Learning Centre
Listed below are resources we have found useful. We recommend them to enhance your experience.
Tea
Taking Tea: The Essential Guide to Brewing, Serving and Entertaining With Teas From Around the World, Andrea Israel. Everything you could want to know about every aspect of tea.
The Tea Lover's Companion: The Ultimate Connoisseur's Guide to Buying, Brewing Tea, James Norwood Pratt. With a long title that contains the word "Connoisseur" and an author who requires three names you just know this book is authoritative. Actually, this book is as good as it gets. It more than lives up to the pretentious title. It will guide you every step of the way on a joyous journey of discovering a lifetime of tea. If you care about tea, get this book.
Tea Culture
A History of the World in 6 Glasses, Tom Standage. Standage starts with a bold hypothesis - that each epoch of the world from the Stone Age to the present has had its signature beverage - and takes readers on an extraordinary trip through history. Standage, editor of the Economist, has the ability to connect the smallest detail to the big picture and a knack for summarizing vast concepts in a few sentences. A great read!
Charlemagne's Tablecloth, Nichola Fletcher. Did you know that Charlemagne had an asbestos table cloth? That is just one of the bits of esoteria you will discover in Fletcher's record of the symbolism surrounding food. From cannibalism to the Eucharist, this is a cook's tour of gustatory ritual.
The Book of Afternoon Tea, Lesley Mackley. A history, guide and recipe trove of this most civilized of Britain's contributions to the world. Over 100 recipes to help you carry on the tradition of elegant afternoon respites.
The Empire of Tea, Alan and Iris MacFarlane. Iris MacFarlane, a tea planter's wife, lived on a tea estate in Assam, India, for 20 years. Her son, Alan, was born on the estate and is now a professor of social anthropology. Together they weave a compelling tale of the history and drama that bring this fragile beverage to your table.
Aromatherapy
The Complete Book of Essential Oils and Aromatherapy, Valerie Ann Worwood. The Bible of essential oils and their beneficial uses. Nothing else need be said. This is THE book. Consider the opening, "You do not need to work with essential oils on a daily basis over many years to come to the realization that nature has provided...a powerful and diverse materia medica. Some of the healing that has taken place under their influence would be considered miraculous if we didn't have the scientific basis for explaining how the oils work. But giving a scientific explanation for a natural phenomenon does not make it any less miraculous."
Essential Oils Desk Reference, Essential Science Pub. Readable, clear, concise, and completely indispensable.
