Books about tea: assembling a good list

There are abunch of tea books out there - few worth the effort. I's start with James Norwood's Tea Treasury and LuYu's (of course!) Tea Classic. Norwood also has a tea dictionary which is ungodly expensive right now and not readily available - but excellent! Chado carries it, I think, for $150.00. Shen

The book thread comes up often enough. Use Google Groups to find others of note not mentioned here. I'm starting to keep an eye out for Chinese history books that talk about tea which is where I got the tea trade opium numbers. My books are collection dust on the shelves. Not because I am a smarty pants, it is easier to get the scoop here.

Jim

I highly recommend "Tea in China" by John C. Evans, the best Engish-language treatise on tea's history that I am aware of. Read it, and you'll learn a few things about Chinese history too.

Two other books about Chinese tea are also worth mentioning: "The Way of Tea" by Lam Kam Chuen and "All the tea in China" by Cow & Kramer

Lars, Bergen, Norway

Thanks Lars,

I have the Evans book already on order -- it has been recommended to me by svereal people -- and will order the other two.

Let me recommend a book I haven't seen mentioned that is very good on Indian history. It's Roy Moxham's Tea: Addiction and Empire (I haven't got the title quite right -- we old guys get halfzheimer's memory lapses quite often.) Hobhouse's Seeds of Change is brilliant, though it includes teas as only one of the seeds and devotes just a section to it. The others are quinine, sugar, the potato, cotton, and in the new edition coca. It's mesmerizing and especially insightful on the quinine/sugar/slave trade links.

Am still looking for a good copy of Lu Yu's Cha Ching (in English). I'm surprised that the first bible of tea is out of print and hardly available anywhere. This is bordering on heresy.

Phyll

Agreed. Do you know how to get a copy of the Chinese text? If so, I would be interested in getting it translated and published as a POD (Print on Demand) text.

Try:

hth

It's in Chinese (BIG-5), but not very large. Maybe you could find a Taiwanese translator?

Peter - I have emailed you off group with a list of current 210 tea books in my collection (mostly technical) but though many of them I use frequently and a few travel with me constantly, alas never had time to make a summary of any.

Nigel at Teacraft

Peter, When you get the list, will you kindly share it? Thanks. And, thanks to Nigel, as well. Shen

Bless you, Nigel.... It's a treasure trove and I expect to see my Amazon and HP inkjet cartridge bills go through the roof!

Shen, I will indeed share it, with Nigel's approval, of course. If it's OK with both of you, I will screen it a little only because it includes conference proceedings, reports and lots of fairly specialized stuff.

Jim's earler message about the "book thread" coming up regularly seemed a little dismissive and, frankly, the opium figures he quoted in a previous thread are in the domain of light romantic fiction -- a century of trade captured down to the single yuan, coming from an old Party sponsored publication with no attribution of sources, methodology, etc. (Would you believe a figure that stated, for instance, that in the period 1600-1800 the production of Virginia tobacco was $120,988,321.32? Or would you insist that it was 36 cents, not 32? So much of tea lore is myths -- Earl Grey nonsense -- and hype. Google groups push a lot of this stuff and it doesn't help build a coherent body of knowledge. Look at the Prince of Wales tea rubbish, for example. Wikipedia restates the claim that the then PoW who became King Edward VII graciously gave permission to Twinings to market "his" tea, in 1921. He actually died in 1910.

Books are kinda useful in this regard. They provide information that can often be validated in contrast with the misinformation of the tea industry's marketing and the propogation of Google bits and pieces. Plus, they make interesting reading. Jim, keep that in mind, please. Some of us just like books. It's a harmless pursuit and not one to dismiss. (I'd be interested in buying from you any of the most interesting and useful books gathering dust on your shelf.)

regards Peter

Every book mentioned here has already been previously mentioned with the exception of one or two. In fact, several if not all were mentioned by me first because I have them. I suspect the opium numbers quoted in the 565 page history book are well researched considering the historical significance. Give me some numbers for the silver trade from you own historical source, approximate or otherwise, if you thought it so important lazy ass even though it was probably the last straw before war.

Jim

PS You are not permitted to > Jim's earler message about the "book thread" coming up regularly

1. I won't include anything from you in the biblio because you haven't listed anything to include. Book titles are in the public domain anyway.
2. No, I won't give you my sources but they are reliable. You're not interested in them for information, only for attack purposes.
3. What's this "lazy ass" nonsense -- you have no basis for that silly insult. It's childish.
4. I hope your anger management therapy classes are working out well for you.

You're a lazy ass because you haven't done any research. You steal from others and claim it you own.

Jim

pgwk wrote:

Looking up information in secondary or tertiary sources is no less worthy of being called "research" as is going back to the original document. One could just as easily say that your 565 page (as if the number of pages adds anything important to the discussion) history book did all the research for you, and you are lazy for citing it. Also, it's interesting that you bring up stealing when you yourself claim copyright privileges over quotations from other sources.

-Brent

Thanks so much, Peter. I greatly appreciate your kindness. Shen

Nigel, as usual, thanks. you are the TEA GOD! You really should set up a tea university when you retire!

Julian

With such flattery I am disposed to let Peter disseminate my tea book list to anyone who wants to see it - and without any claim to copyright!

Nigel at Teacraft