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For All the Tea in China: Espionage, Em..., Rose, Sarah - Picture 2 of 2

For All the Tea in China Espionage, Empire and the Secret Formula by Sarah Rose (Hardcover, 2009)

World of Books Ltd (10321225)

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For All the Tea in China: Espionage, Empire and the Secret Formula for the World's Favourite Drink. Robert Fortune was a Scottish gardener, botanist, plant hunter - and industrial spy. For centuries, China had been the world's sole tea manufacturer.

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In the aftermath of the Opium Wars, Scotsman Robert Fortune - botanist-turned-secret agent - infiltrated China's hostile mountain regions disguised as a Chinese merchant with little to guide him but his wits and a suspect crew. His goal was to steal China's most fiercely protected treasure, a plant as seductive as, albeit less toxic than, the soporific poppy- Camellia sinensis or, more simply, tea. By the 1840s, Britain and China had each grown addicted to - and fought a war over - mysterious plants monopolized by the other- opium and tea. At the centre of this miserable tea-for-drugs union was the once venerable, but now foundering East India Company. Having garnered national prominence for successfully transporting several exotic species of plants from Asia to England, Fortune was tapped by the company to steal not only the seeds of the tea plant, but unveil the methods of its cultivation and processing. If he succeeded, Fortune would provide Britain with a way out of this embarrassing and costly two-way trade of tea and opium by ending China's monopoly of the world's tea market and establishing a rival tea producer in India. If he was caught, his demise was certain. y followi