Traveling from East to West over thousands of years, tea has played a variety of roles on the world scene in medicine, politics, the arts, culture, and religion. Behind this most serene beverage, idolized by poets and revered in spiritual practices, lies stories of treachery, violence, smuggling, drug trade, international espionage, slavery, and revolution. Beatrice Hohenegger's new book, Liquid Jade (St. Martin's Press), explores tea in all its social and cultural aspects. Larry Mantle talks with Hohenegger about the history of tea.