When American Claire Craig Evans married a charming British man, there was a cost for the snappy banter and countless offers of tea: she had to uproot life as she knew it and relocate to the UK. Who wouldn't want to move to an enchanted island where mysterious women with dewy complexions made jam in thatched cottages with millennia-old lichen attached? Sure, experienced American expats offered nuggets of wisdom ("Bring over a lifetime supply of taco seasoning!") but they weren't even mild comfort as Claire tried to avoid death, jail, and wayward sheep while learning to navigate zebra crossings and drive on the "wrong" side of the road. The allure of a jet-setter lifestyle vanished as fast as Air India sent her Samsonite to Delhi instead of London Heathrow. Would more tea help her figure out how long she'd been wearing the single pair of underwear in her possession? (That was the jetlag talking. They do have underwear in the UK, too.) Appealing to fans of Bill Bryson and Bridget Jones alike, High Tea and the Low Down is a keenly-observed memoir full of laugh-out-loud moments as Claire experiences the reality of English living. If she couldn't even pass a pub quiz, how would she ever pass the infamous Life in the UK test, the high-stakes hurdle required to stay on British soil (and with her husband) indefinitely?

Can't Nobody Take Me Away! is a wonderful journey into the mind of a writer who is blossoming into the full power of creative expression. Presented in lyric verse, the body of work is deeply moving and emotional, expressing a wide variety of emotions and social commentary. Deeply introspective and ambient, the author creates a mood and sets a stage that will captivate the audience's senses and transport them to another place and time. The embodiment of four years of writing, Can't Nobody Take Me Away! is a telling tale of the author's growth as a writer and a person. The title poem has earned several awards as well as publications and audio recordings. Confident, vulnerable, defiant, and endearing, this book is a testament to strength and fortitude showing that strength comes through vulnerability, honesty, and self-knowledge. The author stands in radiant defiance declaring: "I am here to stay" and I believe him.

When Steve Sieberson and his wife unexpectedly found themselves in Britain with an entire summer on their hands, they readily agreed to avoid the usual tourist attractions, opting instead for a road trip to the UK's far-flung national parks. As they set out, however, he envisioned bracing days of energetic hillwalking, while she assumed they would relax in tearooms and cozy pubs. Seldom planning more than a few days in advance, the two traversed the country in a rented Vauxhall, subjecting themselves to single-track lanes, diabolical signage, and whimsical advice from locals. They discovered a town called Mirthless, a place where cats' eyes are removed, and a vibrating cottage, while at mealtimes they dove fearlessly into black pudding, Eton mess, and barely recognizable enchiladas. Meanwhile, after their initial attempts at hiking together nearly ended in disaster, Sieberson received dispensation to scramble alone to the highest point in each national park--as long as he was quick about it and left plenty of time for more sedentary pursuits. Low Mountains or High Tea dishes up the charms and eccentricities of rural Great Britain as seen through the eyes of two Americans who never really knew what was coming next.

Covering over 10,000 idioms and collocations characterized by similarity in their wording or metaphorical idea which do not show corresponding similarity in their meanings, this dictionary presents a unique cross-section of the English language. Though it is designed specifically to assist readers in avoiding the use of inappropriate or erroneous phrases, the book can also be used as a regular phraseological dictionary providing definitions to individual idioms, cliches, and set expressions. Most phrases included in the dictionary are in active current use, making information about their meanings and usage essential to language learners at all levels of proficiency.

Traveling from East to West over thousands of years, tea has played a variety of roles on the world scene – in medicine, politics, the arts, culture, and religion. Behind this most serene of beverages, idolized by poets and revered in spiritual practices, lie stories of treachery, violence, smuggling, drug trade, international espionage, slavery, and revolution. Liquid Jade's rich narrative history explores tea in all its social and cultural aspects. Entertaining yet informative and extensively researched, Liquid Jade tells the story of western greed and eastern bliss. China first used tea as a remedy. Taoists celebrated tea as the elixir of immortality. Buddhist Japan developed a whole body of practices around tea as a spiritual path. Then came the traumatic encounter of the refined Eastern cultures with the first Western merchants, the trade wars, the emergence of the ubiquitous English East India Company. Scottish spies crisscrossed China to steal the secrets of tea production. An army of smugglers made fortunes with tea deliveries in the dead of night. In the name of "free trade" the English imported opium to China in exchange for tea. The exploding tea industry in the eighteenth century reinforced the practice of slavery in the sugar plantations. And one of the reasons why tea became popular in the first place is that it helped sober up the English, who were virtually drowning in alcohol. During the nineteenth century, the massive consumption of tea in England also led to the development of the large tea plantation system in colonial India – a story of success for British Empire tea and of untold misery for generations of tea workers. Liquid Jade also depicts tea's beauty and delights, not only with myths about the beginnings of tea or the lovers' legend in the familiar blue-and-white porcelain willow pattern, but also with a rich and varied selection of works of art and historical photographs, which form a rare and comprehensive visual tea record. The book includes engaging and lesser-known topics, including the exclusion of women from seventeenth-century tea houses or the importance of water for tea, and answers such questions as: "What does a tea taster do?" "How much caffeine is there in tea?" "What is fair trade tea?" and "What is the difference between black, red, yellow, green, or white tea?" Connecting past and present and spanning five thousand years, Beatrice Hohenegger's captivating and multilayered account of tea will enhance the experience of a steaming "cuppa" for tea lovers the world over.

Comfort, cake and courting: the tea ceremony in the golden age of tea

In 2015, just a few years after the revolution in Egypt and, simultaneously, an increase in terrorist attacks, the elderly mother, highly self-sufficient Danielle Tisell, decided she would travel to Egypt to explore and learn as much as she could about that country. With high anxiety, daughter Jena felt she had no choice but to become her mother’s traveling companion. Their trip began in Cairo. After visiting the pyramids in Giza, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, they spent the next five days on a pilgrimage to the Christian sites where the Holy Family stayed during their exile to Egypt. And, to finish off their journey with a flourish, Jena and Danielle took a five-day river cruise from Luxor to Aswan; the highpoint of their tour: seeing Mount Sinai, where God gave Moses the stone tablets engraved with the Ten Commandments.