Dan Du, "This World in a Teacup: Credit, Taste, and Power in the U. S.-China Tea Trade, 1784–1911" (U Nebraska Press, 2026)

Popular

history tells the story of how the tea boycott during the American

Revolution caused a transition in American taste from tea to coffee,

making the young country a coffee-drinking nation. In truth, Americans

did not give up their tea so easily, and the United States grew to be

the second-largest importer of tea from China. Diverging from British

black tea traditions, U.S. consumers preferred green tea, cultivated a

particular taste for Oolong tea, and invented the English Breakfast Tea

brand to market Chinese black tea.

This World in a Teacup: Credit, Taste, and Power in the U.S.-China Tea Trade, 1784–1911

(University of Nebraska Press, 2026) by Dr. Dan Du is the first book to

detail the American tea trade with China after the American Revolution