Coffee Table Book of: Tea (Paperback)

Description

Coffee Table Book of: Tea is a large-format coffee table book about tea, printed edge to edge in colour, one picture to a page and the widest carried across two. Some show the gardens on their green hills; many are close studies of the leaf, and of the bowls, pots and cups tea is brewed and drunk in.

Among them, the plant: a furled bud and two young leaves beaded with dew, and a white flower around a crown of golden stamens.

Then the kinds of tea: white tea buds in fine silvery down, green tea rolled into tiny grey-green pellets, beads of oolong beside leaves unfurled to their reddish edges, black tea flecked with golden tips, and a pressed round cake of pu-erh.

Then matcha: bright green powder in a shallow black dish and a bamboo whisk standing upright, its fine tines curling inward. Then tea bowls: a dark conical bowl streaked with rust-brown and silver, a pale grey bowl whose cracks are joined with seams of gold, and a grey-green cup under a fine web of crackle.

Then the way of tea: an iron kettle over charcoal in a sunken hearth among straw mats, a rough stone basin fed by a bamboo pipe, and a thatched tea house among red maples. Then teapots: a small round teapot of unglazed red-brown clay among tiny cups, and a black iron teapot covered in small raised bumps.

Then tea around the world: a tall samovar of polished brass, mint tea on a brass tray in a whitewashed courtyard, and milk tea over dark tapioca pearls. Then chai: whole spices heaped on a dark board, a pan of milky spiced tea over a flame, and small cups of unglazed red clay.

Then afternoon tea: a table laid on a lawn, a tiered stand of sandwiches, scones and small cakes, split scones with clotted cream and red jam, and a china cup painted with pink roses. Then iced tea, deep amber over ice with lemon and mint.

Toward the end, the herbal infusions: chamomile in flower in a meadow, a glass cup of pale golden chamomile, ruby-red hibiscus in a glass teapot, and a vivid blue flower infusion over ice.

Short notes run through the book. They are about tea and its wares rather than about the pictures: why tea for matcha is grown in shade before picking, why a glaze crackles as it cools, which goes first on a cream tea in Devon and in Cornwall, and the foil-lined chests tea crossed the sea in.

Printed in full colour on heavy 150gsm coated paper at 216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 inches), as a paperback.