A Social History of Tea: Tea's Influence on Commerce, Culture, and Community by Jane Pettigrew & Bruce Richardson

British writer and tea historian Jane Pettigrew has joined forces with American tea writer Bruce Richardson to chronicle the fascinating story of Tea's influence on British and American culture, commerce and community spanning nearly four centuries. These two leading tea professionals have seen firsthand the current tea renaissance sweeping modern culture and have written over two dozen books on the subject.

Research has taken authors Bruce and Jane to all corners of Britain and America to seek out the hidden elements of tea's fascinating biography. They have pried into the diaries of aristocrats, farmers, merchants, politicians, and ordinary working fol. They have delved through the household accounts of grand houses and ordinary suburban homes, and have poured over books, invoices, manuscripts, pamphlets, and documents in libraries, record offices, private collections, and the archives of tea companies. Those explorations have highlighted again and again the extraordinary way in which tea has permeated so many different areas of our lives since the seventeenth century.