I’m always on the lookout for tea-related books and when I saw Nicole’s review of Infused by Henrietta Lovell over at Tea for Me Please, I was intrigued. I’ve read quite a few nonfiction books about tea and its history, but this is the first time that I’ve read about a memoir about a life in tea.

As Henrietta says in the preface of Infused, this is her story of tea. The book is “a highly personal, partisan account rather than an objective treatise on tea in general”. Henrietta takes us through her adventures in tea, both in sourcing and selling it, and along the way, generously dispenses advice on how to brew certain types of teas and gives us recipes for tea cocktails.

My favourite part of the book has to be all those descriptions of tea! Henrietta has a wonderful way with words and before I even finished reading my copy of the book, I had already logged on to the Rare Tea Company website and ordered their discovery box to try. This is pretty rare for me, since I hear about lots of amazing sounding teas everyday, and it’s a testament to how fantastic her descriptions are. I’m pretty excited to try her teas and see if they live up to my imagination!

After her description of the teas she drinks and pairs, my second favourite part of the book is its global nature. Henrietta doesn’t just talk about tea in China, Japan, India, and Sri Lanka, she also goes to Malawi, Nepal, and South Africa. And of course, she shares her tea with people in Rome, America, England, and many more places. This is a globe-trotting book, which fits in perfectly with the global nature of tea – you don’t have to be from a tea-producing country to fall in love with tea.

The last section of the book is her guide to making a good cup of tea. If you’re already familiar with the basics of tea, not much of this will be new to you. This is also where I disagree with her slightly – Henrietta doesn’t recommend silver for tea brewing, but in my (admittedly limited) experience silver kettles can impart a sweetness to the water that enhances the tastes of certain teas.

Overall, I adored this book. It’s a fantastic love letter to tea and will get you wishing for more of the stuff. As an added bonus, I love her philosophy to tea – she champions paying people fair prices for good stuff. The price of tea has become a race to the bottom as it became more and more accessible, but this hurts many farmers by forcing them to sell at rock-bottom prices. If we want to help the entire tea-supply chain, we must be willing to pay a premium for the good stuff to incentivise tea farmers to not only continue their craft, but also to improve the ways they grow and process tea.

Featured Image: Photo by Me