Drink Up! 7 Books About the History of Tea

A beautifully illustrated book that is great for beginners, Gaylard takes the reader through blends, tastings, and ceremonies from around the world. This book covers the history of tea from India to Kenya to Japan and more! You will be able to recognize tea varietals based on their leaves, and follow along with the book to brew your own delicious recipes. It’s a hefty tome at 224 full-colour pages, but if you’re stuck on where to start your tea journey it’s a great place to begin.

Jialin’s book chronicles the history of tea’s beginnings in ancient China. The China Tea Book explores how the beginnings of tea are as varied as the types of tea themselves. Mixing leisure and practicality, this book explores tea etiquette, its history as it travelled from China, and contemporary tea today. Like Gaylard’s book, it is also accompanied by illustrations as well as photographs.

Travelling back into history, The Book of Tea is over a century old. Author Kakuzo Okakura was born in 1862, the son of a samurai family. He wrote this book in 1906 in English and it has been in print ever since.

Okakura intended for this book to culturally bridge the east and the west, as during this time period a large amount of cultural production was flooding towards eastern Asia, and he was concerned about the loss of Japanese traditions. In this book, Okakura explores the concept of chanoyu, which translates as “the way of tea”. Chanoyu is another word for Japanese traditional tea ceremony, which itself was influenced by Zen Buddhism.

Altogether, Okakura’s book is a thoughtful and complex read. His work explores the aesthetics of the time, the spirituality of Japan, and the history of tea itself.

Written by Rekha Sarin with accompanying photography by Rajan Kapoor, Chai explores the history of tea in India. This volume traces the story of tea from leaf to cup, as well as explores the culture and ceremony surrounding it. The story of tea travels across the entire country of India, and Sarin and Kapoor describe and photograph it for us perfectly.

Perhaps on the less scientific spectrum is the art of tasseology, also known as the art of reading tea leaves. This small guide was written over a century ago by “A Highland Seer” and is an interesting curio for anybody wanting to do a little fortune telling for fun. This book contains general principles and practices for reading tea leaves as well as a list of common symbols and meanings.

Yerba maté is a plant that is surrounded by mythos. It was originally discovered by the indigenous peoples of Paraguay (the Guarani) and Southern Brazil (the Tupi) and was known as an herb “from the gods”. These days, it is the signature drink in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Southern Brazil and is consumed six times more than coffee!

This book was originally published in 1916, reprinted due to cultural importance and now remains in the public domain. As such, most copies of this book bear printing imperfections. However, it is a comprehensive guide to the ethnobotany of Yerba Mate that makes a fascinating read for today.