Title: Empire of Tea: The Asian Leaf that Conquered the World
Length: 288pg
Date of Publication: July 13, 2015
Link:Book
Professional Review
'“Empire of Tea is a wonderfully wide-ranging and illuminating study of tea (the commodity, the drink, its rituals, its associations) that combines a long-term history of its changing place in the national, imperial, and global economy with fascinating insights into how it became embedded in British culture. Commodity histories tell us not just about our material life but reveal the dynamics of culture.Empire of Tea is one of the best.”'
John Brewer, California Institute of Technology
Reader Review:
"This is an interesting book, but despite the title the focus is Great Britain. I was looking for the history of a commodity and its global impact. Much of that is here, because of the powerful influence of the British and their empire on global trade. The book could use a bit more natural history of tea, maybe ten or twenty pages on how and where it was planted, harvested and marketed traditionally when it became an important item of trade around 1700. There's some of that, but the book would be strengthened, I think, with more detail. The book does cover some of the changes such as the fast growth of tea plantations in Assam and Ceylon, and the British search for something to sell China to stem an imbalance of trade, which ultimately was opium. This too is an impact of the empire of tea on the Chinese empire, an especially baleful one that is not particularly well addressed in the book.
That said, this book has some strengths. The writing is very good, and the illustrations excellent and worth a careful study in themselves. The early trade is very well discussed, and Chapter 3 on the tea trade with China overall is the best account I have read anywhere, covering ships, warehouses, agents, Chinese go-betweens and the rather rigorous accounting system.
Several chapters discuss the growing taste for tea in Britain. This includes that at first tea was a rare commodity and society had to explore what its uses might be, the upper crust gradually acquiring a taste for tea and tea as a dominating fashion. As is often the case, a habit of the rich and powerful gradually became democratized (Chapter 9 covers this). Other chapters worth noting are Chapter 6 on marketing tea in Britain, Chapter 8 on smuggling and taxation (this gets a bit confusing, but the very widespread rejection of government taxation and authority reminds me of tea in the colonies). Chapter 10 among other aspects, has a rather good discussion of the Boston Tea Party. Chapter 11 covers tea becoming the national drink, and has intriguing details on social commentators bemoaning that the poor spent so much on tea--at the same time that tea was becoming a mark of Britishness, something the lowest servant and greatest lord had in common.
Chapter 12 looks at 20th century tea, and while interesting, seems to me to be a bit lacking in focus, partly made up by the wonderful irony of staid English companies being bought up by multinational corporations owned and run by investors in India."
- lyndonbrecht
What does this book teach the reader?
This book teaches the reader about the east India trading company and Britan's large impact over the global trade commodity known as tea.
'“Empire of Tea is a wonderfully wide-ranging and illuminating study of tea (the commodity, the drink, its rituals, its associations) that combines a long-term history of its changing place in the national, imperial, and global economy with fascinating insights into how it became embedded in British culture. Commodity histories tell us not just about our material life but reveal the dynamics of culture.Empire of Tea is one of the best.”'
John Brewer, California Institute of TechnologyThat said, this book has some strengths. The writing is very good, and the illustrations excellent and worth a careful study in themselves. The early trade is very well discussed, and Chapter 3 on the tea trade with China overall is the best account I have read anywhere, covering ships, warehouses, agents, Chinese go-betweens and the rather rigorous accounting system.
Several chapters discuss the growing taste for tea in Britain. This includes that at first tea was a rare commodity and society had to explore what its uses might be, the upper crust gradually acquiring a taste for tea and tea as a dominating fashion. As is often the case, a habit of the rich and powerful gradually became democratized (Chapter 9 covers this). Other chapters worth noting are Chapter 6 on marketing tea in Britain, Chapter 8 on smuggling and taxation (this gets a bit confusing, but the very widespread rejection of government taxation and authority reminds me of tea in the colonies). Chapter 10 among other aspects, has a rather good discussion of the Boston Tea Party. Chapter 11 covers tea becoming the national drink, and has intriguing details on social commentators bemoaning that the poor spent so much on tea--at the same time that tea was becoming a mark of Britishness, something the lowest servant and greatest lord had in common.
Chapter 12 looks at 20th century tea, and while interesting, seems to me to be a bit lacking in focus, partly made up by the wonderful irony of staid English companies being bought up by multinational corporations owned and run by investors in India."
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