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Product Description
Review
Rose's account is full of colour
--The Times
--The Times
Review
Reshapes into gripping prose Fortune's own memoirs and letters ... An enthusiastic tale of how the humble leaf became a global addiction
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Sarah Rose's refreshing account of a period of Sino-British history that is little known outside Tea Circles, is a joy to read. She likes her hero, Robert Fortune and has a love affair with Camellia Sinensis. There are snippets of information, so interesting, that one wants to make scholarly notes on the blank pages at the end of the book!
Rose's prose flows and the book deserves to be a best seller.
Rose's prose flows and the book deserves to be a best seller.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Elegant, erudite, and entertaining, Sarah Rose's book is a wonderful evocation of a distant era of British colonialism, exploration, and intrigue. The discovery of the Chinese secret of tea cultivation by explorer and spy Robert Fortune (what an apropos name!) becomes, in Rose's skillful telling, more than a forgotten page from a dusty history book--it serves as a striking reminder of globalization's centuries-old roots. Sit down, pour yourself a cup of Earl Grey, and enjoy.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
WOW, what an excellent read!
Here is a story hung on a skeleton of facts about how tea was stolen from China by Robert Fortune during the early part of the 19 century working on behalf of the `Honourable Company'. It is about the trials and tribulations experienced by him and others in their efforts to send and keep alive; samples, cuttings and seeds of quality tea shrubs and send them to India; it's about how Victorian ingenuity circumnavigated the many challenges that beset this task and how Fortune discovered how the Chinese grew, processed and made tea (black and green teas are a result of the processing, not from different plants). How the story of tea resulted in a major contribution to the growth and development of the British Empire and how its work force was slowly but surely weaned off other more popular drinks often based on alcohol.
It places the story within the wider context of world trade and economic thuggery played by Britain. There are uncomfortable moments when one realises that the skills and attributes that led to those outstanding achievements, which contributed towards the `sun never setting on the British Empire' were also the same attributes that were involved in cultural abuse, economic exploitation and the Honourable Companies trade monopoly.
Yes, there are some factual errors and hints of misunderstanding, but no one could undertake a challenge as wide and encompassing as `tea' and hit every target spot on, but this story is well written and interesting and would make a superb historical film. If only we had been taught history like this during my era!
This little gem of a book is exceptionally well researched and presented in a style that is immediately accessible to all. The author's extensive knowledge and experiences clearly jump out at the reader from every page. Setting scenes of a mountainous China; hospitable monks; river pirates, chiselling interpreters; bandits; druggies, but always with one eye open to plant collection and the ultimate goal acquiring tea plants. You can almost taste the tea straight off the page. Who ever said book are dead, was wrong.
Here is a story hung on a skeleton of facts about how tea was stolen from China by Robert Fortune during the early part of the 19 century working on behalf of the `Honourable Company'. It is about the trials and tribulations experienced by him and others in their efforts to send and keep alive; samples, cuttings and seeds of quality tea shrubs and send them to India; it's about how Victorian ingenuity circumnavigated the many challenges that beset this task and how Fortune discovered how the Chinese grew, processed and made tea (black and green teas are a result of the processing, not from different plants). How the story of tea resulted in a major contribution to the growth and development of the British Empire and how its work force was slowly but surely weaned off other more popular drinks often based on alcohol.
It places the story within the wider context of world trade and economic thuggery played by Britain. There are uncomfortable moments when one realises that the skills and attributes that led to those outstanding achievements, which contributed towards the `sun never setting on the British Empire' were also the same attributes that were involved in cultural abuse, economic exploitation and the Honourable Companies trade monopoly.
Yes, there are some factual errors and hints of misunderstanding, but no one could undertake a challenge as wide and encompassing as `tea' and hit every target spot on, but this story is well written and interesting and would make a superb historical film. If only we had been taught history like this during my era!
This little gem of a book is exceptionally well researched and presented in a style that is immediately accessible to all. The author's extensive knowledge and experiences clearly jump out at the reader from every page. Setting scenes of a mountainous China; hospitable monks; river pirates, chiselling interpreters; bandits; druggies, but always with one eye open to plant collection and the ultimate goal acquiring tea plants. You can almost taste the tea straight off the page. Who ever said book are dead, was wrong.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Brilliant and True Boy's Own Adventure Story!
In its way, I found this book as fascinating and educational as I did Dava Sobel's "Longitude". Hats off to Sarah Rose for having unearthed such an amazing, and pretty much unknown... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Adrenalin Streams
Tea lovers manual
BBC book of the week earlier this year. I like good china tea so this was an interesting subject to me, though the parts I heard made it an enjoyable historical story anyway. Read more
Published on 29 Jun 2009 by Mr. A. T. Jones
Informative and entertaining
Well written book which is both a gripping adventure story and a useful (if a bit shallow) global overview of how tea and other crops shaped the British Empire and the world. Read more
Published on 9 Jun 2009 by Emma
History Made Fun!
Sarah Rose's Book "For All the Tea in China" is a must-read. It's a wonderful, entertaining ride into a lesser known chapter of history- how the British smuggled tea leaves out of... Read more
Published on 5 Jun 2009 by T.L. Walliser
History?
I wonder if Fortune would have been as annoyed as I was by Rose's apparent inability to distinguish between England and Britain. Read more
Published on 2 Jun 2009 by K. MBE
Required reading for lovers of tea
All tea drinkers should read this book, which is the story of Robert Fortune. Don't know him? If you love tea, you should. You have Robert to thank for getting it into your hands. Read more
Published on 30 May 2009 by Jen K
Tea-Big Finance and Empire Building
Dr Terry Jones (Cheshire/UK) 22 April 2009
For all the tea in China
Sarah Rose
The is an adventure story where one remains on the edge of one's... Read more
For all the tea in China
Sarah Rose
The is an adventure story where one remains on the edge of one's... Read more
Published on 22 April 2009 by T. Jones
fasinating story
This is a very fasinating story, yet also very realistic. It is a good stuff for a movie. Many of us in China know that tea was transplanted from here to India, but few know how... Read more
Published on 20 April 2009 by simple is better
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