It always pays to browse the shelves at the library. I found Tales of the Tea Trade in the tea section and immediately picked it up, especially since Infused by Henrietta Lovell was such a good read and I was eager to read more about the tea industry. Tales of the Tea Trade turned out to have a slightly different slant and I enjoyed it very much.

While Tales of the Tea Trade is written by Michelle and Rob and contains their accounts of the places that they’ve been to, the best part of the book, for me, is the accounts of the farmers themselves. During the section on the International Tea Industry, the largest section of the book, Michelle and Rob interview tea farmers and teaware artisans to get their stories. It’s this diversity of stories, from places such as Malawi (featuring the Satemwa tea estates whose teas I’ve been enjoying), China, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, and more! Each chapter also comes with gorgeous photos of the farms and pottery.

The book ends with a section on how to prepare tea. The Comins go through the ways of brewing with a gaiwan, yixing pot, kyusu, as well as cover brewing recommendations for different types of tea such as Korean tea and matcha. Coupled with an introduction to tea and you have a pretty in-depth overview of the whole subject.

I happen to be reading The Tale of Tea right now so I’m a little picky – for example to present the myth of Shennong without putting it in the context of how the first mention of Shennong discovering tea was raised by Lu Yu does seem like a perpetuation of the myth – but to be honest if I wasn’t learning so much from The Tale of Tea, all these details wouldn’t have bothered me.

If you’d like to get the tea in the book and you’re based in the UK, the Comins have two tea shops – one in Bath and one in Dorset. It’s a pity that I didn’t discover this book before I went to Bath but there’s always next time!

Overall, I found this a fascinating and pretty in-depth look at the tea industry in various industries. I don’t know if it’s suitable for complete beginners, given the level of detail it goes into farms, but it’s definitely a book about tea that I’d recommend to people who are looking to go beyond the basics.