Luo Jialin’s The China Tea Book has a lot going for it. From a visual perspective, it is nearly flawless. A substantial book at three pounds, it captures the beauty and serenity that defines the birthplace of tea and, much like many of the rituals around tea, it serves up this introduction in a simple and elegant format. Each page invites you in with a balance of image, white space, and sparse textual passages, transporting you to a world few are privileged to experience.
Part 1 is focused on the tea itself – its origins, its production, its health benefits, and its storage. Frankly, including tea’s health benefits in Part 1 feels a bit out of place; this topic would have been better suited to Part 2, which is devoted to tea culture. However, that is a mere nit in the scheme of things. Following an overview, Part 1 moves on to a more in-depth discussion of China’s most distinguished teas, from its greens, such as the quintessential Dragon Well, to its oolongs, including Iron Mercy Goddess, to its blacks, most prominently Keemun and Lapsang Souchong, to its pu-erhs. Conspicuously missing from this list is white tea. For each tea, photographs of its dry leaves and liquor are provided, along with brewing instructions, tasting notes, and a short history.
The many ways in which tea has permeated the Chinese culture are at the heart of Part 2 of The China Tea Book. From the important elements of time and space to the choice of teaware, Part 2 tackles the more ethereal aspects of tea. Also covered is the story of how tea has provided the inspiration for some of the most beautiful scenes in Chinese art and poetry, such as the one depicted in Zhou Fang’s painting, “Playing the Zither and Drinking Tea.” In its final chapter, The China Tea Book looks into tea’s amazing dissemination across the globe, beginning with the importance of the Ancient Tea Route.
Despite its many assets, The China Tea Book is not perfect. Its text is its Achilles’ heel. Grammatical issues, missing articles, and awkward sentence constructions plague the book. An example is the following passage from Chapter 8 on principles:
“It is widely assumed that the surging interest in tea-related theories mirror the booming of tea culture. But we should take a critical view of this assumption. However, taking a closer look at this issue, we find that this superficial boom is ridden with problems.”
However, if I were to make just one change to this book, it would be to replace all instances of the word, “fermentation,” with “oxidation” – except perhaps in the chapter on pu-erhs. Years ago, when I attended the New Business Boot Camp for aspiring tea entrepreneurs at the World Tea Expo, one of the lessons I learned was that “fermentation” is not a synonym for “oxidation.” Earlier this month, T Ching Contributor Guy Munsch addressed this topic admirably in his post.
For the knowledge this book imparts in textual form only, I would look to other resources. But if you are of the firm belief that a picture is worth a thousand words, I highly recommend The China Tea Book. The book itself is a work of art, even if the language it contains may not be on par with its visual splendor.
What a shame that the author/publisher failed to have the book edited by an English born speaker. It does sound like the images however are quite impressive. I’ll try to find the book next time at I’m Powells in Portland. Thanks for the review.
The fact that this book has grammar errors is really a pity. The publisher of this book seems to be “earth aware editions”, guess not a publisher you can rely on for final editing.
This book seems to be another summary of ‘everything’ about tea. I hope that some day there will be more tea books published that goes more in detail into specific tea topics.
The content is what matters!!!. Lets celebrate the beauty of sharing information that empowers the reader about the world of tea.
“The China Tea Book: A diamond in the rough
– T Ching” was a pretty good article. Keep creating and I will
keep viewing! Regards ,Krystal
Hi there! This is my first comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and tell you I genuinely enjoy reading your articles. Can you suggest any other blogs/websites/forums that deal with the same subjects? Appreciate it!
Hello, I am Linette—the workmate of Mr Luo Jialin who is the author of The China Tea Book. Thank you for your attention and comments.
What a pity for all of us to see this book in such a terrible English version. Mr. Luo only saw the English versions of three English editions of this book (North American Edition, UK Edition and English Edition only published in China) two days before the deadline. He was shocked and tried to make up. But he only succeeded in correcting some professional mistakes because of limited time. We even didn’t put this version of the book in our own bookcase. In fact, the authors haven’t enough freedom in China. Mr. Luo wants to keep the book professional and wishes the next book will be better in English versions.
For fermentation and oxidation, we actually have got two different words of them in Chinese. When we talk about the tea, we use the former. But when we explain the process of the fermentation, we think it is a process of oxidation which occurs in tea with the air. So in our opinion, the former refers to only a state of tea and the latter refers to the reaction among the process of fermentation.
Anyway, this book is not “summary of ‘everything’about tea”. Mr. Luo wants to talk about the most important thing of the tea—the essence of the tea, so he doesn’t mention White Tean and Yellow Tea specifically. In China, there are two major types of books about the tea. One is the boring routine focusing on pure technical skill. The other which is consist of many schools are just talking about teaism as mystifying and worthless nonsense. Most of foreign friends just know teaism as a show for money or a mystery of mysteries. All of these can not give them a deep and active impression and it’s not helpful to popularize the real Chinese culture. That’s why Mr. Luo writes this book.
Now, Mr. Luo is working for a classroom called Chadao Oosha which focuses on the teaism itself, practicing making tea scientifically in the life, designing tea table, doing meditations, and other extensions of teaism. We share some knowledges about tea with many friends in different ways through an Chinese IM software called WeChat. We are also looking for some chances to exchange with counterparts on teaism in foreign countries and hope to be helpful to each other.
Linette