When Johnny Carson was host of the Tonight Show (yes, I’m that old), he would do a countdown of 10 top this or that. I am now shamelessly “borrowing” that routine here (as others have done before me) with my top 10 ways those print version tea books are much better than those e-book versions.… Continue reading

It’s probably safe to say by now that tea production in South Carolina has progressed beyond being an experiment or that the experiment has succeeded or what have you. Of all of the many states that currently produce tea – most on a very modest scale – South Carolina is the most significant. It’s home… Continue reading

Tea books are pure delight and range from very technical and specific to a particular type of tea to more broad or just plain fun. Many tea books have been showcased on this blog, both in actual reviews but also in fellow blogger Bill Lengeman’s monthly roundup of recent and upcoming tea books. This is… Continue reading

Though the focus here is (obviously) on recent and upcoming tea books every once in a while I like to mention one that’s been around for a while. I mentioned this one here about four years ago but I thought I’d throw it out there again. You may have read reviews of Harney & Sons… Continue reading

What’s the most influential book ever written about tea? Ancient Chinese scholar Lu Yu wrote one that’s said to be one of the first ever written about tea, but it’s not very easy to get your hands on an English copy nowadays. In much more modern times, the blue ribbon might arguably go to the… Continue reading

You could probably make a vocation out of studying the many historic texts on tea now freely available in digital form. Some of these works are dense and academic, while others are more engaging—and a few veer into decidedly unusual territory. One such example is an 1870 work by Alexander Teetgen titled A Mistress and… Continue reading

An American merchant who spent much of his life in China, Gideon Nye wrote several works on Chinese commerce and culture, many of which are now available digitally. One of the most notable is Tea and the Tea Trade: Parts First and Second, published in 1850. Originally appearing in Hunt’s Merchants’ Magazine, the material was… Continue reading