The Story of Tea, Heiss

I've just started this new book this week, The Story of Tea, by the Heisses.  I have actually read this book before (Maybe last year, maybe longer?), but it is filled with so many wonderful piles of information that you really probably should read it about fifty times.  It's like the textbook on all things tea.

And I love tea.

So.

Fits perfectly.

I love how they incorporate so many aspects of tea - they start off with the history of tea and how it was used as currency, about how the different Chinese dynasties developed their own knack for what they wanted in tea (from actual tea leaves to the porcelains to the different tea ceremonies), how sometimes tea was totally off-limits to commoners and how special teas were for the emperor only (usually the ones that were the most delicate and the "first-plucked"), how it came to Japan, how the British developed it in India but thought it was a different species from the China bush (it isn't, it's just a different variety - in China it grows like a bush and in India it grows like a tree), how the Dutch got involved, how the Americans dumped tea in the Boston harbor and went for coffee instead and so many other lovely ditties.

I prefer non-fiction to fiction, so this suits my taste (Get it?  Taste!  Ha!) just fine.

I love how they explain about how different teas are made and how they get into the "terroir" of certain teas.  They've been all over the globe tea trekking and have had tea with the monks and have visited sacred tea gardens, they've visited tea factories in China and watched small villages bring in their own harvest and hand-roll their delicate green teas.  These people know their stuff.

If you're somewhat of a tea snob, you've got to get your hands on this book.  Warning: it may increase your snobbery, but you'll be so glad it did.

This book will appeal to your senses because I guarantee that you can't really get through chapter 2 without sitting down and reading with a lovely warm glass of the elixir as your companion.  As you drink it, you'll get to wondering about its far travel to your own favorite tea cup.

And that, my fellow readers, is where I am today.  I got my copy at the library, perhaps you can find yours there too?

Happy reading and tea-ing,
Ms. Daisy