New Tastes in Green Tea: A Novel Flavor for Familiar Drinks, Dishes, and Desserts

Book: New Tastes in Green Tea: A Novel Flavor for Familiar Drinks, Dishes, and Desserts

This is a rather unique book in the realm of books on tea. It is written from a very Japan oriented point of view. It describes some of the variants and nuances of Japanese green tea, with only brief recognition of the rest. But with this narrowness comes specialty. It describes the Japanese processes of making and brewing Japanese tea better than more general books, which try to define brewing alongside the methods for Chinese green teas as well.

A good portion of this book is recipes. From different matcha latte type drinks to Green Tea Croquettes, it has a varied list of different recipes. Which unlike most other books on the topic of tea, really looks to the now and forward, rather than how tea arrived to where it is today. I feel as though it raises the question of where tea will go in the future, rather than concentrating on it's history only.

In general this book is an interesting short read. It has some beautiful photography from a few tea shops / cafes that I would love to go to in Japan, and some interesting recipes that I'm bound to try. This is probably the most creative and modern tea book that I have read so far.

The Little Tea Book

While searching through the offerings on Google Books, I came across the full text of The Little Tea Book by Arthur Gray, published in 1903. (Well in the public domain at this point) A short book, around 100 pages, very small pages mind you. This was a very interesting look at the world of tea about a century ago. A large deal of this book is poetry, excerpts, and other quotes from other authors, poets, sources, etc. The rest is somewhat of an interesting read. As would be expected of a book from 1903, there is a good deal of comments on the nature of women and their habit with tea, sexism that is rather comical in today's light. Some of the historical mentions are rather interesting as well, including Chanoyu, Sencha preparation, Gaiwan preparation, and many more. Spellings are also very interesting including "Giy-ôku-ro-châ", which nowdays we refer to as Gyokuro.

All in all this is an interesting insight into the tea world of 100 years ago. And it's a free read. It's short, and it's definitely worth checking out.

Liquid Jade: The Story of Tea from East to West

Book: Liquid Jade: The Story of Tea from East to West
Price: $16.47 (From Amazon.com)

This book is quite likely the most well researched and cited book on the subject of Tea that I have read thus far. This book compares in quality to The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide. The difference between the two is that The Story of Tea is more centered around different tea production regions and different teas, where Liquid Jade is centered around the history of tea production and it's appearance in history. In a broad stroke it starts with the discovery of tea in China and it's migration to Europe. This is a rather unique view on the western aspect of tea, something that is somewhat overlooked nowadays. The book is a little light on the topic of tea in Japan, but that is not really the focus of the book.

Rating: 9/10

Conclusion: If you own one book on tea, read The Story of Tea. If you own two, get Liquid Jade. Liquid Jade is very well researched and cited. It is an excellent source of information regarding historical tidbits about tea. The last section of the book is a bit too political on the topics of Organic, Fair Trade, and Indian labor practices. An excellent read nonetheless.

The Way of Tea: The Sublime Art of Oriental Tea Drinking

Book: The Way of Tea: The Sublime Art of Oriental Tea Drinking.

This was another introduction to tea level book. I thought that this book might be a nice insight into Gong-fu brewing with some interesting details, I was wrong. I'm surprised that this book was ever published. Looking at the credentials of the author it is written by a Feng Shui / Tai Chi master. He doesn't have any particular credentials to be a source on tea aside from being steeped in chinese cultural heritage. This is apparent in this book because of the differences between most used spellings / classifications. For instance he classifies teas under: White, Yellow, Light Green, Green, Red, Black, and Flower. Oolongs are referenced in the Light Green section, and what I believe may be Puerh is referred to as Polee, is under green teas. While most people don't use this classification system, I don't deny it's possible validity, but as an introductory book I think it would confuse people more than teach. Since most tea vendors use a different classification system than this one in the book.

Other oddities I noticed in this book were reference to Jixing purple clay pots, which I took to refer to yixing. I could understand that this may just be a different romanification of the word, but considering the uniformity of the vernacular used and yixing being a more accepted spelling that this could be confusing.

There is a section on gong fu brewing which is nicely illustrated, but it only covers the topic in the broadest of terms and simplest of brewing methods.

The thing that surprised me the most about this book is that considering the subtitle (The Sublime Art of Oriental Tea Drinking) it really only makes any reference to Gong Fu brewing. Gaiwans are referenced, but never by name. There is only a cursory mention of the existence of matcha preparation as a side note. No mention of brewing of any Japanese or any other style of tea is mentioned. (I find this important given the title referring to it as Oriental and not Chinese specifically).

Rating: 1/10

Conclusion: This book would most likely confuse most readers rather than educate them on anything. The author does not seem to have much reason for credibility, but rather feels like this is written mostly based on whatever oral stories they could remember. The spellings are rather different than many regularly used, and almost look like different words. I suggest sticking to a more mainstream introductory book.

Book Review: The Way to Tea

Today's book review is for The Way to Tea by Jennifer Leigh Sauer. This book is about the tea shops in the San Francisco Bay Area. The book is quite short, and does not go particularly into any depth for any of the tea shops, but is amazingly illustrated. I have been to a number of the locations listed in this book, but most of them were new to me or I have not had a chance to go to. The book is divided into separate portions which aren't very well defined, or at least I couldn't figure out what put some into one section and more into another. There are both Chinese, Japanese and English style tea stores listed, and gives a brief description of each one. I found the illustrations of Samovar Tea Lounge in SF most appealing and beautiful, but the most stunning thing about this book in general is how amazing the photographs are. If you are taking a TEAcation into SF, this is a good book to read, and if you like beautiful tea related photos it is amazing as well.

Rating: 7/10

Conclusion: This is a very terse book without much in depth description of the stores, but at the same time what is there to describe? The illustrations are fantastic. Good Tea Table book.

Book Review - A Guide to Tea

The book A Guide To Tea by Adagio Teas is the book that is included with gift set orders, or is alternately available for purchase individually. It is a very short work, intended as an overview to the world of teas rather than an in depth handbook on teas.

Due to the shortness of the book, it primarily aims at some of the myths and common points of tea, such as tea all comes from camellia sinensis, anything not from camellia sinensis is not really "tea", quality, storage, brewing, etc. It is a very good quick overview, but lacks any true body.

This is a good book for anyone wanting to just take a quick glance at tea and not spend a night or two reading a more in depth book. It is beautifully illustrated, and if received by purchasing a gift set from adagio, quite worth it. The prose for the writing though is a bit unusual, I found myself rereading sections more than once, and I also don't think this book warrants an individual purchase. It might be a good book to slip a friend if you think they might be interested in tea.

Rating: 5/10

Book Review - The Tea Companion

This review is about The Tea Companion by Jane Pettigrew. When I first saw this book, I was rather intrigued by it. I thought it had some pretty good potential as a book on Tea. The most unique portion of this book was the areas of focus on it.

The book is divided into two main portions, The story of tea and a Global Tea Directory. The first section in my opinion was the better of the two. Like most tea books it covers the origins of tea in China and then the interaction with the British and the following development of tea in other countries. This book however has more detail regarding the sale of tea in Europe and the role tea played with the Americas. This book also has a good overview of a lot of other aspects of tea that are often overlooked. This includes drinking tea with milk, assorted tea equipment and certain blends and flavorings. This section is short, but filled with quality information.

The second section is very focused on different sources of tea and types. This is unique from other books on tea in that it pays a fair amount of attention to African teas. A lot of attention is paid to black tea in this section, with glances over the Chinese and Japanese teas. This is counter to most of the books on tea that I have read recently. The small blurbs on each individual teas are beautifully photographed with both samples of the dry and wet leaf.

Rating: 7/10

Conclusion: This is a good introduction book as advertised. It has a uniquely European accent in regards to tea which makes it stand out. This focus is where this book lacks though. It should at least hit on some more of the points in reference to the Asian brewing equipment or teas.

Book Review - Tea

This time I decided to read Tea by Christine Dattner with photographs by Sophie Boussahba. This book is actually two books packaged together, The History of Tea and The Taste of Tea. Both of these books are rather short in length, but they are packaged beautifully. The two books come inside of a larger book style cover which is tied closed with a ribbon. This outer cover opens like a book to show the two books inside of it. The style makes this book perfect for a coffee er.. tea table.

The History of Tea is the standard introduction to tea book, but instead of the normal rhetoric about the origins of tea and what not, this is more of a survey of tea traditions in assorted locations with brief little blurbs about each one. It seems to be focusing on interesting tidbits and facts about tea and locations than try to convey the whole picture. Considering how short this book is, this is a very smart approach. But the main reason to look through this book are the photographs. They are absolutely amazing. Most of the pictures are simple yet absolutely gorgeous. I would have bought this book purely for the illustrations.

The second book, The Taste of Tea, is again the fairly standard encyclopedia of different forms of tea. And like all tea encyclopedias it does not show nor does it really attempt to show all of the different forms of tea. One interesting point though is that it shows different blends that the author had created at their tea shop. The illustrations are nice, but nowhere near the level of the History of Tea.

Combined these two books make an excellent book to have on the tea table. Not exactly material for a long read with a nice cup of tea, but a nice quick read and way to show the more interesting and gorgeous points of tea out to a friend.

Rating: 9/10

Conclusion: This book makes a wonderful addition to a tea table, but could be more in depth like many coffee table books are. It is a very simple and quick intro to tea for newcomers though. I liked this book a lot.

Book Review : Tea Chings - The tea and herb companion

Today is time for another book review. This book is Tea Chings - The tea and herb companion by The Republic of Tea (hereafter referred to as RoT). I ended up picking up this book on the way to the airport since I knew I had a long layover. This was a mistake.

The book is divided into two main sections Tea and Herbs. The Tea section was a very broad set of information about the assorted forms of tea, and it was a very quick cursory glance of many of the facets of tea. So broad and quick that you learn much more by reading a few of the pages on wikipedia. There was very little to no really unique information to this book. There are many parts where it made me wonder how many people were writing this book, it almost seemed like it was written a page at a time by different people. One section that comes to mind lists different green teas and describes them. In this section Dragonwell and Long Jing were listed separately, even though they are the same tea. The book is also heavily biased toward RoT products. They don't mention them directly, but it is a very noticeable bias. It also lacks some rather important information. For instance in the section it mentions the Indian black tea grading system it forgets to mention the grades of FTGFOP and SFTGFOP, citing TGFOP as "the absolute top grade".

The second section is in regard to herbs. Now I didn't know much about this going in, and figured that it might have some light to shed on the subject, but again the information was so broad and skimming that I know I would have a better understanding from reading some articles in Wikipedia. It glanced at many facets of deriving medicine from herbs and some instances throughout history. This is a much broader topic and should be covered in much more depth than this book.

I don't really want to go into more detail about this book, well because it doesn't even deserve it. I felt that this book was a waste of my time and money for a book on RoT propaganda. I don't recommend this book to anyone and there are much better books out there for the money and overall.

Rating: 0/10

Book Review: The Tea Ceremony

Today I thought I would review a book. I just finished reading The Tea Ceremony by Sen'o Tanaka/Sendo Tanaka. I read this not knowing much about the history behind it and the setting it takes place in. This book gives a detailed history of the origins of tea ceremony without dragging too much through detail. It separates the book into a few major sections. History, Aesthetic, and the actual ceremony. The last section is broken into a few smaller sections.

The history: This section starts with a brief introduction of tea in japan up until the warring states period. It then describes the changes made at the time along with the development of the tea ceremony.

The Aesthetic: This section describes the nature of the tea ceremony and what it strives to signify. This is a very difficult concept, but the book describes it well. It also includes a section on the architecture of the tea garden and the tea hut.

The Ceremony: This section describes the instruments used in the ceremony, the procedure to make thin and thick tea, the etiquette for the guests, and what the ceremony represents today. This section of the book was by far the most interesting of the three.

Overall I found this to be a very informative book, it's not too detailed to the point of being boring so I rather enjoyed the read. It provides a significant amount of detail into the history of the tea ceremony and the meaning of it. I would highly recommend this book if you are interested in learning about the tea ceremony. If you are looking for a book that is going to describe in detail how to make a good bowl of matcha though you're out of luck here. It actually does not talk much at all about the actual making of the matcha, but rather as the title suggests the actual ceremony.