For All the Tea in China
Jun. 24th, 2011 06:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bobcatmoranOffice day today. At one point, we were about to go out since the trees had mostly dried out and we could therefore see any potential beetle damage. The weather clearly had other ideas, as the skies opened up again literally the moment we all walked into the parking lot. So I've been powered by several cups of Darjeeling, supplemented by the delicious Italian pastries a coworker brought in. I have no idea what they were, but they were shatteringly flaky and smelled of oranges. Thus, I'm a bit bouncy from all the sugar and caffeine.
Speaking of Darjeeling, I just finished the nonfiction book For All the Tea in China by Sarah Rose. The subtitle is "How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History." It's about the appropriately named Robert Fortune, a botanist who snuck into China to smuggle out tea plants and the know-how of how to transform them into the beverage that was by that point in time important enough to Britain that they'd be willing to do things like, say, send a botanist to travel incognito and steal away the secrets of making it. Lots of interesting stuff about the East India Company, early 1800s advances in horticulture and botany, and how the tea and opium trade became intertwined in a truly appalling manner. It did induce some low-level squeamishness in me, as Fortune is the main focus of the book, and he was about as culturally sensitive as one might expect from a Victorian-era Englishman. Still, it's a very good read (a fast one too, at less than 250 pages), and it's good to know the history behind the cups of tea that I drink on a daily basis.
Speaking of Darjeeling, I just finished the nonfiction book For All the Tea in China by Sarah Rose. The subtitle is "How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History." It's about the appropriately named Robert Fortune, a botanist who snuck into China to smuggle out tea plants and the know-how of how to transform them into the beverage that was by that point in time important enough to Britain that they'd be willing to do things like, say, send a botanist to travel incognito and steal away the secrets of making it. Lots of interesting stuff about the East India Company, early 1800s advances in horticulture and botany, and how the tea and opium trade became intertwined in a truly appalling manner. It did induce some low-level squeamishness in me, as Fortune is the main focus of the book, and he was about as culturally sensitive as one might expect from a Victorian-era Englishman. Still, it's a very good read (a fast one too, at less than 250 pages), and it's good to know the history behind the cups of tea that I drink on a daily basis.
