"For All the Tea in China" - a book review

For All the Tea in China

How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History

by Sarah Rose

In 1839, the local Chinese government in Guangzhou (Canton) seized opium and destroyed it.  The consequences - Opium Wars, foreign treaty ports, the eventual fall of a dynasty - are in some ways still being played out, for example how China handles international criticism.

Though the life and times of one astonishingly resourceful Scottish botanist, Sarah Rose has written a delightful short, "popular history" which chronicles just one of those many consequences: the international trade in tea.   By disguising himself as a Chinese official - or Mandarin -  and traveling to areas well off limits to foreigners, Robert Fortune, a quite man with little formal education or opportunity in Britain, came to learn more about Chinese methods of tea cultivation and preparation - not to mention China's flora and geography -  then had been known in the West before.  

In the process of relaying his story, Rose teaches a bit about travel in rural China, English gardens, the notions of face and guanxi, British trade as well as crucial Chinese history just after the First Opium War (1841) leading up to the Taiping Rebellion  But what keeps us turning page is a an adventure story based on her subject's own writings and the extensive records kept by the East India Company, which we can recognize  today as multi-national corporation.  Rose keeps us in suspense through wise jumps in time, though once or twice this can also confuse, and she adds conversation to the bones of the story, though surely no one can be certain exactly what was said on the top of mist-filled mountain.  Of course, that is not the point.   Nonetheless, a rough map of Fortune's travels, trade routes and a  diagram of tea plant would make things easier.

Why did the British develop a taste for black tea when Chinese drink green tea?  The answer is as telling about then as it is about today.  

[The reviewer lived in Fuzhou in 2003 where WuYi Mountain is revered.    He was also told if he wanted to learn about modern China, the place to start was Taiping Rebellion that began during Fortune's stay: "The Chinese seldom stand up, but when they do there is real trouble."]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_Zexu  (try to halt opium)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Nanjing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzhou

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai_Ping_Rebellion

Climate Action Exihibit - at Santa Cruz Public Library

For the month of November,  the Santa Cruz Public Library will have a collection of books and information about Climate Change and how you can be involved, such as with the City's Climate Action Teams.

I just finished "Climate Solutions - What Works, What Doesn't and Why" by Peter Barnes, one of the books to be on display.  It's a small book, quite clearly written and can be read in couple of hours.  It is really about options in Carbon Caps and Trade, since Barnes dismisses a carbon tax, carbon rationing and zeroes in reasons for Carbon cap, which he does explain very clearly.

In summary, he explains the reason for a Carbon cap with all of the following, and why:

• cap it and issue permits, the number which decreases annually
• permits must be auctioned (not given away) to 'legacy' polluters
  
• cap it "upstream", i.e. when it is first sold, not at each smokestack
• no offsets or safety valves, or leaks, when we 'cheat' and then try to atone by purchasing something good from an unregulated market
• cap all the carbon, including carbon emissions represented by imports
• distribute revenue back to households to mitigate cost of increased price of carbon 

He goes a step further to talk about the idea of 'commons.'   Carbon permits can be extended worldwide, with revenue flowing back to the projects for the 'commons' or distributed to countries.  A basis must be included for the total of amount of carbon a country has put into the atmosphere, about 28% of it from the US.

Given the author's ability to communicate the issues concisely, I recommend reading the book whether you agree or not with his solutions.

Books, Climate Change, Municipalies, ICLEI and "The Leftmost City"

What can you read about Climate Change?

An excellent book to start with is The Atlas of Climate Change which is filled with a clear selection of data, charts, maps to illustration the changes occuring now (Greeland's melting ice), science (CO2 rise to historic heights), risks (countries at risk for flooding, storms, etc), Kyoto, how we will have to adapt.  Slightly below Scientic American level and accessible from high school and up.  Very clear survey, very relevant.

If you like more about science of the atmosphere and climate change, consider Climate Change - The point of no return.      

Here is a recent article by same author, Mojib Latif, a well-known climate scientist, discussing problems communicating science.

The WorldWatch Institute produces an annual State of the World,   
a readable, but a bit more advanced collection of articles on numerous topics related to climate change, technology, agricultural practices, specific countries. An article about shifting to growing perennial plants, rather annuals to sequester carbon is intriguing.

If you like case studies and examples of municipal government and communities taking action in the US, Local Action from ICLEI  is very accessible choice, especially for Portland and Fort Collins, Colorado.

If you are not a scientist, but enjoy good writing The Best American Science and Nature Writing has very good collection of the year's best magazine articles, cover the environment [although I liked the one about cooking eggs at a fixed temperature, to bring out flavor of each protein, rather than old fashioned boiling!]

Even a good daily newspaper will have frequent reports of science reports.

And, since this is Santa Cruz, I want to include "The Leftmost City" about local politics.  However, I am deeply concerned that climate warming is too important, albeit too dangerous, to be handled in normal political fashion.

Best Santa Cruz Place for Cookbooks? Basement of UCSC Library!

Best Santa Cruz Place for Cookbooks?   Basement of UCSC Library!

I couldn't help but notice titles like:

• A16 : food + wine (SF restaurant)  
• Matzoh ball gumbo (Jewish southern life & cooking) 
• Beyond the Great Wall : recipes and travels in the other China

next to oblivious students slumped over chemistry lab reports, with books on  infrared spectroscopy, non-communicative algebras, studies of cadmium lying about, probably more typically of what one would expect to find deep in a Science Library at UCSC.

Cookbooks in a science library?  TX in the Library of Congress system, which fits into Science & Engineering Library along with nearby nutrition, health and medical books that environmentalists and sustainable advocates might want to read.  (And this library also has a delightful reading room on the first floor, surrounded by redwoods. )



According to UCSC librarian Elisabeth Remak-Honnef the 300+ books were purchased with  Bruce Aidells Cookery Endowment 

Aidells is a UCSC grad and scientist who decided he was a better cook.  He has now written  11 cookbooks.

Even if you are part of the raw foods movement, you still need to know nutrition and how to do things in the kitchen, which is the purpose of the endowment.    Especially since so many commercially processed foods are in our diet and we don't hand receipes and skills as frequently as previous generations, Aidells wants us to remember how to cook real food and how we did through the ages and different cultures.

Librarian Remak-Honnef encourages the public to view the cookbook exhibit now on display on the ground floor of McHenry (free).  The Aidells cook books will also be moved to the McHenry humanities library when space is available.  (A beautiful new wing is being added to McHenry, home also to UCSC's wonderful. )

If you want to borrow books or use other UCSC services, there is a "Friends of the Library" program for the local community and a real bargin.


If you can't wait, here's more from this wonderful collection:

• We've always had Paris --- and Provence : a scrapbook of our life in France  
• Arabesque : a taste of Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon 
• Luscious berry desserts  
• The art of Mexican cooking : traditional Mexican cooking for aficionados  
• Bottomfeeder : a seafood lover's journey to the end of the food chain 
• Fat : an appreciation of a misunderstood ingredient, with recipes 
• Grub : ideas for an urban organic kitchen 
• New Orleans cuisine : fourteen signature dishes and their histories /   
• Swindled : from poison sweets to counterfeit coffee : the dark history of the food cheats  
• The hamburger : a history   
• Chocolate : history, culture, and heritage
•  
• The food snob's dictionary : an essential lexicon of gastronomical knowledge : food snob n: reference term for the sort of food obsessive for whom the actual joy of eating and cooking is but a side dish to the accumulation of arcane knowledge about these subjects

Unfortunately, I'll be reading one about making beans exciting.