Tea is what keeps many of us going
Tea is what keeps many of us going on these cold chilly winter days, when it’s raining, windy, or snowing. Have you ever wanted to know more about this wonderful hot drink, about where it’s from, how you grow it, and how the plant is prepared? Libraries are usually your best source of information, and The European Library can help you find out more from your own national library and from other national libraries and research libraries in Europe.
These libraries, all searchable through The European Library’s website, offer documents as varied as scientific papers on how to prepare black tea, a look at the early 20th century tea industry, a cyclopedia of tea from the late 19th century, and a ballad ‘on using tea’ .
The National Library of Serbia, Belgrade’s collection includes a technical paper from the journal Genetika, if you want to learn more about the science behind your cup of tea, on ‘Impacts of flushing and fermentation times on the quality of black tea’, so you can find out what separates good from bad in the world of tea. Find and read that online through The European Library here.
The Russian State Library, one of Russia’s two national libraries, has a book simply titled ‘Tea’, from Edith Brown’s ‘Peep at Industries’ series (which also includes the similarly titled ‘Sugar’ and ‘Rubber’). In there, you can find out all kinds of things about how tea was manufactured, shipped, sold, advertised, and made in the early 20th century, including a selection of old-fashioned tea ads for tea, shipping, and tea chests. Find and read that online through The European Library here. The Bodleian Libraries, one of the foremost research libraries in Europe, offers many old books in digitized form on their website. One of these is the ‘Tea Cyclopedia’, offering information on tea, tea science, blights, and more. It started out as a compilation of material from the Indian Tea Gazette, but was expanded to ‘add to the value of this Volume’. Find and read that online through The European Library here.