FROM CHA TO TEA. A STUDY OT THE INFLUENCE OF TEA DRINKING ON BRITISH CULTURE

How a product, in this case tea, winds its way into the fabric of a cultural identity from within and without is what we have here in From Cha to Tea. Literature provides the witness and consciousness of the genesis and evolution of this very product first mentioned by Samuel Pepys in 1660 as a cupp of tee. Here is an invitation to follow from this notation through to the present, tea drinking as it becomes cult, minor myth, metaphor and metonymy. This mini-anthology of British literature with well appointed connections from fields such as legend, anthropology, philosophy, literary criticism, women's studies, children's literature, even detective fiction all come around to a good read, academic prose written to be enjoyed.