Thursday, February 19, 2009

A Short History of Tea

If anyone is coming to this blog as a result of A Cup of Tea Solves Everything (which it doesn't, really) and is interested in the history of tea, may I recommend A History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage, in which there are two chapters on tea that offer a concise socio-political story that is a quicker read than other books on tea (listed on this blog). You may want to go on to read those other books (or you might go on to find out about the other beverages Standage covers - coffee, Coke, beer, wine and whiskey).

It's published by Atlantic Books and available on Amazon for seven quid. Standage is business editor of The Economist, is an expert on technology, and is just about to bring out a book about food called An Edible History of Humanity. He has written three other books including The Victorian Internet (described by the Wall Street Journal as a "dot-com cult classic"). He writes a blog at tomstandage.com and describes his speciality as the use of historical analogy, offering a way of seeing the past in the present, and the present in the past. Right up my street.

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