I learned about this book from Nicole Martin of Tea For Me Please. She reviewed this book on her blog a couple of months ago.
The Everything Healthy Tea Book is written by Babette Donaldson, who has also authored more books about tea.
This book focuses on health benefits, but also covers many aspects on the subject of tea.
The first chapters are about the basics of tea: what is tea, its history, legends, and the like. Then it describe the health benefits of tea while citing the medical research, which is probably the most valuable part of the book.
Caffeine gets its own chapter, all about it regarding tea is explained. Later chapters focus on different types of tea, and include topics such as brewing, health benefits, and examples of each, among other things.
At the end there is a collection of minor topics like tea storage, tea brewing tools and other uses for tea.
The ebook edition that I bought from Amazon has no pictures, I wonder if the physical book is also the same. Although the content is fairly extensive, a picture is worth a thousand words 🙂
I really enjoyed reading it. It’s an introductory tea book, but even readers with more advanced knowledge can benefit from the medical research references.
October 14, 2014
I really enjoyed this book and I’m glad that you did to. I’m not someone who drinks tea for the health benefits but there a lot of people out there who do. It’s important that they have a fair and balanced source of info.
October 14, 2014
Hi Nicole, I’m happy that you showed up to comment : )
A lot of people see tea mainly as a medicine, but I agree that it’s best to enjoy it as a daily drink. The health benefits aspect is a good bonus.
It obviously helps, but if one’s diet and lifestyle in general isn’t healthy, it won’t matter how much tea you drink.
October 18, 2014
Tea sort of started off as medicine so it seems to me that the cycle has now made one complete revolution with this emphasis on health. Compared to even 15 years ago when I got into tea, there is now so much chatter about its health benefits.
I enjoy tea for its own sake but if there are some health benefits, that is definitely a bonus.
“Caffeine gets its own chapter,…” Hmm. The book is obviously for North America!!!
October 19, 2014
Hi Lochan.
15 years ago? I thought you were a tea lover for much longer than that 🙂
October 20, 2014
Hola Ricardo,
We started the tea company in 2000. Till then I had not realised that the concoction that I was drinking every day was not tea even though it was served as tea!!
October 21, 2014
I, too, really like this book. It is invaluable when preparing a tea talk or tea tasting…especially for newbies to loose leaf tea. Great stories, as well.
October 21, 2014
Thanks for your comment Louise.
I’m glad that you liked the book as well.