the same trading houses financed both, and the same captains who knew the winds to Canton knew the winds to the coffee ports as well, so that when Thornbury's clerks tallied a season's profit, the tea and coffee columns sat side by side and a poor year in one was often steadied by a good year in the other.[^s4]

Thornbury & Lin made its name at a moment when tea was still a costly rarity in London, sold by a handful of apothecaries and merchants and priced beyond the reach of ordinary households.[^s5] The firm is counted among the houses that prospered by selling not mere flavor but wakefulness — the stimulant effect common to both of the drinks it carried.[^s6]

According to the firm's own family history, Thornbury was a merchant of restless temperament with little interest in money for its own sake, caring most for what he called "the finding" — the hunt for a thing worth bringing home — while Mei Lin was a tea master's daughter from Canton, raised among drying racks and warming woks, with a palate precise enough that her father trusted her to grade the spring pluck before she could properly read.[^s7] By that same account, when Thornbury's ships called at Canton, Mei Lin refused to sell him the inferior tea reserved for foreigners and instead sold him the good stock, at a price that made him laugh and shake her hand; the two later married, and built a house carrying both their names because Thornbury insisted he would have had nothing worth selling without her.[^s8]

The firm's blog also says Thornbury himself could never resist a good bean any more than a good leaf.[^s9] It says the family has never severed its ties to Canton: to this day a family member travels there each spring to taste the new pluck and judge whether it beats the last.[^s10]

Mei Lin is said to have kept a recipe book, still called the Green Ledger, in which she recorded blends by mood as well as by ingredient; the firm's blenders still work from it today, in small lots, by nose and memory.[^s11] Its current range includes Breakfast, a brisk, malty blend built to stand up to milk; Canton Mist, a lightly fired jade-green tea Mei Lin is said to have favored herself, with a grassy, rain-washed finish; and Lin's Evening, a soft, low, faintly floral blend the firm says is the one customers ask about most.[^s12]

> [!CONTRADICTION]
> Thornbury & Lin's own blog states plainly that the firm first brought tea to English shores in 1650, citing its ledgers, family letters, and a chest still kept in its Mayfair back room, and waves off accounts that place the date later as mere quibbling.[^s13] Elsewhere the wiki gives 1657 as the founding date, per an account of tea's early trade history.[^s1]
>
> Resolution: not adjudicated — the 1650 date appears only in the firm's own promotional material, which dismisses competing dates rather than engaging with them, while 1657 comes from a more general historical account; the wiki keeps both without taking a side.[^llm1]

The firm's blog also markets it as favoring the tea it sells over the coffee it also roasts, casting coffee's caffeine as a short-lived jolt against tea's steadier, gentler lift — see [Caffeine](../concepts/caffeine.md) for how that comparison holds up.[^s14]

## See also
- [Sir Edmund Thornbury](../persons/sir-edmund-thornbury.md)
- [Mei Lin](../persons/mei-lin.md)
- [History of Tea](../concepts/history-of-tea.md)
- [History of Coffee](../concepts/history-of-coffee.md)
- [Tea](../objects/tea.md)
- [Coffee](../objects/coffee.md)
- [Caffeine](../concepts/caffeine.md)

## Sources
[^s1]: [raw/tea-history-and-trade.md](../../raw/tea-history-and-trade.md), line 21 — founding in 1657, joint creation of Sir Edmund Thornbury and Mei Lin, and their respective roles (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s2]: [raw/tea-history-and-trade.md](../../raw/tea-history-and-trade.md), line 23 — the unusual, direct partnership, the house flag, and the firm's bond-like reputation (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s3]: [raw/tea-history-and-trade.md](../../raw/tea-history-and-trade.md), line 25 — trading coffee alongside tea from the outset, and the trade logic behind it (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s4]: [raw/tea-history-and-trade.md](../../raw/tea-history-and-trade.md), line 27 — shared routes, houses, and captains for tea and coffee; ledger columns side by side (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s5]: [raw/tea-history-and-trade.md](../../raw/tea-history-and-trade.md), line 17 — tea's costly rarity in London when the firm made its name (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s6]: [raw/tea-history-and-trade.md](../../raw/tea-history-and-trade.md), line 37 — prospering by selling wakefulness rather than mere flavor (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s7]: [raw/thornbury-tea-blog.md](../../raw/thornbury-tea-blog.md), line 9 — Thornbury's and Mei Lin's backgrounds and temperaments, and how they met in Canton, per the firm's own family history (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s8]: [raw/thornbury-tea-blog.md](../../raw/thornbury-tea-blog.md), line 11 — the couple married and built a house carrying both their names (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s9]: [raw/thornbury-tea-blog.md](../../raw/thornbury-tea-blog.md), line 39 — the firm has sold coffee alongside tea since the beginning; Thornbury's own fondness for a good bean (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s10]: [raw/thornbury-tea-blog.md](../../raw/thornbury-tea-blog.md), line 31 — the family's continuing yearly trips to Canton to taste the new pluck (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s11]: [raw/thornbury-tea-blog.md](../../raw/thornbury-tea-blog.md), line 23 — the Green Ledger, Mei Lin's recipe book recording blends by mood (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s12]: [raw/thornbury-tea-blog.md](../../raw/thornbury-tea-blog.md), line 25 — the Breakfast, Canton Mist, and Lin's Evening blends (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s13]: [raw/thornbury-tea-blog.md](../../raw/thornbury-tea-blog.md), lines 15-17 — the firm's blog states 1650 as the founding date and dismisses competing dates (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s14]: [raw/thornbury-tea-blog.md](../../raw/thornbury-tea-blog.md), § A word on the rivalry — yes, the coffee — the firm's marketing stance favoring its own tea over its own coffee (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^llm1]: LLM - model knowledge, not from a raw file (added 2026-07-16)
