Tasting Qualities
The Past and Future of Tea
1st Edition
Published on 12. May 2020
256 pages
978-0-520-97270-4 (ISBN)
Description
What is the role of quality in contemporary capitalism? How is a product as ordinary as a bag of tea judged for its quality? In her innovative study, Sarah Besky addresses these questions by going inside an Indian auction house where experts taste and appraise 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 throughout the history of the tea industry. Working across fields of political economy, science and technology studies, and sensory ethnography, Tasting Qualities 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.
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University of California Press
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Person
Sarah Besky is a cultural anthropologist and Associate Professor in the ILR School at Cornell University. She is the author of The Darjeeling Distinction: Labor and Justice on Fair Trade Tea Plantations in India.
Content
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Production of Quality
1 • The Work of Taste
2 • The Auction and the Archive
3 • The Problem with Blending
4 • The Science of Quality
5 • The Quality of Cheap Tea
6 • The Quality of Markets
Conclusion: The Endurance of Quality
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Production of Quality
1 • The Work of Taste
2 • The Auction and the Archive
3 • The Problem with Blending
4 • The Science of Quality
5 • The Quality of Cheap Tea
6 • The Quality of Markets
Conclusion: The Endurance of Quality
Notes
Bibliography
Index
