by WTN Staff

On sale this month in the U.S. is a new book that tells of the British Government's 19th-century plot to clandestinely acquire China's tea secrets.

Titled, "For All the Tea in China," the book is published by Hutchison in the U.K. and will be available March 18 in the U.S. through Viking Press for $25.95 (both hardcover and ebook).

It's the first book by author Sarah Rose, a New York-based journalist who has has written for Reuters, the Miami Herald and Plenty Magazine. Rose has spent part of her career based in Hong Kong.

"For All the Tea in China" tells the story of industrial spy Robert Fortune, who traveled to China on behalf of the East India Company in 1848 in order to infiltrate the tea farms of China's interior and learn their secrets for growing and processing tea. A gardener and botanist by trade, Fortune was charged with delivering to the British the knowledge – and seedlings – to keep its tea trade alive.