Reviews for For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History

The average rating for For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-06-17 00:00:00 Migyur Samkhar Sarah Rose focuses on an important, but somewhat obscure subplot of the history of the British imperialism in Asia -- Scottish botanist Robert Fortune's employment by the East India Company to steal tea plants, as well as the relevant technologies and expertise, from the Chinese. His work will allow India to start producing well-regarded tea of its own, taking some of the power away from the Chinese and helping tea to grow in popularity by opening up the market and reducing prices. It's an important, interesting story, but it's apparent that Rose is limited by a relative lack of primary sources. As she discloses at the end of the book, Fortune's wife burned many of his papers, so she bases the book on Fortune's published memoirs and correspondence saved by some of his contemporaries. As a result, the book is frustratingly thin in some places and begins to skip around as it progresses. Rose tries to cover for this by presenting interesting facts and perspectives on related topics -- the firearms development that brought down the East India company, how the porcelain trade was helped by the tea trade, why the cholera epidemics might have been worse were it not for tea. If you can get past this disjointedness, there's a lot of great information here, the kind that you'll catch yourself thinking about as you sit down to drink your next cup of tea. Still, most people will finish the book wanting to know more.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-08-11 00:00:00 Leon Walls This book should be riveting, but I found it less than interesting. I think this is so because I listened to it on audio and was unengaged by the reader. The book is read by the author, who is a fine writer, but a terrible reader: to the point of being outright distracting. Her voice is little-girlish, and she lacks flow when reading. I think I will go back and actually read this, because there is a good story in here. Perhaps it won't seem as choppy when I read the text. I strongly caution anyone who might listen via Audible or CD's to reconsider the audio format for "For All the Tea in China."