THE TRUE HISTORY OF TEA published by Thames & Hudson is a lively and beautifully illustrated history by world-renowned scholar of Chinese history Victor H. Mair who teams up with journalist Erling Hoh to tell the story of this remarkable beverage and its uses, from ancient times to the present.

The book draws on ancient Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, Mongolian, Persian, and Arabic sources to take readers from the jungles of Southeast Asia and the splendor of Tang and Song dynasties to the tea ceremony aesthetics of medieval Japan, the fabled tea and horse trade of Central Asia, and the advent of Britain’s love affair with tea, all the way to the tea party that helped spark the American Revolution.

Through the centuries, tea has inspired artists, enhanced religious experience, played a pivotal role in world trade, and triggered cataclysmic events that altered the course of humanity. No other drink has touched the daily lives of so many people in so many ways. Now published in paperback, THE TRUE HISTORY OF TEA combines scholarship with an eye for the quirky, and highlights the unexpected paths that tea has taken over time.