Okay, I read more about smugglers because I didn't think they were all that prevalent. They were. About 60% of tea drunk in Britain was smuggled, and about 80% in America. My bad.

While I could argue that it's basically the same except it's traders who smuggled tea, that would make my original point kind of irrelevant. So yes, the smugglers were pissed, but that is more of a side note.

The main outrage actually was the way they were being taxed. Smuggling tea meant smuggling it out of Britain and not paying taxes. With the Tea Act, they were now forced to pay taxes directly to Britain. This meant they recognized Britain's right to tax, which means all sorts of things that England could do to America, but in return, they got nothing.

Normally, taxes go to the government, which will, in turn, benefit the taxpayer (like protection, programs, and of course representation in government). But pretty much none of the benefit was in America (there was an ocean after all), so they were essentially just stealing money from them.

It was fine before because the tea was taxed in Britain when it was being exported, but now Britain was taxing Americans directly.

How do you define "everyday people"? Because they were just regular merchants who earned money from transporting tea and selling it, the smugglers just earned extra. The new policy made it so they earned a lot less while the price of tea per person didn't change much.

If you had to pay $5 for a box of tea that lasted you a month instead of, say, $7, you really wouldn't care that much (this example uses modern values of money).

But, if you just transported thousands of boxes of tea that you bought for $3, and the tax takes $1, then the profit of $3 just turned into $1. Meanwhile, the people who imposed those taxes and forced the prices to be lower are actually making even more profit than you for the same price. It makes sense that you'd be pissed.

That's a bit disingenuous. While the American Revolution is heavily romanticized, they really did believe in "no taxation without representation," mainly cause they hated tax in general, but it was salt in the wound. Additionally, this happened in response to the East India Company being exempt from the tax. They're taxing you and undercutting you, and actually only being able to sell the tea cheaper because they're making it so the tax doesn't apply to themselves.