Infused: Adventures In Tea

by Henrietta Lovell

Henrietta Lovell is best known as 'The Rare Tea Lady'. She is on a mission to revolutionise the way we drink tea by replacing industrially produced teabags with the highest quality tea leaves. Her quest has seen her travel to the Shire Highlands of Malawi, across the foothills of the Himalayas, and to hidden gardens in the Wuyi-Shan to source the world's most extraordinary teas.

Infused invites us to discover these remarkable places, introducing us to the individual growers and household name chefs Lovell has met along the way - and reveals the true pleasures of tea. The result is a delicious infusion of travel writing, memoir, recipes, and glorious photography, all written with Lovell's unique charm and wit.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, Tea, Food, Memoir, Audiobook, Food and Drink

Audiobook

First published June 4, 2019

Reviews

[Olive Fellows (abookolive) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was unexpectedly spectacular. I've never seen tea spoken about in this way before.

This was one of my favorite nonfiction books of 2024!
Click here to hear more of my thoughts over on my Booktube channel, abookolive!

[Jennifer Lynch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never would I have a thought a tea memoir would be so moving, enlightening, soul warming and make me want to toss out my coffee pot for a teapot! (Not that I've been able to just yet.:)) If you've been reading a lot heavy books, like I had been when I picked this up, I highly recommend as a warm palate cleanser; something to recharge your spirit and reset your mood, much like drinking a proper cup of tea!

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine memoir, and a passionate argument for using loose tea instead of tea bags. She writes well, and you should read what Simon Winchester had to say:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/bo...
Sample: "I had initially thought the book might be little more than an extended advertisement for Lovell’s business. But then I found myself quite caught up in her infectious enthusiasm as she ventured — twice defeating her own cancer, which tried in vain to slow her down — out into the world in search of the green tea hills in China, Japan and India, of course, but also in Malawi, Nepal and South Africa. On occasion, her style can be a little exhausting, with her bursts of Pete Wells-ian polychrome, but one can excuse her. This is a love letter, after all."

She's quite a storyteller. I think my favorite was a tea tasting for the "A" list at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood -- which pretty quickly became a Jasmine Martini tasting. Also included was her Hangover Rescue recipe....

She gives careful instructions for making a perfect pot of tea, which I'll bet are also at her website:
https://www.rareteacompany.com/pages/...
I'll have to try it. I do keep loose tea on hand, but also use Trader Joe tea bags for everyday, which are pretty good and very easy. I know, heresy -- but try their Irish Breakfast! And I do need to order more loose tea.....

[Camelia Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my guilty pleasures is to read snobbish connoisseurs talking about their highly sensual subjects–perfume, food, coffee, wine and yes, tea.

Henrietta Lovell is the founder of the Rare Tea Company (https://rareteacompany.com/), whose mission is to bring handmade tea from small farmers all over the world to consumers in the West, and to change, no, to revert, the westerners' tea habit from tea bags to loose leaf tea. She has successfully introduced tea-pairing to many high end restaurants.

Infused is a mix of Lovell’s memoir as a business woman and a tea connoisseur. It includes a lot of descriptions of different types of tea and tea infusing recipes. A must-read if you want to expand your tea experience. I give her extra credit for using gaiwan tea sets.

As recently as in 1968, only 3% of UK households drank tea from tea bags. “Interestingly, the best CTC (machine-made tea) grades are often bought by the poorest nations: in North Africa, Afghanistan and the Urals. In places where tea is drunk and life is hard, they drink the highest quality tea they can afford. Ironically, the British can afford the best but for the last seventy-odd years have mostly drunk the worst.” I forgive her for being snobbish, for I too think tea bags are a ridiculous idea. You can’t drink coffee beans directly, so instant coffee makes a bit of sense. But for tea, all you need to do is to infuse the leaves with water.

What makes me like her is this: “I often have to pick dishes from a menu written in Chinese entirely at random. I just point at a line of characters and hope for the best. There is no expectation at all. Some trepidation, but mostly it is a huge delight.”

And this: “My advancing age and grey hairs, along with perseverance, have served me better in recent years. But as a young woman at the outset, the way into the Japanese tea world was often marked by humiliating rebuffs.” It is always hard to make a breakthrough in a men-dominated field.

But not this: (drinking tea with a monk in Kyoto)“I asked him what advice he had for people like me, city people, who were always rushing. He didn’t reply. He looked at me calmly and waited for the next question. When I pressed him, he became annoyed and said it was a strange thing to ask him because he wasn’t one of those people.” So much orientalism!

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Because I know very little about tea, I decided to read Henrietta Lovell’s Infused. As the subtitle, Adventures in Tea, suggests, these are mostly memoirs about how Lovell built a business convincing expensive restaurants to teach their customers to pay more for tea from distant places. However, readers of Infused will also learn some basic tea vocabulary, they’ll receive an overview of different teas, and there’s even a bit of history about tea production. There are worse deals. Further, Lovell encourages readers to cultivate their understanding of tea in many forms, so if you’d like an invitation to be more enthusiastic about loose leaf teas, tea martinis, iced tea, and various blends, Infused is the book for you. It wasn't my cup of tea, sadly. Given the moderately raucous tone of much of the writing, which includes curses and hangover teas, I’m surprised that Lovell’s story became a book rather than a reality TV show, especially since Lovell regularly hobnobs with minor celebrities and nice locals from distant lands. I found the writing initially charming but over time words like 'exquisite,' 'wash,' 'infuse/ infusion,' and even 'leaf' became bitter from overuse. And I’m not sure it convinced me to drink a fancier tea. When Gandalf says “just tea, thank you” or when Agnis Hamm from The Shipping News says “tea’s a good drink. Keeps you going,” I think of them as basically saying a black tea blend thrown in a pot would be nice.

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me almost a year to finish this book. I enjoyed it in small sips rather than gulping it. There were sections that were magical. I loved hearing about tea being plucked and processed. Reading about the authors travels was interesting and beautifully described.

I stalled in my reading a few times. There was more alcohol talk than I was expecting in a book about tea. Also a cringeworthy moment where the author encourages everyone to complain in restaurants if their tea isn't the best. Her reasoning being it will encourage restaurants to carry higher quality tea. My take on this was maybe don't complain to waiters about things they obviously have no control over. Its making you seem like a jerk.

[Amita MV · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly I like drinking tea, but I found this book dull and repetitive... though she describes places and people she meets, really the book is all about her. She is an extremely privileged person, and she loves certain types of tea - she describes the experience of drinking these teas as almost erotic. While that had novelty value for the first few chapters, it wasn’t enough to hold my attention through the whole book.

[Gina House · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly gorgeous book! I love memoirs and I love tea, so I was in heaven while reading this book. Usually, I only use book darts for noting beautiful passages in novels that I want to remember (especially with Elizabeth Goudge), but I found myself using book darts in every chapter. I found Henrietta's writing style to be engaging and enthusiastic, as well as filled with interesting facts about the history of tea, tea leaf creation, and how to brew an excellent cup of tea.

Her sentences are authentic, but also lovingly created with intricate descriptions and paired with a lightness that gives it an almost magical tea adventure quality. Even though I learned so much from 'Infused', it never felt like I was reading from a textbook which, of course, it's not.

If you enjoy tea or herbal infusions and you want to experience a splendid adventure from your favorite cozy chair, read this book! I can't wait to read it again while drinking an exquisite cup of Henrietta's tea from The Rare Tea Company. You won't be disappointed.

[Alenka of Bohemia · Rating 5 out of 5]

You do not need to be a lover of tea to fully enjoy this beautifully written book, which indeed feels as comforting and lovely as a properly brewed cuppa on a cold and rainy day. Henrietta Lovell brings a perfect balance between her personal life, adventures in the tea industry and some solid science behind the making of the beverage (including some truly handy tips).

She also makes you think about issues which threaten not only tea but pretty much everything we know and love, about the absolute evil of the apitalist world market, about mass factory production which lessens and cheapens the meaning and importance of actual tea. Most importantly she makes a case for help and protection of traditions, dignity of the workers and their way of life.

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though when I first started to read this book, it was rough. Not the right time to read it as when I returned after a hiatus breezed through - you can definitely feel the passion Mrs Lovell has for tea at the lavish and indulgent way she describes even straining the tea. However as a memoir there is a lack of structure at the overall story, more a collection of smaller snippets of her travels. Also the inclusion of recipes in the main body also break up the flow of reading it.

All in all I came away thinking I have been drinking tea wrong all my life......

[Tara · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author lost me when she described tea as “much of a muchness” and compared drinking too much tea as similar to “Kerouac’s Dexedrine-fueled On the Road adventures.” So I stopped reading. But I did like the last chapter about how to truly enjoy tea. Loose leaf (noting the changing flavors of the multiple infusions), a cup with a delicate rim, water at the right temperature and time to spend with it. I’m down with that.

[Iwan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This might be the most annoying author I've ever had to read a book by. Top 5 worst person to be stuck on a desert island with.

2025 can only improve..

[Bookslut · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, that was just the most charming, cozy book I might've ever read. It was very engaging and had a lot of things I like woven into one package; a little history, little travelogue, memoir, some narrative nonfiction about the tea industry. I also found this author to be incredibly inspiring, and it made me wonder if I need to draw the box around myself quite so small. She really seems to come through in the writing and is so likeable. I read her as a generous spirit who is also savvy, intelligent, and tough. The voice of the book is warm and inviting. I realized I was stretching it out because I didn't want it to be over. It felt like a panacea for my reading self. A total delight.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

A travel-diary-like account of one woman’s lifelong love affair with tea. Henrietta Lovell started a company (Rare Tea Co.) to source the highest-quality teas from around the world and waxes poetic about the people, places, and teas she encounters. She sometimes gets carried away by her own fancy prose, but she is persuasive on the merits of loose-leaf tea over the “dust” I have been drinking in tea bags all my life. I guess I am going to have to become a tea snob now.

[Chelsea · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was unfortunately a disappointment for me... much more of a entrepreneur's memoir of starting their business and not nearly enough about tea, and for a book about tea there is a TON of alcohol references/characters getting drunk and rather a fixation on celebrity restaurants. There was also an odd neo-colonial lens to a lot of the ways she described and interacted with the tea farm workers when visiting African and Asian countries to procure tea that I found off-putting.

[Eustacia Tan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m always on the lookout for tea-related books and when I saw Nicole’s review of Infused by Henrietta Lovell over at Tea for Me Please, I was intrigued. I’ve read quite a few nonfiction books about tea and its history, but this is the first time that I’ve read about a memoir about a life in tea.

As Henrietta says in the preface of Infused, this is her story of tea. The book is “a highly personal, partisan account rather than an objective treatise on tea in general”. Henrietta takes us through her adventures in tea, both in sourcing and selling it, and along the way, generously dispenses advice on how to brew certain types of teas and gives us recipes for tea cocktails.

My favourite part of the book has to be all those descriptions of tea! Henrietta has a wonderful way with words and before I even finished reading my copy of the book, I had already logged on to the Rare Tea Company website and ordered their discovery box to try. This is pretty rare for me, since I hear about lots of amazing sounding teas everyday, and it’s a testament to how fantastic her descriptions are. I’m pretty excited to try her teas and see if they live up to my imagination!

After her description of the teas she drinks and pairs, my second favourite part of the book is its global nature. Henrietta doesn’t just talk about tea in China, Japan, India, and Sri Lanka, she also goes to Malawi, Nepal, and South Africa. And of course, she shares her tea with people in Rome, America, England, and many more places. This is a globe-trotting book, which fits in perfectly with the global nature of tea – you don’t have to be from a tea-producing country to fall in love with tea.

The last section of the book is her guide to making a good cup of tea. If you’re already familiar with the basics of tea, not much of this will be new to you. This is also where I disagree with her slightly – Henrietta doesn’t recommend silver for tea brewing, but in my (admittedly limited) silver kettles can impart a sweetness to the water that enhances the tastes of certain teas.

Overall, I adored this book. It’s a fantastic love letter to tea and will get you wishing for more of the stuff. As an added bonus, I love her philosophy to tea – she champions paying people fair prices for good stuff. The price of tea has become a race to the bottom as it became more and more accessible, but this hurts many farmers by forcing them to sell at rock-bottom prices. If we want to help the entire tea-supply chain, we must be willing to pay a premium for the good stuff to incentivise tea farmers to not only continue their craft, but also to improve the ways they grow and process tea.

This review was first posted at Eustea Reads

[Leigh Mcmillan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 this book was so delightful, her passion for tea shone through and was truly infectious. full of facts and stories about tea, it's history and cultural significance.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy a good pot of tea and I have my own preferences, so this book by a self styled Tea Lady had appeal. It was part travelogue, part instructional (including details in water temperature and weight of the loose leaf tea to obtain the best brew of various kinds of teas) with a rather hearty dollop of name dropping and somewhat twee prose. That aside, the author clearly has found her passion and succeeded in the field.

[Terry · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not sure what I was expecting but this missed all points for me.

[Hayley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great memoir all about tea. Sourcing it, pairing it with food and life stories.

This book is a foodie delight with descriptions of food pairings with various teas. The sourcing of the tea was equally interesting as it read like a travel/nature memoir. I have been inspired to branch out of my comfort zone and try more green teas, a white tea(never tried), pu’er, matcha and oolong. I only tried oolong once and thought it was horrid. I’ve learnt that it could have been a poor quality or the way it was brewed.

“All tea come from the camellia sinensis bush, which if left alone and unplucked, would grow into a sprawling, leggy tree. Where it grows, how you care for it, when and how you harvest, and most importantly how you craft the leaf, determines the type of tea it will become. From the same leaf you could make a white, green, oolong, black or pu’er tea. Pu’er tea is fermented. Black tea is fully oxidised to being out rich, tannic depth. Green tea is only lightly processed to reveal more subtle, vegetal flavours. Oolong lies between the two. But white tea…. White tea is the beginning, the untouched leaf, just dried and so retaining the softest notes of the fresh leaf, clean and grassy.”

I thought I knew a bit about tea as a lover of loose leaf tea myself, mainly variations of black teas. Turns out, I didn’t know as much as I thought.

Here are a few things I have learnt.
*White tea brew at 70 degrees
*Tea leaves can be used multiple times and give different flavour after each use.
*Cold infusions are made in cold water not using any boiled water. Boiled water releases tannins using cold does not therefore impossible to over steep. 8-12 hrs for cold infusion.
*Green tea works well with oily food like salmon and avocado. If the leaf is whole it is smoother. If broken it starts to oxidise which gives a more bitter taste.
*English breakfast tea is a blend of teas. Not one tea!
*Matcha is the tea leaf ground and suspended in water. It is grown in shade for a period of time to cause the plant to photosynthesise and increase production of chlorophyll, theanine, and umami flavours causing the intense green colour.

If you are remotely interested in drinking varieties of tea, this book is an absolute must and a wealth of information. Reading it felt just like drinking a cup of tea. Warm, soothing and comforting.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The strong points of the book for me were learning a LOT more about tea than I thought I would. The book is broken up by type of tea and Lovell gets really in depth about the varieties, their flavors, the farms and plantations she sources them from, and how to brew each type. I appreciate her deep knowledge of tea and she writes well about all of them. She takes us through white, green, oolong, black (including english breakfast, chai, and sri lankan), pu erh, rooibos, and herbal. I got to learn about the origins of afternoon tea, high tea, and milky tea (to offset the tannins of lower grade tea or over steeped tea) which I thought was really interesting.

I liked the travel adventure aspect of this book because I got to live vicariously through her as she traveled around the world to source tea. We went with her to China, India, Malawai, South Africa, Japan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, South America, Mexico, and more.

The parts I didn't especially care for were the long winded passages about pairing tea with food and her work in the restaurant industry as a tea consultant for high end restaurants. I can fully appreciate that a high end restaurant should serve high end tea, but I felt the descriptions of food and her thoughts about how to properly pair tea with the endless dishes was too much. There's only so many descriptions of food I can take. I also thought the recipes for how to brew each type of tea were too long, and I would have preferred them all compiled together at the end instead of at the end of each chapter.

3.5 stars but rounded up because I really appreciate what the author is trying to do to preserve small scale, environmentally and socially responsible tea growing.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love tea? Then you've got to read this memoir and romp around the world by the founder of https://www.rareteacompany.com/

Each chapter is a deep dive into specific tea and the location of that tea or sometimes a thoughtful essay about tea or the life Henrietta Lovell has lived as a self-appointed "Tea Lady."

For example, there's a chapter set in Cederberg Mountains, South Africa that explores rooibos tea that comes from the tiny town of Clanwilliam. The chapter is only five or six pages long but talks about the "lilac mountains, umber fields of dry earth, and blue-grey grasses." The chapter closes with a brief 'recipe' for rooibos - 3g per 150ml boiling water, steeped 2-5 minutes. And then, she also suggests trying rooibos with maple syrup and lemon, or perhaps milk, sugar, or a thin slice of ginger.

Every type of tea and/or infusion you can imagine is included: green, white silver tip, jasmine silver tip, almond blossom, sencha, pu'er, English Breakfast... Sigh.

This book is a tea-drinkers paradise that you can sip a little bit from each night.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this book. I learned so much about my hot beverage of choice. Not just it’s history, but what goes into growing, harvesting, and producing a sublime cup of tea.

Does every cup of tea need to be a sublime experience? No, but once you’ve allowed yourself to experience a quality tea in a way that brings out the best flavor, you will find the slap dash making and drinking of inferior teas to be a major disappointment.

The author makes an analogy towards the end of the book. If a chef makes you a steak from an animal that has been lovingly cared for and humanely slaughtered, if the steak was aged to perfection, and mindfully cooked so that it was served at its optimum for flavor and texture ... would you then find eating a mass produced thoughtlessly cooked piece of meat to be enjoyable, or merely a means of quelling your hunger?

I am not saying that I will never drink an overstepped cup of tea made from a mass produced bag. I just won’t do so with much pleasure. It will be because it is the best option at hand at the time that I do it.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love tea. My friends and family have teased me for decades about my tea snobbery. (Nicely.) The author, who is basically the female Indiana Jones of tea with a healthy dose of old Hollywood glamour, makes my love of tea look like a teenage first crush. The book was sometimes a bit all over the place, just like her travels, but a fascinating look into the locales where tea is grown, and interspersed with recipes and tips for brewing the perfect cup of many different varieties of tea. Even tea-infused cocktails, if you’re into that sort of thing. I’m more excited to see if her method will help me finally achieve that perfect at-home chai latte that’s been eluding me for decades. And I’m absolutely feeling vindicated about brewing my leaves at a lower temperature than they always say to on black teas.

[Colleen C · Rating 4 out of 5]

A unique memoir from a self-proclaimed British Tea Lady who effectively convinced me through this book that I should be prioritizing loose leaf tea over tea bags. Each chapter tells a sensory heavy story of a tea varietal and the author’s personal connection to that tea. Some chapters include stories about sourcing from remote tea farms, while others focus on personal topics like how tea helped her through two stints with cancer or her relationships with her customers (e.g., Claridge's in London, NOMA in Copenhagen, and various Momofuku locations). There were a few times where there seemed to be too much name dropping for my taste, but I think her successful tea business lends itself to it. I enjoyed this memoir and would highly recommend it.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an unexpectedly delightful read! Henrietta is a “tea lady” who makes her love of tea feel infectious. Tea is not just tea, but an entire global experience made up of all of the people around the world who grow it, pick it, source it, prepare it, blend it, infuse it, and serve it, and I feel like I got a delightful peak into each component. As a bit of a traveler myself, I really enjoyed seeing the world through her eyes, as she pursued her passion. And I am feeling convicted to ditch the old tea bags ;)
But seriously, I enjoyed this. I thought her writing style was lovely, too.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written in a beautiful language. Henrietta is able to write a very personal story without coming off as self-centered. She takes the reader on a journey all over the world, painting stunning pictures of the landscapes where tea and other fascinating foods are found. Some parts may be less interesting depending on your personal interest in the culinary world, but there's something for most people in this book.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this part memoir-part tea history- part travelogue. I think one needs to enjoy tea and know a bit about it to like this book, though. I don’t plan to make tea-drink recipes she offers and her instructions for brewing a pot are more detailed than I am inclined to do but the details helped to present the author as an expert. Her descriptions of her travel through Asia and Africa are perfect to my own memories of the trips I’ve been on and miss during pandemic purgatory.

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part memoir, part history of tea, part recipe book for good tea. This whole book was a love letter to tea. I think it was greater than the sum of its parts, an of which on their own would not have held my interest. Highly recommend the audiobook as the author reads it herself and has a voice as silky smooth as a delicate cup of Earl Grey. I've already adjusted some of my tea habits and seen good results!

[Skyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really lovely mix of tea facts and memoir.

Definitely comes across as "British connoisseur tea snob lavishly gushes about tea in cringeworthy ways" but honestly that's what I wanted. For every "with good tea you can change the world" 🙄 there was a interesting or down-to-earth fact about growing, harvesting, or infusing tea.

Learned a lot about tea and ended up buying $50 worth of tea from the author's company, Rare Tea Company.

Listened to audiobook on Spotify.