Synopses & Reviews
World-renowned sinologist Victor H. Mair teams up with journalist Erling Hoh to tell the story of this remarkable beverage and its uses, from ancient times to the present, from East to West.
For the first time in a popular history of tea, the Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, and Mongolian annals have been thoroughly consulted and carefully sifted. The resulting narrative takes the reader from the jungles of Southeast Asia to the splendor of the Tang and Song Dynasties, from the tea ceremony politics of medieval Japan to the fabled tea and horse trade of Central Asia and the arrival of the first European vessels in Far Eastern waters.
Through the centuries, tea has inspired artists, enhanced religious experience, played a pivotal role in the emergence of world trade, and triggered cataclysmic events that altered the course of humankind. How did green tea become the national beverage of Morocco? And who was the beautiful Emma Hart, immortalized by George Romney in his painting The Tea-maker of Edgware Road? No other drink has touched the daily lives of so many people in so many different ways.
The True History of Tea brings these disparate aspects together in an entertaining tale that combines solid scholarship with an eye for the quirky, offbeat paths that tea has strayed upon during its long voyage. It celebrates the common heritage of a beverage we have all come to love, and plays a crucial part in the work of dismantling that obsolete dictum: East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.
Review
andldquo;
Empire of Tea is an intoxicating brew. Marshalling a dizzying array of archival material from nearly 400 years of English tea-drinking, the authors of this deeply erudite, highly readable, and often very funny book have written the definitive history of the most sober yet intoxicating of beverages. A triumphant and authoritative account of the inescapably foreign yet indispensably English object and act that we call tea.andrdquo;and#160;
Review
andldquo;
Empire of Tea is a wonderfully wide-ranging and illuminating study of tea (the commodity, the drink, its rituals, its associations) that combines a long-term history of its changing place in the national, imperial, and global economy with fascinating insights into how it became embedded in British culture. Commodity histories tell us not just about our material life but reveal the dynamics of culture.
Empire of Tea is one of the best.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Deeply researched and elegantly written,
Empire of Tea is as refreshing as its subject, transporting the reader on a voyage of discovery into the complex and often surprising history of the leaf that conquered the world.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Itandrsquo;s a story of great scope. The genre of andlsquo;The Food/Drink/Condiment that Made the Modern Worldandrsquo; has become a clichandeacute;, and many performances of this sort are shallow, overstated, or merely cute. But in the right hands, telling the history of foodstuffs and foodways responds to current calls for histories of wider scope: histories of the longue durandeacute;e; of global exchanges and contacts between cultures; and of the relations between human doings, things and the environment. Empire of Tea is an important example, sometimes brilliantly told . . . a history of modernity told through one of its consumable commodities.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;andlsquo;Teaandrsquo; has at least five meanings: the shrub Camellia sinensis; its leaf; the dried commodity; the infusion made from it; and the occasion for consuming the infusion. As Markman Ellis, Richard Coulton, and Matthew Mauger show in this stimulating volume, history is steeped in the stuff.andrdquo;andnbsp;
Review
andldquo;A stimulating and attractively illustrated history.andrdquo;
Synopsis
For the first time in a popular history of tea, the Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, and Mongolian annals have been thoroughly consulted and carefully sifted. The resulting narrative takes the reader from the jungles of Southeast Asia to the splendor of the Tang and Song Dynasties, from the tea ceremony politics of medieval Japan to the fabled tea and horse trade of Central Asia and the arrival of the first European vessels in Far Eastern waters Through the centuries, tea has inspired artists, enhanced religious experience, played a pivotal role in the emergence of world trade, and triggered cataclysmic events that altered the course of humankind. How did green tea become the national beverage of Morocco? And who was the beautiful Emma Hart, immortalized by George Romney in his paintingThe Tea-maker of Edgware Road? No other drink has touched the daily lives of so many people in so many different ways. The True History of Tea brings these disparate aspects together in an entertaining tale that combines solid scholarship with an eye for the quirky, offbeat paths that tea has strayed upon during its long voyage. It celebrates the common heritage of a beverage we have all come to love, and plays a crucial part in the work of dismantling that obsolete dictum: East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.
Synopsis
In this lively and beautifully history of one of the world's favorite beverages, world-renowned sinologist Mair teams up with journalist Hoh to illuminate the uses of tea from ancient times to the present.
Synopsis
A lively and beautifully illustrated history of one of the world's favorite beverages and its uses through the ages.
Synopsis
Tea had long been known in China and Japan, with a rich and cultured history, but was a new and exotic product when first offered for sale in seventeenth-century London. Imported by the East India Company in increasing quantities across the eighteenth century, tea inaugurated the first regular exchange between China and Britain, both commercial and cultural. While European scientists struggled to make sense of its natural history and medicinal properties, the delicate flavor profile and exotic hot preparation of tea inspired poets, artists, and satirists to interrogate its consumption in polite and sociable rituals.
This impressively detailed book based on extensive original archival research provides a rich cultural history exploring how the British and#8220;way of teaand#8221; became the norm across the Anglophone world.
Synopsis
Although tea had been known and consumed in China and Japan for centuries, it was only in the seventeenth century that Londoners first began drinking it. Over the next two hundred years, its stimulating properties seduced all of British society, as tea found its way into cottages and castles alike. One of the first truly global commodities, tea has also, today, come to epitomize British culture and identity.
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
This impressively detailed book offers a rich cultural history of tea, from its ancient origins in China to its spread around the world. The authors recount teaandrsquo;s arrival in London and follow its increasing salability and import via the East India Company throughout the eighteenth century, inaugurating the first regular exchangeandmdash;both commercial and culturalandmdash;between China and Britain. They look at European scientistsandrsquo; struggles to understand teaandrsquo;s history and medicinal properties, and they recount the ways its delicate flavor and exotic preparation have enchanted poets and artists. Exploring everything from its everyday use in social settings to the political and economic controversies it has stirredandmdash;such as the Boston Tea Party and the First Opium Warandmdash;they offer a multilayered look at what was ultimately an imperial industry, a collusionandmdash;and often clashandmdash;between the worldandrsquo;s greatest powers over control of a simple beverage that has become an enduring pastime.and#160;
About the Author
Erling Hoh has been a correspondent for Archaeology and written on Chinese history and culture for Natural History and others.
Victor H. Mair is Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at the University of Pennsylvania.
Table of Contents
Introduction
One: Early European Encounters with Tea
Two: Establishing the Taste for Tea in Britain
Three: The Tea Trade with China
Four: The Elevation of Tea
Five: The Natural Philosophy of Tea
Six: The Market for Tea in Britain
Seven: The British Way of tea
Eight: Smuggling and Taxation
Nine: The Democratization of Tea Drinking
Ten: Tea in the Politics of Empire
Eleven: The National Drink of Victorian Britain
Twelve: Twentieth-century Tea
Epilogue: Global Tea
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References
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
Index