Reviews

For All the Tea in China releases in North America on March 18, and the reviews are starting to arrive:

A delicious brew of information on the history of tea cultivation and consumption in the Western world…a remarkably riveting tale. Booklist, (starred review)

Sarah Rose steeps us in the story of Robert Fortune, a botanist, gardener, and industrial spy who went undercover in the tea fields of China’s Wuyi Shan hills in order to steal the secrets of manufacturing the world’s favorite drink. National Geographic Traveler

You easily picture the movie version with its Indiana Jones for the botany set. Who knew tea could be so…hot? Food for Thought at Barnes&Noble

Bloggers are pouring on praise too:

… a surprising page-turner. This story is absolutely fascinating. (Basil and Spice)

Author Sarah Rose delves into the seductive past and retrieves the best, most aromatic leaves for our enjoyment. (Cineaste’s Bookshelf)

Rose tells Fortune’s own dramatic story well. (Blogtrotter)

The BBC chose FOR ALL THE TEA IN CHINA as Book of the Week.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

For All the Tea in China is the Telegraph’s  top choice for the week.

Geographical Magazine, the Royal Geographical Society’s official mouthpiece, weighs in:

Gastronomic pleasure is all about the details: always add a tiny splash of water to whisky to release the hidden aromas; never eat cheese straight from the fridge. There is a trick to making a cup of tea, too, as Sarah Rose reveals in her entertaining new book.

Country Life is a very English magazine, and they seem to approve.

What a hero he is, disguising himself as Chinese with a long black pigtail to venture into China’s alarming hinterland to smuggle out tea plants….He had to face all 19th Century China’s perils — bandits, cannibalism, fevers and pirates. This, and the detailed description of how tea is made from raw camellia leaves will ensure you value your cuppa as never before.

I just read my Amazon page.

Review
Rose’s account is full of colour
–The Times

Review
Reshapes into gripping prose Fortune’s own memoirs and letters … An enthusiastic tale of how the humble leaf became a global addiction

Review
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

Review
[Fortune's] story is well worth the telling, and despite the dearth of private papers, Rose does so with skill and restraint

Review
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

Scotland on Sunday
A compelling sketch of the world of globalisation before instant information, and transforms a modest Scottish botanist into a swashbuckling pirate capitalist … A genuinely curious and evocative yarn

Another one to please my mother.

This brisk little study gives a compelling sketch of the world of globalisation before the age of instant information, and transforms a modest Scottish botanist into a swashbuckling pirate capitalist, who incidentally changed the way we all have breakfast.

A girl could get used to this.

Surely those old tea parlours should have displayed a picture of The Saviour of The Cuppa next to portraits of Churchill and the Queen

I’m starting to enjoy this.

Concealed in the murky depths of your cuppa is nothing less than a crucial phase in the rise of the British Empire. If the secret of producing tea could be wrested from the grip of the Chinese Emperor, and the plant itself transplanted to the foothills of the Himalayas in the British Raj, vast revenues would follow and British imperial dominance in the Far East would be incontestable. Enter Robert Fortune, botanist and plant-hunter extraordinaire – as diligent, daring and enterprising a Victorian hero as one could wish for.

Sarah Rose tells a stirring tale of individual derring-do and the fate of nations.

They love me. They love me slightly less. The FT so totally loves me.

Tea is ingrained in the British psyche but the story benefits from an American author for whom the subject is almost exotic. An enthusiastic tale of how the humble leaf became a global addiction.

This warms an author’s heart.

The great tea robbery: How our cuppa wouldn’t exist if an amazing Victorian hadn’t stolen the secret from China’s warlords.

The Irish praise For All the Tea in China.

Rose presents tea as the focus of an exotic adventure story.

So not everyone loves me.  But some do.

The Indiana Jones of tea!

For All the Tea in China was just chosen as BBC Radio 4’s book of the week.   It will be serialized on air everyday for 5 days.  The air date will be some time in April, check here for updates.