For All the Tea in China

Starred review from February 15, 2010
Through the adventures of Robert Fortune, a nineteenth-century plant hunter, the reader learns a delicious brew of information on the history of tea cultivation and consumption in the Western world. Roses book is certain to draw the attention of history buffs, foodies, avid travel-literature fans, followers of popular science, and perhaps even business-interest book consumers as she reconstructs what she posits as the greatest theft of trade secrets in the history of mankind. Tea was grown in China. Great Britain wanted tea. But trying to trade with the Celestial Empire was like pulling teeth. So the East India Company sent hunter Fortune, undercover (dressed in mandarin robes), to penetrate the depths of China and surreptitiously gathersteal, in other wordsseeds and young plants and send them to India, where they would flourish in soil that was part of the British Empire. The authors bold conclusion to this remarkably riveting tale is that Fortunes actions would today be described as industrial espionage, but nevertheless he changeed the fate of nations.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)