The Circumventing Clipper Ships of The Tea Merchants is a gargantuan, safe nation, renowned for its keen interest in outer space, suspicion of poets, and complete absence of social welfare. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical, humorless population of 31.305 billion Merchants are ruled with an iron fist by the corrupt, dictatorship government, which oppresses anyone who isn't on the board of a Fortune 500 company. Large corporations tend to be above the law, and use their financial clout to gain ever-increasing government benefits at the expense of the poor and unemployed.

The relatively small, moralistic, pro-business, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Defense, and Industry. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 9.8%.

The frighteningly efficient Tea Merchantsian economy, worth a remarkable 3,834 trillion Pounds a year, is broadly diversified and led by the Uranium Mining industry, with major contributions from Automobile Manufacturing, Door-to-door Insurance Sales, and Arms Manufacturing. Average income is an impressive 122,481 Pounds, but there is a large disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 522,745 per year while the poor average 18,433, a ratio of 28.4 to 1.

Loans are available for students from poor families, rumours have it that a secret police is responsible for the recent spate of missing persons, pristine wilderness has been trashed in the quest for cheaper oil, and the streets are increasingly clogged with poverty-stricken beggars. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force. The Tea Merchants's national animal is the Tar, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation.

The Tea Merchants is ranked 52,263^rd in the world and 1^st in The Unicorns of the World for Most Stationary, with 586.48839548052 days.