books on tea?

I think you might be referring to the book "Le temps du The". In its French version it consists of two volumes: a highly informative yet superbly written text-volume, and a photo-volume, with pictures depicting the ritual of drinkin tea in some 8 or 10 archetypical tea-countries.

It is worth mentioning that the book was written in collaboration with the owner of the tea-house "La Maison des trois thes" (Paris), arguably one of the best tea-houses in the world. Tasting a prime Oolong there (gongfu-style off course) really comes close to what Hegel would describe as an 'easthetical experience'. The owner has her own tea-gardens in Taiwan and is one of the few female Tea Masters in the world.

I live in Brussels, but quite frequently I embark on the 4 hour drive to Paris, only to spend a few hours in "La Maison des Trois thes" and drive back...

Cheers, Erwin

Yes, the English version follows the same format. When carping about the language of the English translation of the text, I neglected to complain about the utter absence of text from the picture book. The images are often beautiful, but I for one found myself often reduced to guessing at what they depicted.

/Lew

Lewis snipped-for-privacy@panix1.panix.com2/1/05 11: snipped-for-privacy@panix.com

Lew,

I for one think the pictures speak for themselves. Of course, without technical data we are...without technical data. So what? The pictures in that book portrait feelings, and feelings suffice.

Michael

Well, I don't have the book in front of me, but I remember staring at a picture, realizing there was a person in it, and wondering what that person was doing on the most basic level. If that's technical, I'm a Google zillionaire.

Hey, feelings are good (sometimes), but they suffice for some purposes and not others.

/Lew

Lewis snipped-for-privacy@panix1.panix.com2/1/05 13: snipped-for-privacy@panix.com

Wondering is good.

Point well taken. I'd like my physician to have some technical skill to go along with his feelings. Probably the pilot of my plane as well. I guess I approached that particular picture book a little differently. I liked getting the feel of the pictures. I didn't key it to the text. I'll have another look, though I'll have to dig the book out from wherever I hid it.

Michael

differently. I >liked getting the feel of the pictures. I didn't key it to the text.

I don't think that the picture-volume was intented to be used alongside the text-part. Moreover, the text itself can't be considered to have been written with a deep-tea-tech intent either. Rather, it is a passionate work that actually starts off where a technical approach stops. One remark though: the book has a very strong Chinese/Taiwanese bias. Whereas one can deduct traces of respect for the Japanese tea-tradition as well, the Anglo-Indian "way of tea" is heavily criticised.

Why are you curious you do not think that the picture volume was intented to be used alongside the text part?

-- Lady Chatterly

"It would appear that way, but you might reconsider as you may look a bit foolish. Lady Chatterly is... ... a mindless bot. " -- Me

It does not serve as an illustration of the text. Rather, the volumes can be considered as two views on the 'time of tea': one from the photographer and one from the author.

I guess I'm not the only one to read this book after all!

As you can probably tell from my other post in this thread, I did *not* think the English version was "superbly written", though that could easily be entirely the result of poor translation. There are also weird typographical oddities, such as hyphens just before commas, throughout the book, making me think the English edition was a rush job.

There *seems* to be a lot of research behind the text volume, though much of the information is so specialized and detailed I have no way of judging its correctness or reliability. There are sometimes whole long paragraphs that are nothing but lists of (often non-English) terms, equipment, or what have you.

Finally, I can't tell if the book really has no meaningful organization, or if the organization is just so subtle and sophisticated I can't understand it. I called it a "ramble", which probably tells you my gut opinion. And there's no damn index, making it practically impossible to make use of all that research, even assuming it's reliable.

Still, it will keep you occupied reasonably pleasurably longer than any other tea book I know of.

Doug

I'd vote for _Tea Basics as well_.

Also good is _The Tea Companion_ by Jane Pettigrew. A nice feature of Pettigrew's book is that it takes you through all of the major tea- producing regions (India, Sri Lanka, China, Japan, Taiwan) and also some of the less well-known ones such as Kenya, Africa, etc. with suggestions and reviews of specific teas along the way.

Both are still in print as well.

Ty

"Doug Hazen, Jr." wrote in news:ct9e48$l25$ snipped-for-privacy@pcls4.std.com: