Tasting qualities : the past and future of tea / Sarah Besky.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Besky, Sarah, 1981- Author.

Series:

Atelier: Ethnographic Inquiry in the Twenty-First Century ; 5

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Tea trade--India--Quality control.

Tea trade.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (252 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, [2020]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

"What is the place of quality in contemporary capitalism? How is a product as ordinary as a bag of tea valued for its quality? In her innovative study, Sarah Besky addresses these questions by going inside an Indian auction house where experts taste and value mass-market black tea, one of the world's most recognized commodities. Pairing rich historical data with ethnographic research among agronomists, professional tea tasters and traders, and tea plantation workers, Besky shows how the meaning of quality has been subjected to nearly constant experimentation and debate over the history of the tea industry. Working across political economy, science and technology studies, and sensory ethnography, the book argues for an approach to quality that sees it not as a final destination for economic, imperial, or post-imperial projects but as an opening for those projects"-- ǂc Provided by publisher

Contents:

Introduction : the production of quality

The work of taste

The auction and the archive

The problem with blending

The science of quality

The quality of cheap tea

The quality of markets

Conclusion: the endurance of quality

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 02. Jun 2020)

ISBN:

9780700632039

9780520972704

0520972708

OCLC:

1120699618