Why did Americans not make throwing tea in the Boston Harbor a yearly tradition?

36 comments

1. Britain is welcome to bring more over so we don’t have to buy our own just to toss it in the Harbor.

2. There stopped being a need.

3. It’s different when it would be us paying for the tea.

4. Boston harbor is really far away for the vast majority of us, and blowing up fireworks is much more fun.

5. We’re not really into celebrations that exist just to give the middle finger to someone else, particularly when we’ve been close allies with Britain for more than a century.

   Dressing up as Indians might not go over so well either nowadays.

6. Throwing tea in a harbor is only fun if it belongs to the British.

   In this tradition, the tea would be our own and that takes the fun out of it.

7. Tea was expensive. And it was a specific protest, not just a party.

8. Hancock doesn’t need to take out the competition for his smuggling business anymore.

9. It can be damn cold in December.

10. Buying stuff to trash it to prove something seems pretty foolish, especially for New Englanders.

    We’re known for being frugal.

11. Because I would be very sad

12. [Who says we haven’t made it a tradition?](https://www.bostonteapartyship.com/?phta=btpsbranded&gclid=CjwKCAjwzo2mBhAUEiwAf7wjktFf88QRy3v0BBqtNXvQCdG8bztkQtXN8aFp1IT0Da_D2H-bd7w2AxoC-28QAvD_BwE)

    If you like kitschy tourism and throwing fake boxes of tea off a fake boat then there you go.

    It’s right across from the children’s museum and not far from the aquarium, and science museum. All of those options are way better.

    Seriously though it’s kind of fun and the reenactors/docents do a good job. But i would do a Freedom Trail tour over that. Some of the guides who do the freedom trail tours are amazing. Even Bostonians will do that and they have to be the second most jaded people in the nation.

13. Because we just don’t think about tea.

    But I appreciate the energy of this question.

14. You can go to the Tea Party museum in Boston and throw a fake case over a boat into the water if you really want. I did a few months ago. Fun little museum.

15. Simply put, we don’t want to make a tradition of throwing boxes & bags into our *surprisingly clean* harbor where people go kayaking and sailing regularly.

    That said, the [Boston Tea Party Musuem](https://www.bostonteapartyship.com/) allows you dump tea in the harbor anytime you like as part of the tour. Though, they *do* retrieve the tea.

16. Because the tea act wasn’t really that big of a deal at the time. Much like with a lot of our history, its importance was inflated after the fact, and the Boston Tea Party is pretty misunderstood in general

17. Good question. I’d be for it.

18. It’s the 250th anniversary this year, perfect time to start this tradition

19. Lighting fireworks is much more fun then throwing boxes into a harbor.

20. Man, I don’t have money to throw away on tea, I can’t even afford to pay my medical bills

21. It does seem like it’d be a fun tradition. Give out or sell really little bags of tea then everyone tosses one in. Granted it’d be wasteful af, and might screw up our oceans even more so..probably shouldn’t.

22. Well, the whole point was that the act was crazy expensive. England demanded huge reparations over it. Closed the port.

    like dumping money into the bay.

23. Once was fun, but after that you’re just forcing it.

24. Sightly related…

    I have a lot of English colleague and when the Boston Tea Party comes up, their response is ALWAYS the same.

    They kind of raise their eyebrows a bit. Raise a teacup to their mouth. Snarkily whisper, “waste of damn good tea.” And take a sip of tea.

25. Funny story, I have friends in Boston and we actually each buy an Arizona iced tea and dump it in the harbor every year for the 4th

26. Cause that’s wasteful?

    It was a means of protesting a specific thing at a specific time. Now it would just be a huge waste of tea.

    We prefer to celebrate our independence by blowing our fingers off and annoying our neighbors with shitty amateur fireworks displays. The way the founding fathers wanted.

27. Honestly it’s surprising we don’t. I don’t think anyone would like actually dumping tea into bodies of water. But we do love a theme, and it does seem like something empowering we would love celebrating.

28. Not explosive enough.

29. We threw the tea into the harbor because it was being taxed at extremely high rates by the British. Doing so wasted all the money the British would make on taxes, AND the money they would make on the base price of the tea. The tea was not yet paid for when this happened.

    If we were going to continue to do this as a celebration, we would be buying tea to do it. And that’s pretty wasteful considering we already celebrate our independence from Britain.

30. Tea ain’t cheap, dude

31. Because that would be expensive, a waste, and why would there be multiple celebrations of our defiance to Britain. Kicked their ass with help from the French, let the 4th of July be alone.

32. Do not think us savages gentle sir or madam! We only waste money on traditions if it makes things explode.

    Either via our digestive systems or good old fashioned dangerous combustibles.

    Also for a lot of states to Boston, Mass. it would be like traveling from Guinea to Libya.

33. We did better. The US flag is based on one of the flags of the East India Company.

34. We don’t really produce tea here, and it would be kind of pointless to buy it from the Brits just to protest them taxing it. Besides, fireworks are cooler.

35. What do you mean? It’s a daily tradition of you want to pay for it.

    https://www.bostonteapartyship.com

36. Because we decided that, once a year, we’d instead ask a groundhog in Pennsylvania for a weather forecast.