Description
Robert Fortune was a Scottish gardener, botanist, plant hunter - and industrial spy. In 1848, the East India Company engaged him to make a clandestine trip into the interior of China - territory forbidden to foreigners - to steal the closely guarded secrets of tea.
For centuries, China had been the world's sole tea manufacturer. Britain purchased this fuel for its Empire by trading opium to the Chinese - a poisonous relationship Britain fought two destructive wars to sustain. The East India Company had profited lavishly as the middleman, but now it was sinking, having lost its monopoly to trade tea. Its salvation, it thought, was to establish its own plantations in the Himalayas of British India.
There were just two problems: India had no tea plants worth growing, and the company wouldn't have known what to do with them if it had.
Hence Robert Fortune's daring trip. The Chinese interior was off-limits and virtually unknown to the West, but that's where the finest tea was grown - the richest oolongs, soochongs and pekoes. And the Emperor aimed to keep it that way.
In the 1850s, stealing the secret of China tea was like stealing the secret formula for Coca-Cola
About the Author
Sarah Rose is a writer living in New York. She was educated at Harvard and the University of Chicago.
Reviews
The best parts of the book are not the dangers that Fortune encountered, but Rose's assured, confident descriptions of the manufacture of tea. Like Fortune, the reader goes on a journey of discovery * Mail on Sunday *
Had your cup of tea this morning? If not, the next time you take a gulp of PG Tips or a sip of single estate orange pekoe you might want to send up a prayer of thanks for the dogged Scotsman who made it all possible, Robert Fortune ... Rose's account is full of colour * The Times *
[Fortune's] story is well worth the telling, and Rose does so with skill and restraint * Literary Review *
Reshapes into gripping prose Fortune's own memoirs and letters ... An enthusiastic tale of how the humble leaf became a global addiction * Financial Times *
Reveals our cuppa wouldn't exist if it wasn't for an amazing Victorian, armed only with a rusty pistol and a pigtail, who stole the secret of tea from under the nose of China's ruthless warlords * Daily Mail *
Book Information
ISBN 9780099493426
Author Sarah Rose
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Arrow Books Ltd
Publisher Cornerstone
Weight(grams) 202g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 17mm
