In her book, Liquid Jade, Beatrice Hohenegger covers 5,000 years of the politics and culture of tea – from it’s early medicinal and spiritual uses in the East, to the trade wars with the West and it’s eventual introduction to English society, where it was used to sober-up an increasingly drunken Great Britain.
Now considered the world’s most-consumed beverage, Beatrice discusses why tea has remained so popular throughout the centuries; the current political environment of the tea trade; and even answers the age-old question about what to pour first: milk or tea?
Beatrice Hohenegger is an author and guest curator of a traveling museum exhibition on the history and culture of tea, which is slated to open in 2009 at the Fowler Museum of Cultural History at UCLA. She is fluent in English, French, Italian, and German, and holds a M.A. from the department of history and philosophy at La Sapienza University of Rome. She lives with her family in Los Angeles.
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