{"product_id":"the-true-history-of-tea","title":"The True History of Tea","description":"A lively and beautifully illustrated history of one of the worlds favorite beverages and its uses through the ages. World-renowned sinologist Victor H. Mair teams up with journalist Erling Hoh to tell the story of this remarkable beverage and its uses  from ancient times to the present  from East to West.  For the first time in a popular history of tea  the Chinese  Japanese  Tibetan  and Mongolian annals have been thoroughly consulted and carefully sifted. The resulting narrative takes the reader from the jungles of Southeast Asia to the splendor of the Tang and Song Dynasties  from the tea ceremony politics of medieval Japan to the fabled tea and horse trade of Central Asia and the arrival of the first European vessels in Far Eastern waters.  Through the centuries  tea has inspired artists  enhanced religious experience  played a pivotal role in the emergence of world trade  and triggered cataclysmic events that altered the course of humankind. How did green tea become the national beverage of Morocco? And who was the beautiful Emma Hart  immortalized by George Romney in his painting The Tea-maker of Edgware Road? No other drink has touched the daily lives of so many people in so many different ways.  The True History of Tea brings these disparate aspects together in an entertaining tale that combines solid scholarship with an eye for the quirky  offbeat paths that tea has strayed upon during its long voyage. It celebrates the common heritage of a beverage we have all come to love  and plays a crucial part in the work of dismantling that obsolete dictum: East is East  and West is West  and never the twain shall meet. 50 illustrations","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44918994272309,"sku":"ByrdShop_0500251460","price":49.55,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/ByrdShop_0500251460.jpg?v=1768476151","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-true-history-of-tea","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}