Lewis Perin > wrote in message >...
> (Gyorgy Sajo) writes:
>
> > (bruce) wrote in message . com>...
> > >
> > > Wow, great info! Thanks for correcting me. I always thought red tea
> > > was a much more recent invention and I never knew it was only invented
> > > for foriegners. What dates does that book attribute to the other
> > > styles of tea?
> >
> > There are no other dates. Curiously, despite of a very thorougly
> > researched book, with a welth of information about the history of
> > green tea, a deep knowledge of Chinese history and society, tea trade
> > and cultivation from the earliest days until today, the author does
> > not seem to have any knowledge of other teas than black and green! In
> > the chapter where he discusses the processing of tea in more recent
> > time, he mentions only black and green tea manufacture. In the whole
> > book there is virtually no mention of oolong, white, yellow teas or
> > puerh. Very puzzling.
>
> I have the same kind of ambivalence about the Evans book. He's
> obviously a smart guy with a good sense of how the world works. He's
> done a lot of research, and I, for one, learned quite a bit by reading
> his book. But tea in China is a vast topic, and it's a small book. I
> suspect he wrote about what he was interested in, and non-green,
> non-red was outside his experience.
I agree. After reading the book, I have got an impression af a smart
all-round guy, who can write about just anything under the sun,
provided that he is allowed to do a substantial research on the topic.
The book mentions that he has also written on ancient and medieval
European topics, which are quite far off from the history of tea in
China. On the other hand I do not think that he is a tea aficionado,
maybe not even a tea drinker, which could explain his ignorance or
ignoring of discussing topics, that are very essential parts of the
tea drinking tradition in China, and which are also well-known facts
to many Western tea aficionados.
> Also (I could be wrong here, for I don't have the book handy - it's
> lent to a friend) I suspect he doesn't speak or read Chinese, and I
> don't remember reading anything in the book indicating he'd actually
> *been* to China.
>
True for both. However, he admittedly used a number of Chinese
sources, as in the Acknowledgments he thanks his Chinese "principal
translator", who has "spent hours pouring over Chinese texts", and
"used an extensive invisible network of family ties and relations to
procure texts he thougth would interest" him.