Sarah Rose on NPR, FOR ALL THE TEA IN CHINA

Sarah Rose, the author of FOR ALL THE TEA IN CHINA was recently interviewed on NPR.  You can listen to the broadcast, and read more about Robert Fortune and the book here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125237353

REVIEW: FOR ALL THE TEA IN CHINA by Sarah Rose

As a self-proclaimed theic (one who is addicted to tea), I am thrilled someone, in modern times,  has tackled this vast, interwoven tale of a name that changed so much but it little remembered.  Tea is like wine.  Growing seasons, climates, picking times, drying, storing  and shipping all affect the taste.  And there are plenty who prefer a potent earl grey to a warm green tea.  And it was plant-hunter and spy Robert Fortune who discovered (for the Western world) that these two very different teas grew from the same plant.  Author Sarah Rose delves into the seductive past and retrieves the best, most aromatic leaves for our enjoyment.  

(http://www.filmakers.com/index.php?a=filmDetail&filmID=1238)

The fortuitously-named Robert Fortune took on a great adventure in the name of tea and Queen.  The East India Company was losing money, so they decided to steal the secrets of Chinese tea and transplant them to India, where they still had power.  They tapped Fortune to be their spy.  This debut book by Sarah Rose, follows Fortune on his journey.  With stories gleaned from Fortune's meticulous diaries and journals, Rose maintains an even keel between historical background and plant-hunting espionage.  Her descriptions of inland China, with terraced hillsides, fresh peaches, and blooming forsythia are intoxicating.  Wandering along the river, filling glass Wardian cases with exotic plants sounds divine.  This idyllic setting is counterbalanced by the danger of impersonating a Mandarin Chinese and avoiding suspicion.

Indeed, there are many intricate details of Chinese society that this tale of tea serves to enlighten.  While Fortune was a hero to the West, he was clearly an enemy to China and the East.  Through Rose's telling of Fortune's exploits, we see the emotional complications of respect for and exploitation of another culture.  It is clear that not only Fortune himself benefitting from this travels, but the economy of the strongest Empire in the world.

I spent a summer as a gardener at the Canterbury Shaker Village and one of my jobs was to harvest and dry the mint for their four mint tea.  It was a quiet, peaceful job, if not an easy one, but it is still the best job I've ever had.  Particularly in an age when we are once again learning to respect the value of a growing our own gardens, in some small way, I'd like to think I was following in Robert Fortune's steps.  The gardening part; not the traveling and spying part.

(For more, check out the author's article in Smithsonian Magazine here.  It's tags are "crime" and "botany" - you know you want to read it.)

Thank you to Meghan and Holly at Viking Press.

FOR ALL THE TEA IN CHINA: How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History by Sarah Rose 

Book: Hardcover | 5.51 x 8.26in | 272 pages | ISBN 9780670021529 | 18 Mar 2010 | Viking Adult | 18 - AND UP

Winner of the Book Contest

Thank you everyone who entered to win a copy of FOR ALL THE TEA IN CHINA by Sarah Rose. 

The winner of this fantastic book is LISA, from NH for her story about tea and an older woman she was caring for. 

She wrote: "My favorite cup of tea is black tea...It has more to do with how I make this cup of tea. An English lady I once cared for told me there are 2 ways to make a cup of tea. If you were, let's say, more upscale, you would put your milk and sugar in before you added the boiling water...it made the tea creamier, and of course was the proper way to prepare the tea. When I have this tea, I think fondly of my special English friend, and that is what truly makes it a grand cup of tea."

Enjoy the book in good health, Lisa.

And look for my review, coming soon.