This book links the trade of the Danish and Swedish East India companies to the British taste for tea, a Scandinavian craving for colourful Chinese silk textiles, import substitutions schemes and natural history in the eighteenth century. It is a global history exploring the exchange of silver for goods in Canton. It is also a European history studying the wholesale market for Asian goods in Gothenburg and Copenhagen, the formation of taste and the impact of fashion in the blending of tea and the assortments of colours on wrought silk destined for markets across Europe. Linking material history to political economy and the histories of science, this book ends on the threshold of the nineteenth century, the rise of the second British Empire in Asia, and the creation of synthetic dyes in Europe.

Three Years' Wanderings in the Northern Provinces of China : Including a Visit to the Tea, Silk, And Cotton Countries: With an Account of the Agriculture of the Chinese, New Plants, Etc by Robert Fortune, first published in 1847, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it.

One of the longest and most dramatic trade routes of the ancient world, the Tea Horse Road carried a crucial exchange for 13 centuries between China and Tibet. China needed war horses to protect its northern frontier and Tibet could supply them. When the Tibetans discovered tea in the 7th century, it became a staple of their diet, but its origins are in southwest China, and they had to trade for it. The result was a network of trails covering more than 3,000 kilometres through forests, gorges and high passes onto the Himalayan plateaus, traversed by horse, mule and yak caravans, and human porters. It linked cultures, economies and political ambitions, and lasted until the middle of the 20th century. Re-tracing the many branches of the Road, photographer and writer Michael Freeman spent two years compiling this remarkable visual record, from the Tea Mountains of southern Yunnan and Sichuan to Tibet and beyond. Collaborating on this fascinating account, ethno-ecologist Selena Ahmed's description of tea and bio-cultural diversity in the region draws on her original doctoral research. SELLING POINTS: * Revised in new compact format of popular best seller * World-famous photographer Michael Freeman * Important book on China's famous route 250 colour