There are as many different ways of growing and preparing tea as there are ways of serving and enjoying it, and this book explores them all, from the intricacies of the Japanese tea ceremony to the advent of the teabag and instant tea. The tea-party was as much a staple of social life in ancient China as in the ninteenth-century drawing-rooms of Europe, and bricks of tea transported perilously by yak caravan were as central to life in the Tibetan monastery as the gently simmering samovar was to the life of imperial Russia. This illustrated book tells the story of tea around the world, and celebrates its contribution, past and present, to civilized existence.