Mary Lou Heiss

As reviews elsewhere have pointed out, this is an editorial failure now compounded by being dated (as far as concerns cultivars, production, and what is available on the US market). The botanical parts, and the specifics re: farming, harvesting, and processing are actually pretty interesting, and the photographs are quite lovely. But there are aspects repeated over and over, tea characteristics not at all described or explained, and except for one very general world map, there are no detailed maps of the growing regions which figure heavily throughout the prose: essentially, one has to have maps/atlases of China, India, Japan, or Sri Lanka open to have any idea where these authors are talking about.

This is an infomercial with some nice highlights, and a decent "Encyclopedia of Tea". Meh.… (meer)