lamdha books -
Catalogue of books on tea

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83306 Blofeld, John The Chinese Art of Tea George Allen & Unwin, London, 1985. First edition. Hardcover, octavo, with black boards and gilt spine titling; 169pp., monochrome plates. Minor wear; faint spotting to upper text block edges and mildly scuffed black dustwrapper. Very good to near fine. The first book to introduce to Western readers the Chinese art of tea, which - unlike its Japanese counterpart - is informal and wholly unrestricted by fixed rules. Besides the long history of tea, told with a wealth of legends, anecdotes and poems, we learn about mountain springs, tea houses and gardens, tea-loving emperors, Taoists, monks, potters, ladies, poets, scholars and many other colourful characters. All the material is taken from Chinese sources or from the author's own experiences roaming the length and breadth of China. Click here to order $40

207560 Stella, Alain, Nadine Beautheac, Gilles Brochard & Catherine Donzel (Deke Dusinberre, trans.; preface by Anthony Burgess) The Book of Tea Flammarion S.A., Paris France, nd. (2005). Quarto; hardcover, with upper board titles and decorative endpapers; 256pp., with many full-colour illustrations. Minor wear. Dustwrapper professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Near fine. Each day, over one and a half billion cups of tea are consumed on the planet, and more tea is drunk worldwide than any other beverage except water. This exquisitely illustrated volume leads readers on an investigation of the many faces of tea: a mythic plant, a ritual, the cause of wars (remember the Boston tea party), and ultimately the world's favourite beverage. The Book of Tea provides a comprehensive history and background of the beloved ritual of tea, providing photographed accounts of tea farming, tea barons, teatime, and the various tastes and nuances of teas from English tearooms to the mountains of Tibet. Novelist Anthony Burgess and a host of historians and writers paint fascinating portraits of the kings of the tea trade: Thomas Twining, whose London tea room was the first to serve tea by the cup, Robert Fortune, who slipped into China to steal tea plants and learn the secrets of tea production, and adventurer Sir Thomas Lipton, who conquered America with his quality teas. Click here to order $37

207530 Tanaka, Sen'o & Sendo (Preface by Edwin O. Reischauer; Foreword by Yasushi Inoue) The Tea Ceremony Kodansha International Inc., Tokyo Japan, 1998. Revised: quarto; hardcover, with decorative endpapers; 223pp., with a monochrome portrait frontispiece and many full-colour and monochrome diagrams and illustrations. Minor wear. Dustwrapper now backed by archival-quality white paper and professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Near fine. Click here to order $45