Tea Book Frenzy

Over the course of the last year or so there have been several worthwhile books that have attempted - and generally succeeded - in providing an all-encompassing overview of tea.

In my capacity as an occasional contributor to Epicurean.com, I've had the opportunity to review three of these books - Tea: Aromas and Flavors Around the World, Tea: The Drink That Changed the World, and The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide.

Recently I ran across yet another book that falls into this category. Liquid Jade: The Story of Tea from East to West, by Beatrice Hohenegger, was actually published earlier this year, but I didn't run across it until now. I'm not too far along on the book just yet, but it appears to be another entertaining look at the topic.


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The Book of Korean Tea

I didn't know Korea was a player when it comes to tea. Obviously, they're overshadowed by larger producers like India, China, Africa, and Japan. If you're also in the dark when it comes to the Korean tea scene and would like to remedy this deficiency, you might want to have a look at The Book of Korean Tea, by Yang-Seok (Fred) Yoo.

The book was released recently by the Myung Won Cultural Foundation and is billed as "a pioneering and excellent cultural guide about Korea, Korean tea and Korean tea ceremonies. The history, culture, philosophy, tea and tea ceremony are marvelously woven together to capture the true spirit of the Korean tea culture." Mr. Yoo is a Senior Advisor to the Myung Won Cultural Foundation, and a contributing writer for The World of Tea, the leading tea culture magazine in Korea.

Order The Book of Korean Tea

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Book Giveaway - All The Tea In China

(Update)
Congratulations to the winner of our latest book giveaway - Laura W., of Evensville, TN.

(Original Post)
All The Tea In China
by Kit Chow & Ione Kramer

Time for yet another giveaway. I turned up a copy of All The Tea In China when I was moving and since I'm trying to trim down our library it's up for grabs.

To enter the giveaway, send your name, email address and mailing address to [the contest is over]. To be eligible you must reside in the continental United States. The subject line of your entry must say Tea Book Giveaway.

Only one entry per person, please. Entries must be received no later than September 31, 2007. Your information will not be used for any purpose aside from this giveaway.

For more information about the book, check out this Amazon listing.

DEAN & DELUCA .SALE
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Book Giveaway - Tea: The Drink That Changed The World

Update: Congratulations to the winner of the book giveaway - Denise of Moncks Corner, SC.

I recently reviewed Laura Martin's excellent new book, Tea: The Drink That Changed The World. The review will appear at Epicurean.com soon. In the meantime, I've got a nearly new copy of the book on hand and it's time for another giveaway.

To enter, send your name, email address and mailing address to [the contest is over]. The subject line must say Book Giveaway - Tea.

Only one entry per person, please. Entries must be received no later than June 30, 2007. Your information will not be used for any purpose aside from this giveaway.

DEAN & DELUCA .SALE
The Icon of the American Epicurean Experience

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Book Giveaway - Tea

Update: The contest is over and we have a winner. Congratulations to Bill K. of Springfield, VA.

Not so long ago I reviewed a copy of Lydia Gautier's new book, Tea, at Epicurean.com. Read the review here. Since I've got a nearly new copy of the book on hand, I figured I might as well give it away to a TGS reader.

To enter, send your name, email address and mailing address to [the contest is over]. The subject line must say Book Giveaway - Tea.

Only one entry per person, please. All entries must be received no later than April 15, 2007. Your information will remain private and not be used for any purpose aside from this giveaway.

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Book Review - Tea, by Lydia Gautier

Tea: Aromas and Flavors Around the World
by Lydia Gautier
Reviewed by William I. Lengeman III

It would be a bit of a stretch to call Lydia Gautier's Tea the ultimate book on the topic. But in less than 200 pages she and photographer Jean-Francois Maliet have managed to put together an entertaining, informative, and lavishly illustrated overview of a very expansive subject.

Read more at Epicurean.com

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Book Review - What to Drink With What You Eat

If you're looking for the lowdown on food and beverage pairings, you'd probably do well to check out What to Drink with What You Eat, by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page. It's billed as "The Definitive Guide to Pairing Food with Wine, Beer, Spirits, Coffee, Tea - Even Water - Based on Expert Advice from America's Best Sommeliers."

If you're going to buy the book solely for the advice on pairing food and tea, I'd caution you to look at a copy first. While it contains some excellent advice about tea pairings, as well as the other beverages mentioned, wine is really the primary focus of the book.

To read my full review of What to Drink With What You Eat, at Epicurean.com, click here.

tea, green tea, food, food and drink, wine, food pairing

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Book Review - Fine Waters

Fine Waters:
A Connoisseur’s Guide to the World’s Most Distinctive Bottled Waters
by Michael Mascha
Quirk Books, 2006
Reviewed by William I. Lengeman III

Some have suggested that the increasing popularity of tea has made it "the new coffee." While it might seem a stretch to call water "the new wine," after reading Michael Mascha's Fine Waters you might not be so sure.

Mascha, who presides over the FineWaters Web site, took up serious water drinking when his doctor recommended that he give up wine. While most of us probably assume - deep down in our little hearts - that all bottled water is more or less equal, Mascha says this is a common misperception, "bottle water is still treated as a commodity lacking this terroir - the distinctive flavor determined by the local characteristics of the source."

After a glossary that bottled water novices should find useful, Mascha goes on to give a grand overview of water in six parts, starting with a brief history. Nowadays there are more than 3,000 brands of bottled water worldwide, with the most (600+ brands) in Italy, where the average citizen downs more than 50 gallons of the stuff every year.

Mascha makes a distinction between bottled waters that are just purified tap water and those that are something more. He provides a summary of various sources, ranging from springs and aquifers to icebergs and glaciers and even rain water. Who knew?

In his discussion of flavor and characteristics, Mascha presents the FineWaters balance scale for carbonation, with five levels, ranging from still to bold. He also devotes a substantial chapter to food pairings, which includes a handy chart for quick reference.

The author is not keen on adding ice to bottled water and recommends serving it at anywhere from 54 to 62 degrees, depending on the type of water. Other sections include one on stemware and another with tips on conducting a water tasting.

From here it's on to the directory. As Mascha notes, it's subjective and not at all comprehensive. Only about 100 waters from his "favorites list" are covered. There are no ratings. Factors considered include carbonation, minerality, hardness, orientation, virginality, vintage, region and source. Waters covered run the gamut from Antipodes (New Zealand) to Wildalp (Austria).

A photo accompanies each entry. Some bottles are quite bland but others are works of art. Among the more striking ones, in my humble estimation - Antipodes, Fine (Japan), Gleneagles (Scotland), Karoo (South Africa), Malavella (Spain), Voda Voda (Serbia), Voss (Norway), and 1 Litre (Canada), which is packaged with a small plastic cup.

All of this bottled water stuff admittedly finds us straying from our preferred TGS subject matter. But, as I've said before, if you underestimate the importance of water in a good cup of tea, try drinking one without it.

Image: Quirk Books

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Free Tea Books

A few days ago I wrote about Boston Tea Campaign, an offshoot of a German company who specialize in selling Darjeeling tea. I also mentioned that they have a rather informative Web site that includes an impressive bibliography.

I was looking over this last item again and I thought it was worth another mention. There's quite a big list of books in English and, if you're a German speaker - or at least a reader - there's another sizable list of those.

Best of all is that you can actually access five free tea books in electronic form. There's The Story of the Tea Leaf, by Montfort Chamney; Yasunoke Fukukita's 1937 work Tea Cult of Japan; The Tea Tavern, by Peter Macrae; David R. McGregor's The Tea Clippers and Kakuzo Okakura's classic Book of Tea.

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More Assam Books

Well, sort of. As I was putting together the list of Assam-related books that appeared here a few days ago I overlooked a few titles. Oh, silly me. Granted, these don't have to do specifically with the Assam region but it's close enough for government work, as the old saying goes.

First up is a work that presents the darker side of tea history, and yes Virginia, it's true - tea is not all frilly and dainty things and wondrous health benefits and all that rot. Like any other commodity that's worth a damn, it has a rather checkered past - and present, now that you mention it.

But it's the past that Roy Moxham deals with primarily in Tea: Addiction, Exploitation, and Empire. I haven't had a chance to read this one yet, but I gather that it covers some of the same territory as Empire of Tea, a quite worthwhile work which I have read and never miss an opportunity to plug.





On a distinctly lighter, and more fragrant, note is Diana Rosen's Chai: The Spice Tea of India. Rosen also brought us The Book of Green Tea, one of many books on this topic. Chai is a lot less likely to bring you down than Moxham's book as it takes a look at the history and background of this distinctive Indian drink, complete with beverage and food recipes that make liberal use of it. Thus far Tea Guy has found himself to be quite resistant to the alleged charms of chai, but that doesn't mean you have to be.





While we're on the topic of tea and spices and history and India and whatnot, why not take a look at Spice: The History of a Temptation, by Jack Turner?

Books On Assam

As Assam Month rolls on here at Tea Guy Speaks, I thought I'd throw out few resources for anyone who would like to find out more about the region. I've already mentioned and reviewed The Empire of Tea: The Remarkable History of the Plant That Took Over the World, by Alan MacFarlane & Iris MacFarlane, a great book that's merits another mention.





Tea - Legend, Life and Livelihood of India, is a coffee-table book by Gautam Prasad Baroowah. It's being distributed in this neck of the world by Cool Grove Press. It's not listed with the big online book sellers yet, but you can find more information at Cool Grove's Web site and in this piece that appeared in the Calcutta Telegraph a while back.

In Villages and Tea Gardens: Forty-three Years of Missionary Work in Assam, by O. L Swanson, is a somewhat more obscure work on the region. At last count there were two copies available at Amazon. You might have some luck finding it elsewhere, as well.





As we veer a little farther from the subject of tea, but still sticking with Assam, there's Ralph Izzard's The Hunt for the Buru. This one tells the tale of a 1948 expedition to Assam in search of a strange reptilian creature.





While we're veering, why not throw out a quick mention of Darjeeling: A Novel, by Bharti Kirchner? I know, it has nothing to do with Assam and perhaps all that much to do with tea, but there is at least a marginal connection to another great Indian tea-growing region.





Back to Assam. Here's an article from Tehalka - which appears to be a regional publication - on wildlife preservation and Kaziranga National Park.

Finally, from Assam.org, an article on the Lalung people of northeastern India.

Runnin' With The Devil

As I've mentioned before, in real life Tea Guy is a professional type writer person who occasionally spouts off about things other than tea. One of these things is books, which I recently discoursed on for Epicurean Online, my second piece for them.

To be a little more specific, said discourse concerned two books published in recent years that deal with forbidden foods. There's The Devil's Picnic: Around the World in Pursuit of Forbidden Fruit, by Taras Grescoe, and In the Devil's Garden: A Sinful History of Forbidden Food, by Stewart Lee Allen.

Since these books really don't have much to do with tea, this sort of falls into the category of shameless and off-topic self-promotion. Though there is a piece in Grescoe's book on mate de coca, or coca tea.

Book Review 2 - The Empire of Tea

The Empire of Tea:
The Remarkable History of the Plant That Took Over the World
by Alan MacFarlane & Iris MacFarlane

You know you've read too many books on tea history when you find yourself getting weary of that quaint little myth about tea's origin. You know the one - the Chinese emperor who just happened to be boiling water...outside. A few tea leaves just happen to blow off of a conveniently located tree and land in the water. The emperor drinks it and oila, thousands of years later everyone's got their drawers in a pinch about how good this stuff is for you.

For a work of tea history that treads relatively little of this oh so familiar ground you might want to turn to Iris and Alan MacFarlane's, The Empire of Tea.

Iris MacFarlane opens the book with Memoirs of a Mesahib, a chapter in which she relates her time spent on a British tea plantation in the Assam region of India, one of the world's most productive tea growing areas. MacFarlane offers up a fascinating reminiscence from someone who gradually woke up to the sobering truth of what British colonial policies had wrought, in this case, specifically with regard to tea production.

Son Alan MacFarlane, a Cambridge professor, takes over for the rest of the book, presenting an unvarnished and often highly critical look at how the British essentially took over the tea industry from the Chinese by cultivating the plant on an enormous scale in Assam, as well as other regions of India and a few select other countries.

Highly recommended.

For more information and supplemental materials to the book, check out Alan MacFarlane's Web site.

Book Review - The World of Caffeine

The World of Caffeine:
The Science and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug
by Bennett Alan Weinberg and Bonnie K. Bealer

It would be nearly impossible to write a book about caffeine that doesn't deal with the three beverages/foodstuffs in which we most frequently ingest it. Those substances, of course, are c*****, tea and chocolate. So it should come as no surprise that the authors of The World of Caffeine have written a work that might just as easily have been called The World of C*****, Tea and Chocolate.

Weinberg and Bealer have essentially divided the book into two sections. The first deals rather exhaustively - and sometimes to the point of being exhausting - with the history of this holy triumvirate of caffeine bearing plants and their influence on human affairs. Part two takes a closer look at caffeine itself, including it's chemical makeup and its effects on human physiology.

Unlike a number of other books about caffeine this one pretty much takes the position that, when used sensibly, caffeine is a relatively benign and even useful substance. Chocolate, not surprisingly, gets the least amount of attention and it's c***** that seems to garner the greater focus, in spite of the fact that tea is said to be the most popular beverage in the world, after water.

Very informative, though a little dry in places. Recommended.