from SweetbriarPoet

This book includes history, science, folklore, and everything someone could want in a good nonfiction book. I will say, Rose probably takes some license with the narrative story, but, in the interest of entertainment, it works. I especially love the descriptions of the East India Company and thei...

from Mae.Sardsara

Pro: I love the idea that an exchange of flowers between empires and botanists changed the course of history. This beverage, along with coffee, is so ubiquitous and woven into the fabric of our daily lives that most of us probably never stop to think about it. Especially not those of us for whom ...

from artikaur

This is a well-written, engaging piece of non-fiction. The author manages to convey the story of how the trade secrets of the tea industry were stolen from China and brought to India in a way that did not seem like a stuffy, boring history lecture. Although I generally prefer fiction to non-ficti...

from DramMan

A compelling account of how a Scottish botanist, Robert Fortune, stole the secret of tea cultivation from China, laying the foundation for Indian (and other) tea plantations that were able to undercut and supplant Chinese supply. Not only did he expose the dangerous method of adding iron ferro cy...

from Chatterbox

Oh, how I wanted to love this book. I'm a sucker for books of this kind, that shed light on little known historical episodes or trends, whether it's Mark Kurlansky writing about cod, Dava Sobel about the quest to solve the problem of longitude, or last year's fabulous book about the production of...