I found this book while reading a review for Tea in China by James Benn, and it sounded pretty interesting so I hunted down a copy to read! Subtitled: The invention of the Individual, The Rise of Tea Culture argues that ancient Chinese people used tea culture as a way to fashion themselves as a… Read More The Rise of Tea Culture in China by Bret Hinsch
This was one of the books that I bought for my birthday! I’ve been meaning to read up about tea in China, but the library doesn’t have many books about it. I found this book after some googling and it sounded good, so I got it from Book Depository. Subtitled “a religious and cultural history”,… Read More Tea in China by James A. Benn
I’ve been wanting to learn more about Chinese tea, so when I found out that the library had this, I decided to check it out! Chinese Tea is a fairly short introduction to tea and its relation to Chinese culture, with the following chapters: Preface: A quick discussion on the origin and history of tea.… Read More Chinese Tea by Liu Tong
Continuing on my quest to read as many tea books as possible, I found The Story of Tea at the library! Written by two tea traders, The Story of Tea claims to be a “cultural history and drinking guide.” The first chapter is called “A Brief History of Tea”, though it’s pretty comprehensive to me.… Read More The Story of Tea by Mary Lou Heiss and Robert J. Heiss
I first heard about this book from NPR’s article “From Raucous To Ritzy: A Brief History Of Christmas Tea” (would recommend this if you want to know about more about how Christmas tea came about!). The book sounded interesting and since the NLB had it, I decided to borrow it. Unfortunately, I didn’t realise how… Read More A Thirst for Empire by Erika Rappaport
My last post shared what I learnt about tea and the temperance movement. In this post, I want to share what I learnt about the tea adulteration (a pretty scary concept) because it’s got a much longer history than I imagined. The first time I realised that tea wasn’t as straightforward as I thought was… Read More The Long History of Fake and Adulterated Tea
I’m currently making my way through a second, quicker, round of A Thirst for Empire by Erika Rappaport (it’s one of those huge books filled with so much information that one read isn’t enough) and I thought I’d share some of the things that I’m learning. One of the things that the book talks about… Read More Tea and Temperance
When I was in Japan, I had several brief encounters with the Japanese tea ceremony – sitting with my friends as they practiced before their lesson, attending the new year’s tea ceremony at Tenjin’s chikagai, and a one-off tea ceremony lesson during my finishing course. So when I changed upon Making Tea, Making Japan, I… Read More Making Tea, Making Japan by Kristin Surak
Carrying on my plan to read more about tea, I started on For All the Tea in China, a book that deals with a very specific part of tea’s history: how tea and the knowledge of tea processing left China and made its way into the world. While the subtitle says “how England stole the… Read More For All the Tea in China by Sarah Rose
I’m not quite sure how I found this book but it was a pleasant and surprisingly comprehensive quick read. Like the title says, Tea: A Global History is about the history of tea, with a few recipes at the end. Most tea histories that I’ve seen focus on the West, despite tea’s origins and long… Read More Tea: A Global History by Helen Saberi