A thirst for empire: how tea shaped the modern world

Introduction: A soldiers' tea party in Surrey

Part I. Anxious relations

"A China drink approved by all physicians" : setting the early modern tea table

The temperance tea table : making a sober consumer culture in the nineteenth century

"A little opium, sweet words, and cheap guns" : planting a global industry in Assam

Packaging China : advertising food safety in a global marketplace

Part II. Imperial tastes

Industry and empire : manufacturing imperial tastes in Victorian Britain

The planter abroad : building foreign markets in the fin-de-siecle

"Every kitchen an empire kitchen": the politics of imperial consumerism

"Tea revives the world" : selling vitality during the Depression

"Hot drinks means much in the jungle" : tea in the service of war

Part III. Aftertastes

Leftovers? : an imperial industry at the end of empire

"Join the tea set" : youth, modernity, and the legacies of empire during the swinging sixties.