This is the first comprehensive study in English of the cultural and religious history of tea in China. The work traces the development of tea drinking from its mythical origins to the
nineteenth century and examines the changes in aesthetics, ritual, science, health, and knowledge that tea brought with it. It draws on a broad range of materials—poetry, histories, liturgical
texts, monastic regulations—many translated or analyzed for the first time. Tea in China will be of interest to scholars of East Asia and all those concerned with the religious dimensions of
commodity culture in the premodern world.
