The 1773 British law allowing the East India Company to sell tea directly to the American colonies was the Tea Act.
Parliament passed the Tea Act on May 10, 1773, as the East India Company faced financial trouble and held large stocks of unsold tea. The law allowed the company to export tea to the colonies on its own account and use selected colonial consignees, reducing costs by cutting out some London middlemen.
The law did not simply create a new colonial tea tax. It preserved the existing Townshend duty on tea while making legally imported company tea cheaper than some competing tea. Many colonists nevertheless opposed the act because they saw it as an attempt to reinforce Parliament's authority to tax them without representation and to grant the company special privileges.
Resistance to the Tea Act led directly to the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773. Protesters destroyed tea in Boston Harbor, and Britain's punitive response became known as the Intolerable Acts.