I agree with Steverud about irritating texts and good pictures. Same itching about Master. A bibliography would have pleased me more than a familial biography. My favorite page is 87: a teapot presents its various parts, in English and in Chinese, showing that the spout has a mouth and a flow, the handle has a buckle where we place our thumb, etc.

First of all, I am not impressed by this book! The facts that the author calls himself "Master" and in the description of the authors (page 140) he is presented as a master of several Arts, from Feng Shui to Traditional Chinese Medicine, and the paragraph "Master Lam has also studied Feng Shui extensively under four masters [...], each of whom is an acknowledged master in specialised aspects of Feng Shui." should warn anyone that this is more of a New Age-book then a book about Tea. Add to this that the publisher, Gaia Books, has published several books about Feng Shui and how to use Chinese ideas about e.g. your Chi to archive "optimum health" and you get in my opinion a book targeted at the New Age-dupes, and I'm not one of them.

Another sign of warning that this might not be a good book to buy is the page that deals with monkey picked tea. The myth says that in some provinces, specially trained monkeys pick the tea, and this is a prevailing myth. Such tea does not (according to my sources in rec.food.drink.tea) exists and never have. The sad part is that this book claim it is true and and in other parts it also has some trouble to distinguish between legends, myths and facts. It seems like the myths and legends has been a greater source of information then historical facts when the book was written.

Nonetheless, it has some virtues; it contains a very nice description of the Chinese tea ceremony (considering what I've just have said, I won't claim that this is the ceremony or from which province or time period it is from, even if it really is a Chinese one) and if I ever would get hold of the necessary utensils, I would probably perform it. It is far from as elaborate as the Japanese and it is sufficient to perform in about half an hour to an hour.

Besides the content already mentioned, the book contains the usual parts: The history of tea, the making of tea and the health benefits of tea. My opinion of the quality of the text is probably known by now, but at least the chapter of the making of tea is nice, it contains a description of the various forms of tea--white, black, red, yellow and green--and some information about how to boil the water and about the tea pot. The pictures are nice and skillfully taken and the typographer has done well.

Besides the first chapters, about the history of tea, of which I will not go any further into, the last chapter reflects "Master" Lam's traditional medicine background: What about a recipe against flu? (Green tea, ginger root and uncooked rice.) Some of the recipes are similar to western "house hold cures", other are more "China" in the taste and ingredients (ginger seems to be a popular ingredient). Whether one believes in these cures or not is something I leave to the reader, but I don't think this book is worth to buy if you're looking for such recipes.

To sum it up: This is a New Ageish book which contains sufficiently many errors and mixing of facts and myth that I won't recommend it to anyone, or more correctly: I would recommend everyone to buy another book. ( )

Would have liked to see more on the traditional tea ceremony, but otherwise very informative