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.