Reading the tea leaves of history A Contrary review by Harriett Green 
For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History
Sarah Rose
2010, Viking Buy this book...> 
Sarah Rose's For All the Tea in China chronicles the history of Britain's appropriation of what has become the most British of British cultural traditions—tea—in an act of industrial espionage from China. She examines this moment in history through the story of Robert Fortune, a botanist chosen by the powerful East India Company to carry out a revolutionary expedition that would transform Western medicine, cuisine, and culture.

Gardening and botany back in those days was not the province of grandmothers and lab-cloistered scientists. Plants were a pivotal force in the advancement of scientific knowledge and, more importantly, economic power. British politicians and scientists knew China was home to horticultural wonders that could be used for medicine, textiles, food, and other industries with spectacular results. After China was defeated by Britain's powerful navy in the First Opium War, the Treaty of Nanking opened several Chinese ports to foreign trade. Merchants saw their chance to penetrate the interior of the country at long last, and the Royal Horticultural Society's foremost desire was obtain the secret plants that produced the highest quality Chinese teas treasured by the British populace.

Robert Fortune had already embarked upon a successful plant-gathering adventure in 1843 that resulted in his best-selling book Three Years' Wandering in the Northern Provinces of China, which brought him fame as a heroic adventurer and vaulted him from his working class roots into the elite ranks of the Royal Horticultural Society. That expedition made him the first choice of the East India Company for an even more ambitious plant-collecting trip, and Rose recounts Fortune's tumultuous expedition in engaging prose. In one memorable scene, Fortune crafts his disguise as a Chinese working man to invade the unknown depths of China:

"Fortune felt the braid bounce off his back, dancing lightly between his shoulder blades. He was 'a pretty fair Chinaman' he thought, and he reminded himself that from this moment forward he would have to speak only in Chinese, unpracticed as it was after his three-year absence. He would have to use chopsticks and remember to kowtow rather than shake the hand of a man of higher rank. He would introduce himself with his Chinese name, Sing Wa, Bright Flower. . . .
Wang, visibly nervous as the boat pulled out into the canal and the journey began in earnest, asked Fortune what would happen if someone asked where they were from. How were they to answer? Fortune smiled and replied, Wo hui gaosu tamen, wo shi wai-shengren cong changcheng geng yuan de yi xie shengdi lai de. (I am Chinese, from a distant province beyond the Great Wall.)"

Fortune's words became truer than he imagined, as he immersed himself in the people, landscapes, and horticultural practices of China, extending the lessons learned from an earlier three-year expedition. As his ventured to Hangzhou, Sung Lo Mountain, Zhejiana, and through the Jiangxi Province, he gathered thousands of species that became a cornerstone of modern botany and gardening. Flowering camellias, apricots, oranges, peonies, gardenias, azaleas--these are only a handful of the familiar plants that traveled from China's soil to Britain to become embedded in Western cuisines and daily life. But the book remains focused on tea--how Fortune discovered where the tea plants were grown, how they were processed, and the art of steeping and drinking the leaves. For All The Tea in China presents a primer on the history of tea interwoven with British imperialism (especially as embodied in the legendary East India Company), ancient Chinese gardening traditions and religious beliefs, and the relentless drive of the Industrial Revolution and its scientific accomplishments. Rose's effort occasionally becomes unwieldly as she tries to weld weighty subjects in a short tome. For example, the book vacilliates between Fortune's expedition and the British Empire's experimental plantations in India and southeast Asia. But ultimately, For All the Tea in China is a fluid and fascinating account of one small plant that soothed and solved the headaches of a nation, and that still does, for millions of tea aficionados today. Harriett Green is the English and Digital Humanities Librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Index of Reviews...>http://astore.amazon.com/contrary-20/detail/0670021520Reviews_2010.htmlhttp://astore.amazon.com/contrary-20/detail/0670021520shapeimage_1_link_0shapeimage_1_link_1

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