Tea, which soothes…and strengthens the reason…

This formula, used by Antoine Furetière in his Universal Dictionary of 1690, reminds us that tea was first assimilated in Europe to a salutary remedy with a thousand virtues. And to specify that the golden beverage “gives new strength to drink”. It represents an eminently literary drink having stimulated the imagination of many authors. Thus we can read in the Journal des Goncourt that “it would be interesting if an intelligent writer wrote several imaginative books: one on the coffee diet, another on the tea diet, the other on the diet of wine and alcohol, and that he studied on himself the influences of these stimulants on his literature and that he made it known to the public... Me, if I ever write my obscene study, I will write it at tea" .
But tea, which is “rooted” in an ancestral tradition, has many other facets: Chinese legends liken it to the chance discovery of a fabulous emperor with the head of an ox; the British East India Company financed it for a time through the opium trade; the Japanese made it the subject of a refined ceremony; the North American separatists, a casus belli... And if you don't know chanoyu or bandège or cuddle - without circumflex accent - consult the index of this work.
The history of tea passes through words… Without forgetting the numerous illustrations.

Number of pages: 141 pages
Publisher: Honoré Champion
Publication date: 15/10/2015
Weight: 0.116 Kg
Dimensions: 10.6cm × 17.5cm × 0.9cm