Dr. Ma Shicheng has provided a detailed introduction of Liu Bao tea in this book, while I contributed the remaining content covering all other aspects of tea.
The inspiration for this book came from a casual tea conversation between Dr. Ma and me at the end of 2019. At that time, he was making remarkable strides in promoting the Liu Bao tea industry in Guangxi, while I was still teaching tea science at a university. During our chat, I complained that there wasn't a good English book about Chinese tea for people who like tea around the world. This book should explain Chinese tea using science, but in a way that's easy to understand. He challenged me with a simple question: “Why don’t we write one ourselves?” And just like that, we decided on the spot to create a book that focused solely on the science of tea leaves, omitting discussions on tea culture, history, art, and trade. To ensure that beginner tea enthusiasts abroad could understand it easily, the book underwent three complete rewrites—we aimed to use professional language while steering away from the dry tone of a college textbook.
After four years, with encouragement and support from many friends, we finally completed the manuscript. About a year ago, to make the book more accessible to a global audience, we partnered with an Indian publisher to handle its publication and distribution.
We want to express my heartfelt gratitude to everyone whose name appears on the acknowledgments page—you are the sunshine in my life.
To SAMPARK Publishing House in India—thank you for making this project a reality.
We hope this book will help promote Chinese tea internationally.
