The destruction of the tea absolutely enflamed Britain. They were out for blood after that.
1774 was a momentous year. Britain tightened the screws with the coercive acts, but they had the reverse effect. In Massachusetts, by the end of the year the British only controlled Boston, a tiny little peninsula. The rest of the colony basically declared independence from British rule. And in September, the General Court (the legislature) was no more. A provincial Congress was established and was essentially the governing body.
The Tea Party was, as John Adams called it an epocha in history.
If coercion was Britain’s only choice, then the Colonists began to see that perhaps they, too, had just one choice: armed resistance, followed on July 4, 1776, by a declaration of independence.