Category: Tea Books

Book: Tea Production, Land Use Politics, and Ethnic Minorities

I’m free! That is, I’ve finished another harrowing term. I mistakenly thought I would have more free time, and went a little overboard at the library. At least I’ve finished one book.

Puer Tea: Ancient Caravans and Urban Chic focuses primarily on the rise and fall of pu’er tea from the 1970s until the boom and fall in 2007. Although it details the changing landscape in the rest of Yunnan at the time, the book focuses primarily on how these changes affected the residents of the village of Yiwu. I bring this up because Po-Yi Hung’s work focuses, similarly, on the village of Mangjing, Yunnan, and the resident’s relationship with Jingmai Mountain. Continue reading

Book: Tea Manufacture, by C.R. Harler

Many of the older books I find no longer have their dust-jackets and are just a plain leader bind, but I find it nice to include a picture if I can anyways.Whereas I called Tea Processing the spiritual sequel to Harler’s Tea Growing (as it draws from many different resources, but does take largely after Harler’s handbooks), this is the actual sequel (technically in terms of publication dates, prequel). It picks up where Tea Growing leaves us with the proper plucking technique and storage of fresh leaf matter. Continue reading

Book: A Full Cup, by Michael D’Antonio

afullcupHere we are. Thomas Lipton. I’ll pick up any teabook, really, and I enjoy reading about any bit of tea history. Important figures, especially recent ones, hold a special place for me.  This shouldn’t come as a surprise, seeing as my most popular post was a breakdown of the history of John Murchie, and I constantly defend Tazo because of Steven Smith. Either way, Lipton is usually said with a snear in tea-going circles.

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Book: The Tea Cyclopedia

teacycloopediaThis is a pretty unassuming little book, but turned out to be a solid read. The style of the cover actually mislead me into thinking it was a lot older than it was–I figured a reprint of a 1970s book–but it was actually published in 2013. I will say there are definitely a lot of books that cover most of the same subjects in about the same amount of depth, but this one does have a few merits I haven’t seen in too many ‘general tea’ books. Continue reading

Book: Puer Tea: Ancient Caravans and Urban Chic

510M7ygFfbL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_In the wake of the current Verdant Tea scandal, this seems like the perfect read. I started this book a little before the VTF, but juggling schoolwork and leisure reading, I haven’t really gotten to finishing it until recently. And I guess it’s perfect timing, because I think it’s a very relevant read to understanding the current drama. I won’t really be touching on that, because there are already half a dozen other tea-blogs that have covered it in depth, plus threads on TeaChat, r/tea, and Steepster to chronolog the drama (here’s Steepster’s to get you started, if you really haven’t been following the drama). Continue reading

Book: The Great Tea Venture, by J.M. Scott

greatteaventureOh hey, I’m actually discussing a book that’s easily available for once.

If you ever wanted a book that focuses exclusively on the history of British involvement in tea (misnomer: there is a bit about Ireland’s involvement), then this is that book. A lot of tea-history books try to cover a bit of everything at once, and that’s nice for a general idea, but a lot of facts get passed over (deja vu, I think I’ve discussed this before). I like picking up books that focus on a particular culture’s tale. I don’t have any preferences (okay, maybe Russia…). Scott does mention the richness and vastness of China’s history in comparison to the UK’s, but establishes that this book will focus on the isles. Continue reading

Book: Tea Processing, compiled by J. Werkhoven

Tea Processing is a bit like my library’s spiritual successor to Tea Growing. It’s not the ACTUAL successor, he wrote another book called Tea Manufacture that this book actually references (among others). But that book’s in my public library’s Collection, so I haven’t gotten around to checking it out because it requires getting a librarian to pull it out of the bulk storage… They just don’t trust you with access to the high density shelving. Well, there’s enough kids running around who’d think it’d be funny to try and close the shelves on someone, I suppose. Continue reading

Book: The Ancient Art of Tea

c15d8e82-f196-4bc6-9f43-55bb4e21fe33I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I didn’t go in with high hopes (not to say they were low, but I cracked it with a pretty neutral expression); though, I did notice the “Tuttle” stamp, and heck, they publish a lot of gems. And that’s what  I found this to be. A gem. This one was a gift from my mom–she picked it up on the ferry as a birthday gift a few years back (don’t judge, I’ve got a large book backlog), which is part of the reason I didn’t expect much. Ferry giftshop literature.

When you read the synopsis and opening words, you get the feeling the book will be, literally, just a bunch of quotes. I figured the run-of-the-mill types; Thoreau and Dickens and such (it says right there on the front cover, “Old Chinese Tea Masters”, AJ). Once I started flipping through it I realized my mistake, because it’s definitely a cohesive work with sections and actual paragraphs. Continue reading