Tag: Book

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Book: Jane Pettigrew’s World of Tea by Jane Pettigrew

Jane Pettigrew’s World of Tea: Discovering Producing Regions and Their Teas
Author: Jane Pettigrew
Published 2018 by Hoffman Media
Cover Price: $59.95USD
434 pages

First Impressions

Jane Pettigrew’s World of Tea is a much larger reference book than I had anticipated when I purchased it. It’s basically the same size and shape as a typical university-level psychology textbook, but infinitely more interesting in terms of information. World of Tea is a lovely hardcover coffee-table style book that has a matte feeling cover and gold for the text on the front cover and the spine.

World of Tea is an impressive text. The introductory section, called The Origins of Tea, talks about the different types of tea (including yellow tea, which is left out of a lot of tea reference books!), storage, teaware, and steeping tea. Then Pettigrew goes into the different tea producing regions – each chapter covering a different location (North America, Central and South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Oceania). Each chapter is further broken down into countries and provinces/states. The photography through the book is bright and colourful, albeit mostly green.

This thick text also consists of two ribbon markers, which I think is such a lovely touch. They’re long, green, and can easily help you reference information with the flip of pages. I really like them because if you’re going to use it as a coffee table book, you can opt to use them to mark interesting pages, or perhaps the pages that you’re going to be constantly referring to (e.g. the page on how long to steep different types of teas).

Things That Stood Out

I just loved the photography throughout. It gives you a great sense in how different tea farms around the world are set up and how just how different tea leaves look after being processed – if you didn’t already know about it. I think it’s great that Pettigrew was able to highlight such a variety of farms and tea producing regions around the world – there’s literally something on everywhere that you could possibly think of. I didn’t realize that there were so many tea producers in North America, let along throughout Europe and South America. I knew that countries like China, Japan, and India would be covered with tea farms, but it was certainly an eye-opener to see just how many farms there were everywhere. Tea is considered to be the most consumed beverage globally, after water, so it’s fascinating to learn just how many farms are necessary to keep all of those tea drinkers happy!

Favourite Section(s)

I loved the section that covered tea-growing farms in British Columbia, because that’s where I am from. There were two farms listed, neither of which I have had the pleasure of visiting yet, so they’re now on my “to visit” list and to try teas that are grown “locally”. I loved getting to learn about tea farms from around the world, without ever leaving my living room.

My Overall Impression

I loved Jane Pettigrew’s World of Tea. I think it’d be an epic book to start off with for the beginner tea lover, and it’d be a great reference book for established tea enthusiasts as well. Most other tea books talk about types of tea, storage, steeping, and a bit about ceremony, maybe some tea blending recipes or about afternoon tea. I think what sets World of Tea apart is the showcasing of tea farms around the world, which makes it a fascinating book to flip through and read because it really does show you the areas where your tea literally comes from, which I think is great for education purposes. Plus, the beautiful photography doesn’t hurt either.

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Book: Modern Tea by Lisa Boalt Richardson

Modern Tea: A Fresh Look at an Ancient Beverage
Author: Lisa Boalt Richardson
Published 2014 by Chronicle Books
Cover Price: $19.95USD/£12.99
164 pages

First Impressions

Modern Tea by Lisa Boalt Richardson is a book that I purchased early on in my tea blogging days (so likely circa 2016 or so). It’s a small, square book – hardcover, with full colour illustrations. The book itself is split into five generalized chapters: What is Tea?, The Art of Tea, Tea Ceremonies and Rituals, Beyond the Cup, and The Buzz About Tea.

In the first chapter, What is Tea?, Richardson touches on the types of tea, tea production and farming, and examples of specific types of tea within each type of tea (white, green, etc.). The photos are lovely, although not as vibrant as I would expect from a colourful illustrated book. The second chapter, The Art of Tea, covers how to prepare tea, equipment and water, and also has a section on how to eyeball water temperature without a variable temperature kettle – although for the sake of simplicity, I still prefer the ease of selecting a button for my preferred water temperature.

Tea Ceremonies and Rituals was the most fascinating to me, because Richardson goes over various cultures and their ceremonies – Chinese, Japanese, Moroccan, to name a few. With photograph examples of most, it’s nice to contrast and compare the teaware between cultures. Beyond the Cup goes over cooking with tea and also food pairings, which is something that I do reference when I’m thinking about my tea recipes. The Buzz About Tea covers caffeine, fair trade, environmentalism, and health benefits – although I think we’ve come a long way in science and understanding about tea since 2014, since matcha has spiked in popularity in the western world and more people in the western world are setting aside coffee for tea.

Things That Stood Out

I loved that Richardson included information about the difference between high tea and afternoon tea – a distinction that a lot of people don’t understand. If the tea that you’re thinking of includes dainty finger sandwiches, a tiered cake stand, and fine china – you’re thinking of afternoon tea. Richardson also goes over the origins of tea and cha – because of the different dialects of the Chinese language and how the language evolved and changed as it travelled (for example, in India, tea is chai and the Mandarin pronunciation for tea is cha).

Favourite Section(s)

I really liked the section in Modern Tea about how to incorporate tea into food and how to create food pairings. I think it’s a great reference for beginners wanting to add tea to their cooking or baking, because it gives some great examples (but the part that I didn’t appreciate was the lack of actual recipes for testing out the methodology).

My Overall Impression

I liked Lisa Boalt Richardson’s Modern Tea. I think it’s a fantastic book for those who are interested in tea, or a beginner tea fan. Richardson covers the basics of tea fairly well and in a language that isn’t too complex. I do think that if you’re more into the tea scene, you might find it not as informative because you might already know a lot of the information – but it doesn’t mean it might not be a great addition to your tea shelf. Richardson lays out the information in a great format that is easy to digest with some pretty photography. At the cover price, it’s not unaffordable and might even be available via your local library (which I always encourage trying first in case you can’t find a copy of it, since it was published in 2014).

Curious about the cup rating system? Click here to learn more.