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A Thirst for Empire: How Tea Shaped the Modern World
How the global tea industry influenced the international economy and the rise of mass consumerism
Tea has been one of the most popular commodities in the world. For centuries, profits from its growth and sales funded wars and fueled colonization, and its cultivation brought about massive changes―in land use, labor systems, market practices, and social hierarchies―the effects of which are with us even today. A Thirst for Empire takes an in-depth historical look at how men and women―through the tea industry in Europe, Asia, North America, and Africa―transformed global tastes and habits. An expansive and original global history of imperial tea, A Thirst for Empire demonstrates the ways that this powerful enterprise helped shape the contemporary world.
Tea has been one of the most popular commodities in the world. For centuries, profits from its growth and sales funded wars and fueled colonization, and its cultivation brought about massive changes―in land use, labor systems, market practices, and social hierarchies―the effects of which are with us even today. A Thirst for Empire takes an in-depth historical look at how men and women―through the tea industry in Europe, Asia, North America, and Africa―transformed global tastes and habits. An expansive and original global history of imperial tea, A Thirst for Empire demonstrates the ways that this powerful enterprise helped shape the contemporary world.
568 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2017
43 people are currently reading
879 people want to read
About the author
Erika Rappaport
5 books7 followersErika Rappaport is professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
January 15, 2018
For those interested in tea and how it influenced history (I am) this is a must read. Be warned, however, that it is not an easy read. It was for me a long, plodding effort. The writing is flat and the main arguments of the author are often obscured behind a mountain of detail (how many temperance parties do we really need to know about.) That said, there is much wonderful information in that detail and the research Rappaport has undertaken is impressive.
June 5, 2020
I first heard about this book from NPR's article "From Raucous To Ritzy: A Brief History Of Christmas Tea" (would recommend this if you want to know about more about how Christmas tea came about!). The book sounded interesting and since the NLB had it, I decided to borrow it.
Unfortunately, I didn't realise how thick and academic this would be. It took me quite a few days just to read through the whole thing once, and then I had to go through it a second time to make sure I roughly understood what it said. Or perhaps this is just an indication of how rusty my brain has gotten.
Although this book is subtitled "how tea shaped the modern world", it really is very much focused on the British empire. America, China, and India are fairly extensively discussed, but my impression is that this is only in relation to Britain and the British tea industry.
As you're probably aware, tea is from China but for some reason, it's also seen as a very British drink (in particular, black tea). This book traces the journey of tea as its status changes from foreign import to a symbol of Britishness, going into things like how the taste for tea was created, how this influenced Imperial Britain, and even the role of tea in the Great Depression and World War II.
I talked about parts of the book in more detail in my previous posts on Tea and Temperance and the history of Fake Tea, but another thing I learned from this book was how the British moved from Chinese to Indian teas. I had always thought that Robert Fortune's discovery of tea adulteration was the main cause of the shift to black, Indian teas, but this book showed me that there was also a concerted effort to promote 'Imperial' (Indian) teas. In fact, most consumers didn't like the taste of Indian teas at first, and some tea shops ended up blending Chinese and Indian teas to make them more palatable!
One more thing that I found interesting was the subtle shift in the image of tea. During the heyday of the British empire, Indian teas were sold as 'Imperial' products and that consumers would be helping the empire by buying them. However, "by the late 1930s, it was no longer clear that empire added value. Instead, health and bodily renewal became watchwords of the day, shaping advertising and many other facets of European culture." What this means is that tea was introduced as a healthy Chinese drink, and then through a series of marketing campaigns marketed as a British product, and then when that failed, went back to being a healthy drink that would revive you. In a way, it's come full circle (but then again, really not since the British public didn't go back to drinking Chinese teas).
If you're interested in the history of tea and how it relates to Britan and the British empire, I think you'd really enjoy this book. It's fairly dry in tone but it has so much information crammed into it that after reading it a couple of times, I think you'll find that your view of tea has been changed.
This review was first posted at Eustea
Unfortunately, I didn't realise how thick and academic this would be. It took me quite a few days just to read through the whole thing once, and then I had to go through it a second time to make sure I roughly understood what it said. Or perhaps this is just an indication of how rusty my brain has gotten.
Although this book is subtitled "how tea shaped the modern world", it really is very much focused on the British empire. America, China, and India are fairly extensively discussed, but my impression is that this is only in relation to Britain and the British tea industry.
As you're probably aware, tea is from China but for some reason, it's also seen as a very British drink (in particular, black tea). This book traces the journey of tea as its status changes from foreign import to a symbol of Britishness, going into things like how the taste for tea was created, how this influenced Imperial Britain, and even the role of tea in the Great Depression and World War II.
I talked about parts of the book in more detail in my previous posts on Tea and Temperance and the history of Fake Tea, but another thing I learned from this book was how the British moved from Chinese to Indian teas. I had always thought that Robert Fortune's discovery of tea adulteration was the main cause of the shift to black, Indian teas, but this book showed me that there was also a concerted effort to promote 'Imperial' (Indian) teas. In fact, most consumers didn't like the taste of Indian teas at first, and some tea shops ended up blending Chinese and Indian teas to make them more palatable!
One more thing that I found interesting was the subtle shift in the image of tea. During the heyday of the British empire, Indian teas were sold as 'Imperial' products and that consumers would be helping the empire by buying them. However, "by the late 1930s, it was no longer clear that empire added value. Instead, health and bodily renewal became watchwords of the day, shaping advertising and many other facets of European culture." What this means is that tea was introduced as a healthy Chinese drink, and then through a series of marketing campaigns marketed as a British product, and then when that failed, went back to being a healthy drink that would revive you. In a way, it's come full circle (but then again, really not since the British public didn't go back to drinking Chinese teas).
If you're interested in the history of tea and how it relates to Britan and the British empire, I think you'd really enjoy this book. It's fairly dry in tone but it has so much information crammed into it that after reading it a couple of times, I think you'll find that your view of tea has been changed.
This review was first posted at Eustea
June 9, 2020
If you're interested in the history of British tea consumption and how it made and was made by empire, boy howdy is this book for you.
I really enjoyed this book and wasn't bothered by its academic tone (but, you know, old habits die hard). But yes, it is an academic history (which mainly means it is footnoted to hell and back, is not particularly interested in ensuring the prose are zippy [aka the writing can be dry], and has MOOOOOORE detail than the average reader is probably game for). But I found it fascinating.
I had been hoping for this book but basically about the WHOLE world and tea consumption/empire, but to quote another GR reviewer: "Although this book is subtitled 'how tea shaped the modern world', it really is very much focused on the British empire." Does that book about the global rise/fall/empire-making of tea exist? If you know, LET ME KNOW!
I really enjoyed this book and wasn't bothered by its academic tone (but, you know, old habits die hard). But yes, it is an academic history (which mainly means it is footnoted to hell and back, is not particularly interested in ensuring the prose are zippy [aka the writing can be dry], and has MOOOOOORE detail than the average reader is probably game for). But I found it fascinating.
I had been hoping for this book but basically about the WHOLE world and tea consumption/empire, but to quote another GR reviewer: "Although this book is subtitled 'how tea shaped the modern world', it really is very much focused on the British empire." Does that book about the global rise/fall/empire-making of tea exist? If you know, LET ME KNOW!
Want to read
August 31, 2017Found at http://goodbooksguide.blogspot.com/
October 17, 2024
Alright, I have a lot of thoughts this week- but I’ll try to keep this condensed.
Erika Rappaport’s A Thirst for Empire: How Tea Shaped the Modern World was very readable and engaging. Her thesis and arguments were apparent, the implicit changing to the explicit (specifically when concerning ideologies surrounding people, bodies, places, and the economy), the production of global capitalism and how the actions of those far apart collectively created it, and the idea of cultural economies. Cultural economies are the construction of global capital flows and ideologies based on ideas of gender, class, and race. To prove her arguments, Rappaport organizes her book chronologically and divided into three main sections.
The first section, “Anxious Relations” is focused on British Imperial culture, trade, colonialism, import, export, economy, and retail during the 17th-19th centuries. It also shows the change from implicit to explicit about the ideas of nations and citizens through tea production as a commodity.
Part two, “Imperial Tastes,” centers around the producers and economics of the late 19th – mid 20th centuries. She uses case studies of the British Empire interacting with the tea growing colonies in India and Asia, and how those markets were maintained. This section is also very heavy in the realm of advertisement, propaganda, and politics, especially towards the end. She explores the development of marketing and how it was used as a tool to strengthen the British Empire and really hone in on how Britishness and tea became synonymous.
The third part, “Aftertastes,” follows the post WWII period to the 1970’s, centering around the impacts of decolonization; specifically in the context with imperial industry & consumer culture. With the change from Imperial system to a global system, and younger generations, there was a decline in the popularity of tea replaced with Coca-Cola or coffee (though not a total decline).
I wanted to further explore the themes of imperialism and consumer culture, and what the book argues the relationship is between them. Imported commodities such as tea and sugar changed British tastes and lifestyles, driving a greater demand for goods coming out of the colonies. Tea also impacted social class and reinforced hierarchies in Britain, initially it was product of the upper class, but eventually morphed into the beverage of working-class women, to bolster them up and give them strength during long workdays.
Gender and tea is another theme that is discussed throughout the book that I found really fascinating. Tea not only shaped the role of women in trade and consumption, but it then circled back around to women influencing the market because of tea. However, because of this, gender stereotypes about tea drinkers became linked with women and femininity. Marketing and advertising really catered towards women throughout the majority of the book. There are times though, where advertisements would shift, specifically during the World Wars, and tea was used a propaganda for Britain and her allies, trying to appeal to men and the masculinity of soldiers. At the same time however, “The Girls of the Blitz Canteen” dressed up with hair done and lipstick on, served tea and baked goods to civilians in shelters, soldiers, and anyone else involved in the war effort; Rappaport describes their impact as one that made tea “slightly sexy.” The sexualization of drinking tea is further depicted in the photograph “A British soldier drinking tea next to a mobile tea canteen at the Calcutta airport, 1944.” The image was meant to highlight the soldier’s lips and “fit body” in order to “recall the racial and gender politics of colonialism.”
I also found it interested how tea is perceived as an icon or symbol changed over time and in different areas. During the height of the colonial empire, it symbolized imperialism, nationalism, and Britishness. And although that never really goes away, during the 20th centuries propaganda uses tea as an international symbol of “good” to link together the allies. Even in our modern day though, tea is definitely still a symbol of the “keep calm and carry on” lifestyle in Britain. This shines through in media where tea is always present in or representative of Britishness.
Erika Rappaport’s A Thirst for Empire: How Tea Shaped the Modern World was very readable and engaging. Her thesis and arguments were apparent, the implicit changing to the explicit (specifically when concerning ideologies surrounding people, bodies, places, and the economy), the production of global capitalism and how the actions of those far apart collectively created it, and the idea of cultural economies. Cultural economies are the construction of global capital flows and ideologies based on ideas of gender, class, and race. To prove her arguments, Rappaport organizes her book chronologically and divided into three main sections.
The first section, “Anxious Relations” is focused on British Imperial culture, trade, colonialism, import, export, economy, and retail during the 17th-19th centuries. It also shows the change from implicit to explicit about the ideas of nations and citizens through tea production as a commodity.
Part two, “Imperial Tastes,” centers around the producers and economics of the late 19th – mid 20th centuries. She uses case studies of the British Empire interacting with the tea growing colonies in India and Asia, and how those markets were maintained. This section is also very heavy in the realm of advertisement, propaganda, and politics, especially towards the end. She explores the development of marketing and how it was used as a tool to strengthen the British Empire and really hone in on how Britishness and tea became synonymous.
The third part, “Aftertastes,” follows the post WWII period to the 1970’s, centering around the impacts of decolonization; specifically in the context with imperial industry & consumer culture. With the change from Imperial system to a global system, and younger generations, there was a decline in the popularity of tea replaced with Coca-Cola or coffee (though not a total decline).
I wanted to further explore the themes of imperialism and consumer culture, and what the book argues the relationship is between them. Imported commodities such as tea and sugar changed British tastes and lifestyles, driving a greater demand for goods coming out of the colonies. Tea also impacted social class and reinforced hierarchies in Britain, initially it was product of the upper class, but eventually morphed into the beverage of working-class women, to bolster them up and give them strength during long workdays.
Gender and tea is another theme that is discussed throughout the book that I found really fascinating. Tea not only shaped the role of women in trade and consumption, but it then circled back around to women influencing the market because of tea. However, because of this, gender stereotypes about tea drinkers became linked with women and femininity. Marketing and advertising really catered towards women throughout the majority of the book. There are times though, where advertisements would shift, specifically during the World Wars, and tea was used a propaganda for Britain and her allies, trying to appeal to men and the masculinity of soldiers. At the same time however, “The Girls of the Blitz Canteen” dressed up with hair done and lipstick on, served tea and baked goods to civilians in shelters, soldiers, and anyone else involved in the war effort; Rappaport describes their impact as one that made tea “slightly sexy.” The sexualization of drinking tea is further depicted in the photograph “A British soldier drinking tea next to a mobile tea canteen at the Calcutta airport, 1944.” The image was meant to highlight the soldier’s lips and “fit body” in order to “recall the racial and gender politics of colonialism.”
I also found it interested how tea is perceived as an icon or symbol changed over time and in different areas. During the height of the colonial empire, it symbolized imperialism, nationalism, and Britishness. And although that never really goes away, during the 20th centuries propaganda uses tea as an international symbol of “good” to link together the allies. Even in our modern day though, tea is definitely still a symbol of the “keep calm and carry on” lifestyle in Britain. This shines through in media where tea is always present in or representative of Britishness.
January 3, 2023
A Thirst for Empire traces the impact of both the production and consumption of tea within the British Empire, starting in the seventeenth century and ending in the twentieth. It describes tea as a feminine product that helped to both build and destroy an empire. Rappaport begins by describing the origins of tea in China, and its first contact with European traders. However, the bulk of the story centers around British India and the efforts to establish tea plantations to the point where Indian tea could compete and ultimately surpass Chinese tea within the British Empire. Promoters of Indian tea sought to gain a foothold in Britain by inflaming anti-Chinese sentiment and claiming that Indian tea was healthy, modern, patriotic, and “British” – thereby transforming a foreign (i.e. Chinese) item into a domestic one. Members of the Temperance movement, free traders, and evangelicals advocated for the beverage, claiming that “tea made good workers, reliable consumers, stable societies, and healthy economies” (58). Yet tea took on national characteristics in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and India. When British companies began selling tea in India, some Indian nationalist argued against the purchase of the caffeinated product, arguing that Indians would only be feeding the beast of colonialism. In the end, however, Indians managed to remake tea so that it was their own by purchasing tea from Indian-owned businesses and rebranding it as an Indian product. Rappaport also describes British missionaries as viewing tea as a tool that symbolizes Christian European domesticity, which was utilized to transform and civilize the material and culinary cultures of British colonies. She ends her monograph by describing the fall of empires, but the rise of a “neocolonial” strategy among members of the tea industry who sought not only to maintain their consumers in the decolonized markets, but to extend them into the global economy.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 31, 2022
I had wanted a book on tea for ages. I picked up a few other books (some of which were really good, but not what I'd actually been looking for), but it wasn't until months later that I stumbled upon this one by accident. I liked the title straight away, and the contents live up to it's promising name.
It's not a light read by any stretch, and some might find the fairly direct academic style a bit dry. Personally, though, I liked the fact that there was no waffle; every sentence said something new and relevant, or served to stress a point.
The book offered a lot of detail on the tea industry, but it also had a lot to say on the wider impacts of empire and the evolution of modern consumer culture. It all served to flesh out a history I was vaguely aware of, but knew little about, and bring home the way our colonial past still impacts us on a daily basis.
It's not a light read by any stretch, and some might find the fairly direct academic style a bit dry. Personally, though, I liked the fact that there was no waffle; every sentence said something new and relevant, or served to stress a point.
The book offered a lot of detail on the tea industry, but it also had a lot to say on the wider impacts of empire and the evolution of modern consumer culture. It all served to flesh out a history I was vaguely aware of, but knew little about, and bring home the way our colonial past still impacts us on a daily basis.
October 5, 2020
An in depth and interesting read about the history of the tea industry and how it was an integral piece in the history of the British Empire and the rise of globalism and consumerism. The author takes us on a journey from the tea industry's beginnings in China and India through it's heyday in the Victorian and wartime eras to the present day. The decline of the British Empire coincided with a decline in tea-drinking, particularly in Britain, at a time when the United States was becoming a leading world power and coffee and Coca-Cola becoming more popular worldwide. An interesting side note is that the tea we enjoy now is not the same as what was drunk during these times.
May 19, 2018
Tea is my favourite drink, so I anticipate this book quite highly. In this book, tea was shown as being intertwined with the fate of British Empire itself. Tea was the fuel of British Imperialism, just like Coca Cola for Americans. Also represented the way tea became embedded into british culture, as a truly british drink, even though it was first imported from China and then planted around British colonial possessions. Sadly, the end of second world war brought the end of British Empire and with that, the decline of tea, with its dominant position being taken by coffee and cola.
August 4, 2018
Excellent book about the modern history of tea and tea culture. Rappaport shows how the development of a tea industry in Assam in the nineteenth century provided the spark for the spread of tea production across many parts of the British Empire. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Britain dominated the global tea market. Rappaport further traces tea production and consumption through the twentieth century to understand the effects of the World Wars, the Depression, and decolonization on the tea industry.
December 23, 2019
This book is a really interesting look at social history through the imperial and business histories of tea. It used a variety of sources to paint a good picture of how tea shifted the social landscape, and how the perceptions of tea themselves changed.
I would have liked to know a little more about Britain’s discovery of tea from China and attempts to take the plants and manufacturing techniques.
However, I did appreciate Rappoport’s acknowledgement of the limitations of her study, and her invitation to other historians to build on the field.
I would have liked to know a little more about Britain’s discovery of tea from China and attempts to take the plants and manufacturing techniques.
However, I did appreciate Rappoport’s acknowledgement of the limitations of her study, and her invitation to other historians to build on the field.
February 23, 2020
Did not finish reading, I liked the content and learned a lot but it feels too much like an academic thesis, with long sentences that could be split into three more approachable ones. Very dry, despite my interest in the subject. Really wanted to keep going but just couldn't stick with it. I'm not an inexperienced reader by any means, but the style is just a little too academic for a casual read.
June 28, 2023
This was a very refreshing read for me--lots of great stuff on the history of beverages, the history of shopping, the history of British empire. Like an academic review on a lot of stuff I did not know. Each chapter feel like it was written by a different grad student with a real passion for their assigned topic. And overall the book was very solid, easy to read, informative, and enjoyable. Recommended.
November 24, 2019
Interesting look into the economic history of the British Empire through the lens of one of its most popular consumer goods. Rappaport charts a course of Imperial economic trends from the development of a protectionist system in the 18th century to the 1960s and the neoliberal world beyond.
Join the tea set!
Join the tea set!
February 14, 2020
Very densely written and academic in tone. Definitely reads like a textbook. Written from a commodities and market standpoint, this is an incredibly well researched and thorough book. Recommended for those interested in understanding "empire", imperialism, globalization, and the creation of capitalist consumer culture.
August 7, 2021
Too long, but some really interesting parts to this book. Relies on Mintz and tries to do a similar approach with tea. Looks at history of British Empire and tea, with some really interesting sections on advertising and consumerism along the way.
June 28, 2023
An interesting read about the development of English imperialism and capitalism through the lense of tea. That being said some of the chapters can be v academic and dense which can make it a bit of a slog. But I would say once you hit world war I the chapters definitely start to breeze (relatively)
June 2, 2019
State Planners from around the World should pay attention. The Modern World is shaped by a certain Mr. Tea with whom Rappaport had the pleasure of interviewing.
February 1, 2024
i'm also only putting 5 star reviews bc idgaf and hopefully it in some way helps the authors.
why did i read so much of this book? i think i have mental problems
why did i read so much of this book? i think i have mental problems
August 3, 2022
While I'm interested in the history of tea, I'm not this interested in the history of tea. Dense, plodding, detailed, and poorly written, this might be a good reference book. After many tries, even as a "help me go to sleep book," I'm giving up on this. I have no doubt that there is lots of great information about tea in this book, it's just not working for me.
October 2, 2022
It's quite detailed, which I think makes it dry in places. A knack for remembering names and places will help you here.
TL;DR: Complex flavour with a dryness throughout. Otherwise a well-rounded finish.
TL;DR: Complex flavour with a dryness throughout. Otherwise a well-rounded finish.
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July 6, 2018641.3372 R2212 2017
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