Inspired by his two tea-loving grandmothers, one of whom lived in China and the other in India, Jason Goodwin set out to trace the history of this popular beverage from its earliest use in the courts and kitchens of ancient Szechwan to its cultivation in colonial India for the English market. The result is a hugely entertaining travel diary packed with humorous anecdotes, historical curiosities and hilarious accounts of meetings with an array of characters so extraordinary as to make the Mad Hatter's tea party seem a calm and rational affair. Goodwin's combination of lively, contemporary travel writing and historical detail and insight make this book a joy to read as well as providing an education in all things tea-related (and there are many more than you might think). Even the humble herb itself takes on a variety of forms that we drinkers of leaf tea are unfamiliar with - cake tea, powdered tea, whipped tea, tablet tea and dust tea.... Every detail of production and consumption, from the various types of tea inspectors (chillingly called 'expectorators' by the Chinese) to the finer points of Indian tea ceremonies and the origins of the English tea, is explored with a genuine love of the subject and a great sense of fun. Goodwin has a talent for wry observations, and this book is full of them: he relates that, 'A linguist comes down from Canton, a functionary so named... because he speaks no language but his own', and informs us that 'continental Europeans, it is well known, cannot make a proper cup of tea at all, but float a bag in tepid water, and serve it up in a tall glass'. It is this talent for turning a phrase, combined with a broad knowledge and inexhaustible curiosity, that makes this such a refreshing account of an otherwise familiar subject.

The author's grandmothers spent their lives in China and India, daily observing the imperial custom of afternoon tea. Inspired by their memories he set off to explore the fast-disappearing relics of their world - an exploration which reached back into the history of the tea trade. In a journey through the lost European cities of the China coast, the crumbling tea city of Calcutta, and the legendary gardens of Bohea and Darjeeling, the author evokes past and present with a sense of the ironies of history, following the tea trade from its origins in the Canton factories through the Opium Wars and the settlement of British India, to its influence in the present day.