Agony of the Leaves: The Ecstasy of My Life with Tea

Widely famed as the tea guru of Berkeley's Chez Panisse, Gustafson, in this book, creates intersections between her own life & her experiences with tea -- from domestic tea rituals in her St. Paul, MN, upbringing, to her Irish honeymoon where she encountered Barry's of Cork tea, to her first meeting with the venerable Mr. Twining, of the Twining tea empire, in search of the incomparable 275th Anniversary black Yunnan tea. Gustafson's approach to the minutiae of the tea experience is a magically macroscopic one -- she makes the subject of tea as ecstatic ritual come alive through biographical detail, storytelling, recipes, & reminiscences.