208 - Sarah Besky

Cultures of Energy

Cymene and Dominic talk about flying chihuahuas and playground chamomile in this week’s intro. Then (12:26), we welcome Cornell’s Sarah Besky (http://www.sarahbesky.com/index.html) to the podcast to talk about her latest book Tasting Qualities: The Past and Future of Tea (U California Press, 2020). We start with how and why Sarah first became interested in tea. From there we move on to the relationship between quality, distinction and standardization in Indian tea making. How did the experience of British colonialism shape the experiential qualities of tea? Has the digitization of tea auctions reinforced or disrupted those colonial trends? Sarah explains plantation sickness to us and why is it spreading. We talk about tea jitters and the chemical life of tea and why Sarah thinks about tea as a tentacular form. We close by discussing climate change and how it is impacting the Indian tea industry from monsoons to landslides. Enjoy!