Sarah Rose’s For All the Tea in China
Description
China controlled the tea and Britain controlled the opium, but everything changes with time and planning.
During Victorian England, trade cycle by which Britain sold opium to China, and China in turn sold tea to Britain, had long made the world go ‘round. British concern was growing that China would legalize the opium poppy, eliminating Chinese demand to buy the drug from Britain, and leaving Britain with surplus poppy crop and a loss of income that had directly paid for the British spending on tea. To avoid such a disaster, the British East India Company was determined to secure and grow tea for Britain in the Himalayas of India.
Knowing close to nothing of growing and producing tea, the Company was in need of one willing to covertly enter Briton-restricted areas of China. One who could secretly identify, collect, and ship tea plants to India. One who could discern and communicate how tea was traditionally grown, processed, and prepared. One such man was Robert Fortune; his life was about to be uprooted in a way that could build his legacy into one remembered, or leave him utterly forgotten.
And so, the tale of tea espionage begins.
Disclosure
I borrowed this book for free from our library system, it was provided for my personal use. There was no agreement with the author, publisher, or any third party that I would publish a review. The following review is unsolicited, unbiased, and all opinions are my own.
Review – Spoiler Free
I stumbled upon For All the Tea in China when searching our library system for children’s books on the Lunar New Year – while this book is definitely not about that, the title caught me. I am terrible with remembering names and dates, so I’m not likely to read historical books unless they come very well recommended. I requested the book from the library, not even convinced then that I would actually read it, and again, the title caught me and I opened it up.
This is literally about England stealing tea from China – stealing the plant and practices, then streamlining the process to even steal the tea market.
Much of the story follows horticulturist Robert Fortune, detailing his part in the story; but there are bits that follow other key players within the East India Trading Company. I loved that there was a narrative to it, so I could actually follow the story line rather than gloss over lists of dates and events. The story did jump around a bit, both in location (China/ India/ England), and in timing (often, a chapter would start briefly with an event, then go on to detail what led to it or what happened because of it, then touch back on the event at the end of the chapter), but it was relatively easy to follow.
I feel like I actually learned some history from this book – some interesting things about tea itself, some things about Chinese and English history, and some things about the infamous East India Trading Company. And I am very grateful for the wonderfully thorough list of suggested books for further reading, included in the back matter pages.
With a lot of terms to explain, especially for those readers entirely unfamiliar with the time period/ tea/ etc., Rose does a great job of describing and explaining things in a way that doesn’t feel like a slogging info dump, but rather an interesting side bar of information. Despite this, there were a few things that were never explained, and while the book lends to our guessing the truth, it felt weird to not actually have explained them.
It took me a little while to really get into this book. I think mostly because it’s a historical work and I had already assumed I wouldn’t like it. But once I got into the meat of the story, and was following it, it became a quick read.
Overall, For All the Tea in China was a very interesting read, I’m happy to have given it a chance, and I will probably be looking at some similarly written historical narratives from Rose’s list of suggestions.
I have already recommended this to a friend, and would recommend it to people more interested in tea than just the drinking of it, as well as people interested in Victorian England and the times surrounding it.
Quote
Cooling tea, according to the Chinese, is perfection. Cold tea, however, is a sin.
For All the Tea in China, Sarah Rose
Ratings
- Quality of Writing – 4
- Plot – 4
- World Building – 3
- Characters – 3
- Ease of Reading – 3
- Insightfulness – 4
- Overall Enjoyment – 3
- Final Rating – 3.5 (Actual: 3.43) – Liked It/Really Liked It
Want to learn more about the numbers I use for rating, and the qualities I’m thinking about when writing a book review? Check out my post How I Rate and Review.