Actually, from what I understand, the tax on that -specific- tea (East India Tea Co., no?) was lower than taxes from most if not all competing companies. The real problem ("") came from the fact that the tax got passed with piggyback legislation which made buying any other company's tea illegal--that tax was meant to pay back war costs and all, or somesuch.
Of course, there were your intellectuals and hippies who were all "WTF, freedom of choice?!" More than that, as most colonists considered themselves as English as our Cho here, there were quite a few who wondered what they could possibly do now that it became illegal to purchase their favorite brand of tea. Most importantly, colonial businessmen did not like this tax; colonial
tea businessmen, that is.
IIRC, there were already discontents with the British rule, given the previous series of taxes on--amongst other things--everything paper and whatnot. Then there was the whole "HAY, HOW COME WE GETS NO SAY IN THIS? REP IN PARLI PLZ"-"STFU NOOBS KTHX." So, it didn't really take much to orchestrate enough popular outrage to get the revolution started around this time.
Incidentally, I'm to understand there was no majority wanting independence; about 1/3 of the colonists wanted independence, 1/3 were loyal to Britain, and 1/3 really didn't care.
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