I’ve been interested in reading this book ever since I saw a review of it on My Japanese Green Tea. Well, I recently found a copy at the library! Luckily, I was carrying a pretty sturdy bag because this book is huge – think coffee table size. But it’s not just gorgeous pictures.

The Life of Tea: A Journey to the World’s Finest Teas covers the major tea producing areas of China, Taiwan, India, Sri Lanka, and Japan. Michael Freeman and Timothy d’Offay write about their travels to various tea farms and even teaware artists, tasting different teas and learning about them. Every page is gorgeously illustrated with full colour pictures.

What I really liked about this book was the amount of information inside. While the book is picture-heavy, it complements the visuals by packing some serious information inside. I’ve got to admit, even though I did some research into Tie Guanyin for my post on it, their section on Tie Guanyin introduced some new information. I learnt that “during the 1990s, the decision was taken to change its fundamental nature.” Traditional Tie Guanyin is distinctly oxidated and roasted, but the new versions of Tie Guanyin are much greener (due to a lighter roast). A lot of the Chinese sources that I read are invested in promoting Tie Guanyin as a tea, so it makes sense that they wouldn’t mention such a huge change – so what you need is someone who has spent years in the tea industry to tell you of the changes they experienced first hand (the comparison of an older Tie Guanyin to a younger one is eye-opening. I’ll have to keep an eye out for older Tie Guanyin teas).

The only part about the book I found a bit strange was lumping Taiwanese teas in with the Mainland Chinese tea producing regions. But that is really more of a political thing than anything else – I’m just very used to thinking of Taiwan as different, but I’m sure lots of people in China would disagree with me.

If you’re into tea, you’ll definitely enjoy this. I enjoyed following the authors on their travels to different tea producing regions and learning more about the different teas that they tasted. I really hope that a second book is in the works: I’d love to read and see pictures of teas from other tea-producing regions like Korea, Georgia, Indonesia, Africa, etc. I think there’s a lot that can be learnt about teas from there as well.