Empire of Tea

'"Tea" has at least five meanings: the shrub Camellia sinensis; its leaf; the dried commodity; the infusion made from it; and the occasion for consuming the infusion. As Markman Ellis, Richard Coulton and Matthew Mauger show in this stimulating volume, history is steeped in the stuff.' - Nature 'Empire of Tea is an intoxicating brew. Marshalling a dizzying array of archival material from nearly 400 years of English tea-drinking, the authors of this deeply erudite, highly readable and often very funny book have written the definitive history of the most sober yet intoxicating of beverages ... a triumphant and authoritative account of the inescapably foreign, yet indispensably English, object and act that we call tea.' - Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies, Queen Mary, University of London '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, Eli and Edye Broad Professor in Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology 'Deeply researched and elegantly written, "Empire of Tea" is as refreshing as its subject, transporting the reader on a voyage of discovery into the complex and often surprising history of the leaf that conquered the world.' --Richard Hamblyn, University of London.