Tea had long been known in China and Japan, with a rich and cultured history, but was a new and exotic product when first offered for sale in seventeenth-century London. Imported by the East India Company in increasing quantities across the eighteenth century, tea inaugurated the first regular exchange between China and Britain, both commercial and cultural. While European scientists struggled to make sense of its natural history and medicinal properties, the delicate flavor profile and exotic hot preparation of tea inspired poets, artists, and satirists to interrogate its consumption in polite and sociable rituals.
This impressively detailed book based on extensive original archival research provides a rich cultural history exploring how the British “way of tea” became the norm across the Anglophone world.
