I began the book with some trepidation, but I was eager to read the text in hopes it would be less horrifying. It was!! And it's right in the foreword. The editor drinks tea from mugs and admits that afternoon tea is a privilege. The book even acknowledges that people work, and that a tea break can be beneficial at a low point in a business meeting. What a relief!
The Pleasures of Tea is a bit disorganized but focuses on tea-drinking occasions, equipment, and recipes. The prose is a little flowery, but inoffensive. It's also rather brief. There are three "interviews" in the book - with a tea grower, a tea seller, and a tea salon owner - but all three go into no depth, which is a loss, and could have added greatly to the quality of the book.
The strong point of Pleasures is the middle section on tea wares. There are pages of photographs devoted to teapots, Wedgwood, chintzware, etc. In fact, the book brings in tea equipment right away. In the first chapter, the Daily Cup, the author says, "There is a ritualistic comfort in using pretty objects you love." I agree. I love tea things and devour these sorts of pages eagerly contemplating china patterns to search for, and lamenting that I don't have a strawberry fork. So for me, the irksome part is the picture captions. Sometimes they say what the china pattern is, but often not. And even in the reference pages in the back, they list the photographer of each photo, but no other information such as location or source of the materials. There are some photos with some great teacup and teapot image fabrics, but if I wanted to find those curtains, I would have no idea where to start!
This is a pretty book to have and read, though by no means perfect. I can't wait to see where the next Vicotria tea book, the Art of Taking Tea, takes us. Stay tuned!!
Incidentally, this month I used holiday shopping as an excuse to get a bunch of new books (thank you Amazon used books!). Maybe I'll get to reviews of these titles in the coming year:
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