Book Review- 4 World-Famous Chinese Green Teas

Imagine traveling back in time and giving Marco Polo the ability to produce photographs of his travels. What would he have snapped pictures of? Would Marco have been more interested in creating a resource, or of chronicling his personal experience?

4 World-Famous Chinese Green Teas moves between personal chronicle of Jason C. S. Chen, and a record of tea as it stands today.

Chen has motivations in both directions. His family has roots in one of the regions. Additionally, Chen’s own tea company, C. C. Fine Tea. Jason’s site and book attest to his company’s ownership of (or partnership with) gardens in the areas he describes.

The book’s content tips the scales toward more image than written word, considering many of the textual pages are duplicate in English and Chinese.

But what written content there is reveals technical information not easily found in other sources. For example, Chen records key data on dragon well (long jing) green tea production:

annual output and acreage (ca. 2011)
key village areas of production
varietals associated with those village regions
grades/classes of finished leaf

Visual record with captions also cover:

Harvest
Processing stages
Scenic views and historic landmarks of the area
Tasting and brewing

The creation and enjoyment of

1) Dragon Well,

2) Ping Shui Ri Zhu,

3) Bi Luo Chun and

4) Mao Feng is covered.

Even though the book is both useful and laden with aesthetic charm, the manner in which is organized felt less elegant. Try as I did, the text did not draw me into the scenes of the photos, and the did not always support the linear thoughts of the text.

It feels like a tea-traveler’s photo album of a trip through tea regions with extensive, informative captions. Some of the more valuable captions I’ve read.

Walker Tea Review- a tea blog with tea reviews and tea tastings.
Want to see a tea reviewed? Contact me: jason@walkerteareview.com

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