In the 1850s, stealing the secret of China tea was like stealing the secret formula for Coca-Cola
Sarah Rose is a writer living in New York. She was educated at Harvard and the University of Chicago.
The best parts of the book are not the dangers that Fortune
encountered, but Rose's assured, confident descriptions of the
manufacture of tea. Like Fortune, the reader goes on a journey of
discovery
*Mail on Sunday*
Had your cup of tea this morning? If not, the next time you take a
gulp of PG Tips or a sip of single estate orange pekoe you might
want to send up a prayer of thanks for the dogged Scotsman who made
it all possible, Robert Fortune ... Rose's account is full of
colour
*The Times*
[Fortune's] story is well worth the telling, and Rose does so with
skill and restraint
*Literary Review*
Reshapes into gripping prose Fortune's own memoirs and letters ...
An enthusiastic tale of how the humble leaf became a global
addiction
*Financial Times*
Reveals our cuppa wouldn't exist if it wasn't for an amazing
Victorian, armed only with a rusty pistol and a pigtail, who stole
the secret of tea from under the nose of China's ruthless
warlords
*Daily Mail*
A compelling sketch of the world of globalisation before instant
information, and transforms a modest Scottish botanist into a
swashbuckling pirate capitalist, who incidentally changed the way
we all have breakfast ... A genuinely curious and evocative
yarn
*Scotland on Sunday*
Sarah Rose tells a stirring tale of individual derring-do and the
fate of the nations.
*Waterstone's Books Quarterly*
It's an amusing tale... I was fascinated
*Sunday Express*
This will ensure you value your cuppa as never before
*Country Life*
This fascinating book by Sarah Rose tells the story of Robert
Fortune, an early 19th-century botanist who, disguised as a
Mandarin, was employed by the East India Company to discover the
secrets of tea-growing in China
*The Observer*
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