A Thirst for Empire
How Tea Shaped the Modern World
Erika Rappaport
Princeton University Press
549 pages; £32.95
Except for spices, no other commodity besides than tea has its history written in such detail over the centuries. Accounts by growers, blenders and retailers, papers of Dutch East India Company and British East India Company and countless books and newspaper articles on tea have built a rich archival on the commodity. This could not be otherwise since archaeologists have more recently found evidence that use of tea goes back to at least 2,100 years ago in western China. Scientists will continue to split hairs, however, as
