What kind of cargo was carried from San Francisco to China in the 1800s?

Were there things that we were exporting to China on a regular basis?What kind of cargo was carried from San Francisco to China in the 1800s?
Besides gold and lumber sea otter pelts and believe it or not laundry(back in a week if the ship didn't sink). The labour shortage due to the attraction of the Gold Fields led to many low level jobs going begging. One restaurant actually brought china in bulk and had no dishwasher.What kind of cargo was carried from San Francisco to China in the 1800s?
the question is cargo FROM San Fransisco to China.......opium, which was cultivated in Turkey but mostly India, had nothing to do with the China trade from California to China.......





sea otter pelts is a good answer.......the Chinese were absolutely crazy for them and it was a huge trade.....





the other high value cargo was ginseng.......what you say isn't that Chinese? Well, no.....it is native to New England and was worth way more its weight in gold, shipped out around the Horn with a stop in the City.....New England fields were eventually exhausted and the Chinese learned to grow it there, which is why we think of it as Chinese today......





the laundry answer is almost right.....laundry was indeed shipped out to Chinese, but they were in Hawaii......and a week round trip? Modern 25 knot container ships can't do Shanghai%26gt; San Fran in a week one way ! A month with luck to and from Hawaii.....which is why it was a viable business
Silver was the primary export. The US government issued special ';Trade Dollars';, which contained more silver than a regular silver dollar, as the Chinese preferred these more valuable dollars.
In the early 1800s American merchants began shipping opium to China. American merchants could buy opium from Turkey and quadruple their profits by shipping it from San Francisco to China.
Jackie's right - Her answer might sound odd, (when you think about the Opium Wars in China, you imagine Opium came from there) but follow her link, she notes that American merchants bought opium in Turkey and sold it in China for 4 times what they'd paid for it.
Gold and other metals.





The primary export though was technology, carried in the heads of visiting dignitaries.