How do commodities and objects of desire acquire value and identity—indeed “qualities”—that render them worthy of exchange? Do these qualities rest only in consumer preference and market economics, or do other material and nonmaterial infrastructures produce and co-sustain them? What are the processes that inhere in products that we do not see, touch, or feel but are nonetheless crucial in making them desirable?
Besky’s book seeks to provide answers to these questions by focusing on the story of Camellia sinensis (tea) in the Indian subcontinent. Straddling the disciplines of anthropology, food science, historical sociology, and ethnographic research, Tasting Qualities examines the multifaceted sites, strategies, individuals, and mechanisms through and with which quality and value—indeed, taste—of Indian teas were generated, ranked, reinforced, and circulated from colonial times to the contemporary period. Besky characterizes this process as inherently contradictory. Although the quality of a commodity arises from its singularly distinctive identity (Assam...