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Green Gold
Apart from water, tea is more widely consumed than any other food or drink. Tens of billions of cups are drunk every day. How and why has tea conquered the world? Tea was the first global product. It altered life-styles, religions, etiquette and aesthetics. It raised nations and shattered empires. Economies were changed out of all recognition. Diseases were thwarted by the magical drink and cities founded on it. The industrial revolution was fuelled by tea, sealing the fate of the modern world. Green Gold is a remarkable detective story of how an East Himalayan camellia bush became the world's favourite drink. Discover how the tea plant came to be transplanted onto every continent and relive the stories of the men and women whose lives were transformed out of all recognition through contact with the deceptively innocuous green leaf.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
36 people are currently reading
626 people want to read
About the author
Alan Macfarlane
174 books47 followersAlan Macfarlane was born in Shillong, India, in 1941 and educated at the Dragon School, Sedbergh School, Oxford and London Universities. He is the author of over twenty books, including The Origins of English Individualism (1978) and Letters to Lily: On How the World Works (2005). He has worked in England, Nepal, Japan and China as both an historian and anthropologist. He was elected to the British Academy in 1986 and is now Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of Cambridge and a Life Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 69 reviews
December 23, 2011
I'm not sure this book deserves a second star, but I'm in a generous mood today, so let's run with it.
Let's start with the good things. The introductory chapter where Iris Macfarlane discusses living on an Assam tea plantation with her husband is simply fascinating--even if she paints herself with a rather saintly brush.
The rest of the book has interesting parts, but is so disorganized that to find them you have to dig. The author goes off on tangents and, I suspect due to the disorganization, is highly repetitive. I also question some of the assertions such as the one repeated ad nauseum that tea is "strength-giving." I don't think I got through a chapter without seeing this driven into my skull. I agree completely that tea brought health, and I'm sure the caffeine did wonders, but "strength-giving?" Were the drinkers healthier? Well, yes, and this can probably be attributed to drinking water that had been boiled first. The author gives no evidence for "strength-giving" or any reason for it to be so, just it was and really it was and did you know it was.
The author also relies heavily on long quotations and excerpts from other sources. The sections are so long and without analysis, I wonder if he was trying to reach a page quota. Although primary sources are interesting, paragraph after paragraph of a British colonial-era apologist borders on the absurd.
I walked away knowing only a little more about tea and I turned the last page with a sense of relief. Rather than this, read A History of the World in Six Glasses; it's a better book with more information and more analysis. Plus you get five more beverages--A BARGAIN!!!
Let's start with the good things. The introductory chapter where Iris Macfarlane discusses living on an Assam tea plantation with her husband is simply fascinating--even if she paints herself with a rather saintly brush.
The rest of the book has interesting parts, but is so disorganized that to find them you have to dig. The author goes off on tangents and, I suspect due to the disorganization, is highly repetitive. I also question some of the assertions such as the one repeated ad nauseum that tea is "strength-giving." I don't think I got through a chapter without seeing this driven into my skull. I agree completely that tea brought health, and I'm sure the caffeine did wonders, but "strength-giving?" Were the drinkers healthier? Well, yes, and this can probably be attributed to drinking water that had been boiled first. The author gives no evidence for "strength-giving" or any reason for it to be so, just it was and really it was and did you know it was.
The author also relies heavily on long quotations and excerpts from other sources. The sections are so long and without analysis, I wonder if he was trying to reach a page quota. Although primary sources are interesting, paragraph after paragraph of a British colonial-era apologist borders on the absurd.
I walked away knowing only a little more about tea and I turned the last page with a sense of relief. Rather than this, read A History of the World in Six Glasses; it's a better book with more information and more analysis. Plus you get five more beverages--A BARGAIN!!!
October 26, 2021
Slightly less poetic than those books about tea that primarily deal with zen and ceremonial aspects of it, but still, very interesting if you want to know about history and real grunt work that go into providing you with your favorite beverage. Very well researched. Like always, I'm not the one to complain for receiving far more facts and data than I ever expected.
June 12, 2008
Unlike a cup of tea, this book does not satisfy. Rather than being a history of tea it is a means for the authors to assuage their guilt as being members of a family that benefited by their former involvement in the tea growing industry and consequent exploitation of tea workers. One must look elsewhere for a detailed history on the origins of tea, with commentary on the various blends and regional tastes.
April 25, 2021
This was...interesting. I found myself having a lot of reactions, and thinking about a lot of things.
First off, the premise is interesting - the primary author is a professor at Cambridge (or oxford, I forget), and comes at this from an academic perspective, but his mother, who wrote the first chapter, was the wife of a tea planter in India, and wrote about her personal experiences in the trade, which was an interesting frame. She is clearly something of an iconoclast, which I liked, but also I felt struggled to see the larger issues that we might be thinking and talking about regarding colonialism, paternalism, social justice, etc today. At least in her recollections.
The chapters that follow do give a general overview of the history of tea, but are very focused on tea in India, in general, and without always giving the kind of historical context that is needed to really explain the whole story. So it feels like there is a great deal missing. I can entirely understand that this may be an editorial choice, as a book including all the relevant context would run to thousands of pages, given the essential nature of tea as a part of human history (an argument that I think McFarlane makes well), but it is hard not to see this as somewhat apologetic or defensive of the actions of colonizers, though that does not seem to have been the intent.
In general, a pleasant read, and did direct me to The Book of Tea, which is a meditative JOY. But lacks a lot when compared to the historical impact of A History of the World in 6 Glasses, which I am also reading.
First off, the premise is interesting - the primary author is a professor at Cambridge (or oxford, I forget), and comes at this from an academic perspective, but his mother, who wrote the first chapter, was the wife of a tea planter in India, and wrote about her personal experiences in the trade, which was an interesting frame. She is clearly something of an iconoclast, which I liked, but also I felt struggled to see the larger issues that we might be thinking and talking about regarding colonialism, paternalism, social justice, etc today. At least in her recollections.
The chapters that follow do give a general overview of the history of tea, but are very focused on tea in India, in general, and without always giving the kind of historical context that is needed to really explain the whole story. So it feels like there is a great deal missing. I can entirely understand that this may be an editorial choice, as a book including all the relevant context would run to thousands of pages, given the essential nature of tea as a part of human history (an argument that I think McFarlane makes well), but it is hard not to see this as somewhat apologetic or defensive of the actions of colonizers, though that does not seem to have been the intent.
In general, a pleasant read, and did direct me to The Book of Tea, which is a meditative JOY. But lacks a lot when compared to the historical impact of A History of the World in 6 Glasses, which I am also reading.
December 31, 2025
While the author certainly spent time researching and compiling information, I feel like this book was highly redundant and could have used a better editor. There were also times I felt like the author should have chosen different words (one example comes to mind. The mention of "Eskimo" on page 54-- this book was written in 2004. Can't we do better to avoid using a disparaging word also imposed upon people by colonialists?! )
I did like learning about tea as currency, that was a cool take-away. I of course knew about the colonization of India by the British, but holy hell, the treatment of workers in the tea farms was abhorrent (their rate of pay, working conditions). Not to mention the opium used to pay the Chinese for tea. Simply awful. So, I do credit the author for painting a fuller picture of the history of tea and not just its qualities and benefits.
I did like learning about tea as currency, that was a cool take-away. I of course knew about the colonization of India by the British, but holy hell, the treatment of workers in the tea farms was abhorrent (their rate of pay, working conditions). Not to mention the opium used to pay the Chinese for tea. Simply awful. So, I do credit the author for painting a fuller picture of the history of tea and not just its qualities and benefits.
September 7, 2023
As a tea lover, this was a very readable, informative, and encouraging book! The future of tea seems assured by its positive effects for the billions of tea drinkers out there despite its past fraught with oppression and exploitation. Thanks to Alan and Iris for their personal experiences and thorough investigation into tea. And Alan’s often snarky rhetorical questions and comments, which often made me snort or exclaim, “listen to this…”
February 11, 2026
How tea shaped empires and became the world's favorite beverage
The world is divided between tea drinkers and coffee drinkers. Google Gemini says, “Tea is overwhelmingly preferred in most of Asia, Africa, and parts of Europe (e.g., UK, Turkey). Coffee is the preferred hot beverage in the Nordics, Brazil, Canada, and parts of Europe.” But in its impact on the course of history, the production and consumption of tea has had by far the greater significance.
In The Empire of Tea, his history of the beverage, anthropologist and historian Alan MacFarlane exaggerates when he writes about how widespread tea drinking has become. “Its world consumption'” he asserts, “easily equals all the other manufactured drinks in the world put together—that is, coffee, chocolate, cocoa, sweet fizzy artificial drinks and all alcoholic drinks.” But his account of tea’s impact on the British and Chinese empires is far from exaggerated.
2,000 years of history viewed through the lens of the tea industry
Tea as a beverage is of relatively recent vintage. As MacFarlane reports, “No one on earth drank tea a few thousand years ago. A few small tribal groups in the jungles of south-east Asia chewed the leaves of the plant, but that was the nearest anyone came to tea drinking. Two thousand years ago it was drunk in a handful of religious communities.
By a thousand years ago it was drunk by millions of Chinese. Five hundred years ago over half of the world’s population was drinking tea as their main alternative to water. During the next five hundred years tea drinking spread to cover the world. By the 1930s there was enough tea for 200 cups of tea a year for every person in the world.”
How tea helped build the Chinese Empire
So, lots of people drink tea. No surprise there. But what’s all this about its historic impact on the course of empires? Well, that’s the surprising part. Alan MacFarlane spells it all out.
First, tea has two inherent properties that have proven pivotal. It’s a stimulant, helping keep tea drinkers alert. And it’s antiseptic, with antibiotic properties. Just as important, tea is prepared by boiling water. And that kills water-borne diseases. Which makes tea a perfect substitute for water, which people previously would have drunk.
Second, think about what all that might mean for armies once tea-drinking had become widespread, as it did in China a thousand years ago. Any fighting force that’s healthier and more alert is likely to prevail over one that, like most armies in the past, were subject to frequent epidemics and bouts of dysentery. And that’s one of the reasons why the centralizing forces in Chinese society managed to build such large kingdoms and eventually an empire. Tea made a big difference.
But those factors account for the success of the Chinese Empire in centuries past. With the British, the story is different.
Tea’s role in building the British Empire
For hundreds of years China supplied the world with tea. The plant (originally a tree, not a bush) was native to southwest China and adjoining areas in Southeast Asia. Thousands, later millions, of small farmers grew and harvested the plant and delivered it in bundles on their backs to middlemen. By the time foreign merchants bought it in China’s southern ports, it had become costly. And the British eventually became impatient with paying so much. Back home, even the poor were drinking tea by the 18th century, spending a major portion of their earnings on the beverage.
For more than a hundred years, the British sought in vain to find a way to raise and manufacture tea outside China. Eventually, though, they fastened on hilly northeast India. After decades of experimentation, they finally succeeded by the middle of the 19th century in building an efficient, plantation-centered tea industry in the province of Assam on the Burmese border. They soon undercut the Chinese price and, within years, dominated the world trade. The wealth this generated funded shipbuilding and the expansion of the Royal Navy as well as the ever-higher standard of living back home. Which in turn helped make possible British colonial expansion worldwide.
How the book is structured
The Empire of Tea begins with a longish chapter by author Iris MacFarlane, whose son Alan wrote the rest of the book. In her brief memoir, she recounts her life on a tea plantation in Assam. She had married the manager of the plantation (called a “garden” locally) and lived the life of a wealthy colonial for many years. After leaving Assam behind, she gained perspective and came to understand the gross injustice built into the plantation system. and colonialism generally.
The bulk of the book consists of Alan MacFarlane’s mostly chronological account of the origins and growth of the tea trade. In writing about the practices that governed the trade for centuries, he makes clear how merchants grew wealthy while tea’s cultivators lived in abject poverty. However, in interviews with tea growers, administrators, and laborers on a visit to Assam many years after he had left India, he makes the case that conditions in India’s (and Sri Lanka’s) tea gardens have markedly improved. Today, in fact, workers there fare far better than those in the communities surrounding them. Or so his book asserts.
However, MacFarlane may be far off base in this rosy view of the industry today. As Google Gemini tells us, “Working conditions on many tea plantations today remain challenging, often characterized by low wages, poor housing, limited access to healthcare and clean water, and high rates of female, and sometimes, child labor. Despite some modernization, many workers in major tea-producing regions like India and Kenya still face a system of dependency, earning wages that often fail to meet basic needs or fall below the international poverty line.” And articles and studies by tea industry observers and human rights groups validate Google’s summary.
About the authors
Iris Macfarlane (1922-2007) was the mother of the principal author of this book, Alan Macfarlane. In addition to the brief memoir that leads off Empire of Tea, she wrote a longer account of her life as the wife of a wealthy tea planter in Assam, India, Daughters of the Empire: A Memoir of Life and Times in the British Raj, She also published a collection of Scottish tales and wrote for History Today in the 1960s and 70s.
Anthropologist and historian Alan Macfarlane is a Professor Emeritus of King’s College, Cambridge. He has written or edited more than 20 books and numerous articles on the anthropology and history of England, Nepal, Japan, and China. Born in Assam in 1941, he earned a BA in modern history, master’s degrees in anthropology and history, and a PhD in history at Worcester College, University of Oxford. He moved to King’s College, Cambridge, in 1975, where he taught for decades.
The world is divided between tea drinkers and coffee drinkers. Google Gemini says, “Tea is overwhelmingly preferred in most of Asia, Africa, and parts of Europe (e.g., UK, Turkey). Coffee is the preferred hot beverage in the Nordics, Brazil, Canada, and parts of Europe.” But in its impact on the course of history, the production and consumption of tea has had by far the greater significance.
In The Empire of Tea, his history of the beverage, anthropologist and historian Alan MacFarlane exaggerates when he writes about how widespread tea drinking has become. “Its world consumption'” he asserts, “easily equals all the other manufactured drinks in the world put together—that is, coffee, chocolate, cocoa, sweet fizzy artificial drinks and all alcoholic drinks.” But his account of tea’s impact on the British and Chinese empires is far from exaggerated.
2,000 years of history viewed through the lens of the tea industry
Tea as a beverage is of relatively recent vintage. As MacFarlane reports, “No one on earth drank tea a few thousand years ago. A few small tribal groups in the jungles of south-east Asia chewed the leaves of the plant, but that was the nearest anyone came to tea drinking. Two thousand years ago it was drunk in a handful of religious communities.
By a thousand years ago it was drunk by millions of Chinese. Five hundred years ago over half of the world’s population was drinking tea as their main alternative to water. During the next five hundred years tea drinking spread to cover the world. By the 1930s there was enough tea for 200 cups of tea a year for every person in the world.”
How tea helped build the Chinese Empire
So, lots of people drink tea. No surprise there. But what’s all this about its historic impact on the course of empires? Well, that’s the surprising part. Alan MacFarlane spells it all out.
First, tea has two inherent properties that have proven pivotal. It’s a stimulant, helping keep tea drinkers alert. And it’s antiseptic, with antibiotic properties. Just as important, tea is prepared by boiling water. And that kills water-borne diseases. Which makes tea a perfect substitute for water, which people previously would have drunk.
Second, think about what all that might mean for armies once tea-drinking had become widespread, as it did in China a thousand years ago. Any fighting force that’s healthier and more alert is likely to prevail over one that, like most armies in the past, were subject to frequent epidemics and bouts of dysentery. And that’s one of the reasons why the centralizing forces in Chinese society managed to build such large kingdoms and eventually an empire. Tea made a big difference.
But those factors account for the success of the Chinese Empire in centuries past. With the British, the story is different.
Tea’s role in building the British Empire
For hundreds of years China supplied the world with tea. The plant (originally a tree, not a bush) was native to southwest China and adjoining areas in Southeast Asia. Thousands, later millions, of small farmers grew and harvested the plant and delivered it in bundles on their backs to middlemen. By the time foreign merchants bought it in China’s southern ports, it had become costly. And the British eventually became impatient with paying so much. Back home, even the poor were drinking tea by the 18th century, spending a major portion of their earnings on the beverage.
For more than a hundred years, the British sought in vain to find a way to raise and manufacture tea outside China. Eventually, though, they fastened on hilly northeast India. After decades of experimentation, they finally succeeded by the middle of the 19th century in building an efficient, plantation-centered tea industry in the province of Assam on the Burmese border. They soon undercut the Chinese price and, within years, dominated the world trade. The wealth this generated funded shipbuilding and the expansion of the Royal Navy as well as the ever-higher standard of living back home. Which in turn helped make possible British colonial expansion worldwide.
How the book is structured
The Empire of Tea begins with a longish chapter by author Iris MacFarlane, whose son Alan wrote the rest of the book. In her brief memoir, she recounts her life on a tea plantation in Assam. She had married the manager of the plantation (called a “garden” locally) and lived the life of a wealthy colonial for many years. After leaving Assam behind, she gained perspective and came to understand the gross injustice built into the plantation system. and colonialism generally.
The bulk of the book consists of Alan MacFarlane’s mostly chronological account of the origins and growth of the tea trade. In writing about the practices that governed the trade for centuries, he makes clear how merchants grew wealthy while tea’s cultivators lived in abject poverty. However, in interviews with tea growers, administrators, and laborers on a visit to Assam many years after he had left India, he makes the case that conditions in India’s (and Sri Lanka’s) tea gardens have markedly improved. Today, in fact, workers there fare far better than those in the communities surrounding them. Or so his book asserts.
However, MacFarlane may be far off base in this rosy view of the industry today. As Google Gemini tells us, “Working conditions on many tea plantations today remain challenging, often characterized by low wages, poor housing, limited access to healthcare and clean water, and high rates of female, and sometimes, child labor. Despite some modernization, many workers in major tea-producing regions like India and Kenya still face a system of dependency, earning wages that often fail to meet basic needs or fall below the international poverty line.” And articles and studies by tea industry observers and human rights groups validate Google’s summary.
About the authors
Iris Macfarlane (1922-2007) was the mother of the principal author of this book, Alan Macfarlane. In addition to the brief memoir that leads off Empire of Tea, she wrote a longer account of her life as the wife of a wealthy tea planter in Assam, India, Daughters of the Empire: A Memoir of Life and Times in the British Raj, She also published a collection of Scottish tales and wrote for History Today in the 1960s and 70s.
Anthropologist and historian Alan Macfarlane is a Professor Emeritus of King’s College, Cambridge. He has written or edited more than 20 books and numerous articles on the anthropology and history of England, Nepal, Japan, and China. Born in Assam in 1941, he earned a BA in modern history, master’s degrees in anthropology and history, and a PhD in history at Worcester College, University of Oxford. He moved to King’s College, Cambridge, in 1975, where he taught for decades.
September 20, 2011
Did not mention about the important episode of how Chinese Tea was brought to India after the Opium War of 1840s when British Empire was afraid of losing supply from China. Did not mention the route of Navigation to Assam from Calcutta. Also did not mention much about the original geographical locations of the Tea Qualis. Still did a good job in describing the condition of Tea Slaves of Assam. Worth reading but not too many will find it engrossing.
April 10, 2009
This is an interesting and readable introduction, but nothing more. Iris, the co-author's, memoirs of growing up in an Indian tea "garden" are more interesting than the rest of the book. I think of books like this as "history lite," interesting anecdotes, major figures, not much analysis of how it fits into larger historical context.
March 6, 2009
Anecdotal, not a serious history
August 29, 2017
Didn't quite "finish". Got the info I wanted from it.
October 12, 2021
The thing I would say about this book is that it's an honest historical account however it definitely has a very subjective perspective. This is mainly in reference to the colonialist and imperialist perspective of the people writing the book. there are white supremacist views stated blatantly however it is given with its historical context. If you can get through the first chapter and take it as a historical account then the rest of the book becomes more interesting. This book does have a very pro-british slant (the authors were British so it's not surprising). I think to really get a broader perspective of the tea trade and its effects reading this book with "From the ruins of empire" by Pankaj Mishra will get a better picture of both sides of tea cultivation in Assam (note from the ruins of Empire does not specifically make reference to Assam that I remember but mainly talks about India and British imperialism as a whole). All in all interesting.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 22, 2021
The book begins with a chapter by Iris Macfarlane, Alan's mother, who was married to the manager of a tea estate in Assam, India when Alan was young. The chapter tells very little about tea, mainly brings out her life during that time period. Alan, an anthropologist, takes over and tells the history of tea and then concentrates on how England was able to take over the tea trade from China by making industrial-like plantations in Assam, India. The book concentrates on England, China, India and Japan. I found the background information interesting but wish it would include more of the world. The copy I read from Overlook Press was hurt by lack of maps showing these key areas mentioned in the text, un-captioned pictures and very shoddy footnoting. All of these, if done well, would have enhanced the story, but instead the poor editing distracted the reader.
January 13, 2026
The topic is interesting--and the co-authors' personal experience as residents of a "tea garden" in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) is relevant. How tea shaped the British Empire, China, Japan and India matters in a global context. I had known about the Opium Wars, for example, but had not connected that to the exploitation of the Potosi silver mines in Bolivia. I also hadn't realized the horrific lives of tea "garden" workers in Assam under British rule, and even into my own lifetime.
That said, this book needed a good editor to help avoid much repetition of themes, even of direct quotations from other writers.
That said, this book needed a good editor to help avoid much repetition of themes, even of direct quotations from other writers.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 10, 2018
1.5 stars for the book (repetitive, baseless assertions, more repetition).
5 stars for the 25 page foreword "Memoirs of a Memsahib", which is completely unconnected to the rest of the Book. The author's mom describes her time in Assam from the 30ies to the 60ies in such a condensed, lively, dark-humored, British way that, apart from making that part of society at that time and place come to life before your eyes, it just cracks you up.
I'd buy the book for those 25 pages alone.
5 stars for the 25 page foreword "Memoirs of a Memsahib", which is completely unconnected to the rest of the Book. The author's mom describes her time in Assam from the 30ies to the 60ies in such a condensed, lively, dark-humored, British way that, apart from making that part of society at that time and place come to life before your eyes, it just cracks you up.
I'd buy the book for those 25 pages alone.
September 17, 2020
I think I give this two and a half stars. It seems Alan MacFarlane's parents were on opposite sides with regards to the local population, his mother tried to do a white saviour act while his father wanted to leave things as they were. The Assamese would have preferred to keep the British on not realising that they caused a lot of problems and left chaos behind.
For being a drink with so many health benefits it doesn't seem to be encouraged to be drunk more.
For being a drink with so many health benefits it doesn't seem to be encouraged to be drunk more.
May 6, 2023
The second chapter is a rather autobriographical sketch of Iris growing up on the tea plantation. I would have lost nothing had I not read it. The other chapters were also a bit of hit and miss. A lot was devoted to Assam and sometimes it read more like a history book on British empire rather than the tea empire. The last chapter made a good summary. Look for another book on this topic. This is kind of messy and all over the place.
January 10, 2026
It was fine. The first person account by his mother as a British wife to a tea manager was fascinating. The hypothesis that boiling water for steeping tea heavily contributed to the eradication of waterborne illness in impoverished countries is worth contemplating. And I learned a couple interesting facts, such as Indians didn’t drink tea until the British large scale commercialization of it. But overall, it was disorganized and a slog to read at times.
July 28, 2017
This is more than a history of the cultivation of tea. The author also theorizes that tea has had a major role in the prevention of disease, especially those associated with contaminated water. He has a convincing argument. Unfortunately, the history of tea also includes the destruction of forests and exploitation of people in tea growing regions of the world.
November 24, 2020
The first chapter was disappointing.... i started this book to read about the history of tea but the first chapter was a personal memoir. Anyway after that the books bloomed into a lovely recount of the history and story of tea and all its benefits.
February 21, 2021
Un po' di confusione, non sempre risulta chiaro il motivo per cui questo libro è stato scritto (libro storico? testimonianza?) nè la struttura, mancante, della narrazione aiuta la lettura. Tre stelle perché la parte introduttiva, Ricordi di una "memsahib", è decisamente interessante.
April 25, 2018
The best part of this book was the format. I love unusually sized books. It's adorable and had good pictures. Leaving in my bookbox.
May 28, 2018
An interesting survey of tea and the tea business from the perspective of the wife and son of an Assam tea plantation manager.
April 16, 2021
I rarely abandon books halfway through.
January 8, 2025
An interesting deep dive into the tea industry in Assam. A little rambly in the last couple chapters, but otherwise pretty good.
October 30, 2025
More about the treatment of workers on tea plantations in Assam than the history of tea. Read “The History of of Tea” by Laura Martin instead.
January 12, 2026
I found parts of this book interesting, however some chapters were tedious and dragged on. The inclusion of a chapter by the authors mother was informative but not really necessary.
March 6, 2017
This is a good overview of the global history of tea, though each part of the story could easily be turned into a book of its own. Macfarlane's theory that the antibacterial properties of tea itself (not just that fact that the water used to make it must be boiled) allowed urban agglomeration and technological development is interesting and not something I've seen mentioned anywhere else. He devotes the most attention to the horrifying system of British-run tea plantations in Assam - that's not surprising, since he was born there in the forties. His mother Iris's opening chapter, Memoirs of a Memsahib, describes twenty years of isolation, insulation and boredom. She didn't really start to look around her until her children were off at boarding school, and the next ten years were spent on ineffectual attempts at minor reforms until she finally lost her mind and had to be carried out on a stretcher. Toward the end, Alan includes responses he got during interviews with modern Indian tea managers - the people who inherited the system when the British left. Quoting them at length allows the reader to read between the lines when they declare that the British were mostly tough but fair, and that the plantation workers were and continue to be better off than their fellow Assamese.
December 14, 2025
Good info but there was something off putting about the presentation of the history by this author.
July 23, 2014
A confused book with a confused narrative. The division of labor is between a mother and her daughter. The authors both say that they wanted to write this book for different reasons. Although they each present their own introduction chapter, the purpose of the book remains unclear. They both want to reflect on the crop that made their earlier life experiences on Assamese plantations possible: tea. While the authors say they want to get closer to the lives of the Assamese tea pickers and plantation workers, the book is preoccupied with several other stories: the geopolitics of Assam, tea's health benefits, the cultural history of tea around the world, and the functioning and life of British colonialists in India. Chapters jump around all of these themes and rarely in any logical order. The final two chapters read like rehashes or left-overs of earlier chapters.
The authors refuse to get as close to the Assamese as they claim they want to. In one chapter they cite an anthropologist that spent time with the pickers, but then express that that book is too harsh. They then interview retired Indian plantation owners, clearly in another class from the workers, who reiterate the fairness of the prior colonial and post-colonial British planters.
Ultimately, I enjoyed the book only when it was specific about Assam and using colonial records and primary accounts. The writings on China and Japan were halfhearted and out of place, and the descriptions of the health benefits of tea were not always in proper context: that is, older accounts can be used to illuminate the prevailing ideas about tea's benefits in a certain period, but should not be used as scientific claims about the quality of tea.
Like many books in the "micro history" genre the authors overstate the role of tea in history. It did not cause the industrial revolution or even boost it as much as they claim. As Sidney Mintz has shown in a much better book, the sweetened tea the British drank did bring cheap calories, but this was of course from the sugar not the tea. Also hot boiled water without an added infusion is not "unpleasant" as the authors claim, this is clearly a cultural prejudice of the authors. I recommend reading smaller and more limited, but better focused accounts of the history of tea, such as Sarah Rose's "For All of the Tea in China." The history of tea is simply to vast and complex in all of its cultural, social, economic, and political aspects to be told in one book: it is better illustrated in compelling vignettes.
The authors refuse to get as close to the Assamese as they claim they want to. In one chapter they cite an anthropologist that spent time with the pickers, but then express that that book is too harsh. They then interview retired Indian plantation owners, clearly in another class from the workers, who reiterate the fairness of the prior colonial and post-colonial British planters.
Ultimately, I enjoyed the book only when it was specific about Assam and using colonial records and primary accounts. The writings on China and Japan were halfhearted and out of place, and the descriptions of the health benefits of tea were not always in proper context: that is, older accounts can be used to illuminate the prevailing ideas about tea's benefits in a certain period, but should not be used as scientific claims about the quality of tea.
Like many books in the "micro history" genre the authors overstate the role of tea in history. It did not cause the industrial revolution or even boost it as much as they claim. As Sidney Mintz has shown in a much better book, the sweetened tea the British drank did bring cheap calories, but this was of course from the sugar not the tea. Also hot boiled water without an added infusion is not "unpleasant" as the authors claim, this is clearly a cultural prejudice of the authors. I recommend reading smaller and more limited, but better focused accounts of the history of tea, such as Sarah Rose's "For All of the Tea in China." The history of tea is simply to vast and complex in all of its cultural, social, economic, and political aspects to be told in one book: it is better illustrated in compelling vignettes.
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