Upcoming Tea Film Screening near Boston

[beachape]

http://www.jaman.com/movie/All-Tea/05e0eTcMbi8w/

This site has a more palatable trailer. Couldn't find the whole movie though.

[beachape]

Found the movie on Amazon for 2bucks. Movie was pretty good. Good footage of tea.

Unlike the trailer made me believe, the movie wasn't focused so much on the arguing and "whats wrong" but more on tea.

[wyardley]

IMO I don't think it is ridiculous to make judgments based on trailers. Thats what trailers are for. When I saw the trailer, I had a bad impression...basically it shows "white guy "expert" arguing with Chinese people in English."

I finally watched it a few months ago; I didn't dislike the film quite as much as I thought I would from seeing the trailer, but I agree with beachape. I found him a little obnoxious and patronizing, and it doesn't seem like he really understands (or cares about) Chinese culture or the Chinese way of doing business. So while the film portrays him in a positive light, I have a feeling that people he's talking to either have no idea what he's saying at all, or are just kind of humoring him.

But if I read the titles right, I believe a lot of the film was filmed quite a while back, no?

I remain extremely skeptical about DLH's supposed pesticide sniffing abilities.

[gingkoseto]

But if I read the titles right, I believe a lot of the film was filmed quite a while back, no?

I remain extremely skeptical about DLH's supposed pesticide sniffing abilities.

I think so too. I think the lost in conversation between him and local dealers was largely due to the stronger cultural discrepancy 1-2 decades back. Back then Chinese rural people didn't see many foreigners yet, and foreigners were more nervous about navigating in rural China. So I think it was not easy for Hoffman and his effort was valuable.

I feel skeptical about sniffing pesticide too. I don't see how it's physically or chemically possible Besides human capacity, I suppose the season he went for tea shopping was the best tea shopping season, early spring. I don't think any crazy farmer would use pesticide yet by that time. But very possible it's not Hoffman's own arrogance, but rather the movie was trying to glorify him with some blind admiration.

Overall I don't think the cultural conflicts were the major contents in the film. But it has been a long time. Now I feel I need to see it again to renew my memory

[nonc_ron]

But if I read the titles right, I believe a lot of the film was filmed quite a while back, no?

I've just checked my copy.
http://www.allinthistea.com
Copyright Flower Films 2007

I remain extremely skeptical about DLH's supposed pesticide sniffing abilities.

If you lived in a farming area you wouldn't say that.
Pesticide is some stinking stuff!
I can tell when they're spraying pesticide a mile away.

The whole theory behind pesticide is:
Spray enough poison on a tea leaf, So that when a bug eats it, it well die.
It's enough to make you sniff your tea before drinking.

[beachape]

Even now many rural chinese haven't come across foreigners unless they are near a tourist area. In the movie lots of the tea sellers were asking if he could understand Chinese, because they thought a foreigner would speak chinese. In more urban areas they just assume you don't

I am very skeptical of the whole pesticide/fertilizer sniffing as well. Pesticide stinks, but the new buds are so fresh that they would not have enough pesticide on them to stink. Also, the you can sometimes taste the fertilizer because the tea is stronger, but by smell...I doubt it.

It seems that he has a very personal view of what teas taste good, and he would just seek out "good tasting" lower grade tea. In the movie he says that he likes a tea, and his Chinese companion tells him that it smells like grass (ie bad). In another scene he explains that Americans don't care about leaf quality grade (ie. A, AA, AAA), but he just wanted tea that tasted good. That was probably a great business strategy because he could get tea that the domestic market didn't value.

Not sure if anyone has been to his store, but the pictures from the film looked really nice. I wonder how could he have made enough money for such a fancy tea company after spending 10 years backpacking through Asia. I didn't think the tea market was so lucrative.

[nonc_ron]

Not sure if anyone has been to his store, but the pictures from the film looked really nice. I wonder how could he have made enough money for such a fancy tea company after spending 10 years backpacking through Asia. I didn't think the tea market was so lucrative.

Chinese Yuan = 0.15
Looks like a lot of room for profit.

[gingkoseto]

I remain extremely skeptical about DLH's supposed pesticide sniffing abilities.

If you lived in a farming area you wouldn't say that.
Pesticide is some stinking stuff!
I can tell when they're spraying pesticide a mile away.

The whole theory behind pesticide is:
Spray enough poison on a tea leaf, So that when a bug eats it, it well die.
It's enough to make you sniff your tea before drinking.

This is not the tea cultivation practice as I learned about. I once wrote a blog about it:
http://gingkobay.blogspot.com/2010/04/c ... ation.html
The information I've learned of may not be consistent with what some other people have learned of, but I did try my best and will try to ask more questions about it.

[wyardley]

But if I read the titles right, I believe a lot of the film was filmed quite a while back, no?

I've just checked my copy.
http://www.allinthistea.com
Copyright Flower Films 2007

Yes, but that's when the film was released, not when it was filmed. Based on the text at the beginning of the film, as well as what I can see online, I'm pretty sure this stuff was filmed in the mid-90s, when China was just barely beginning to become more open. Things have changed quite a bit since then, though I am not sure we can thank DLH for that.

I remain extremely skeptical about DLH's supposed pesticide sniffing abilities.

If you lived in a farming area you wouldn't say that.
Pesticide is some stinking stuff!
I can tell when they're spraying pesticide a mile away.

I think that was actually me you were quoting, not gingko. But my point is not that pesticides themselves aren't smelly, but that being able to consistently smell all traces of pesticides on a finished tea is a different thing. Let's say pesticides were used several times on a tea plant during the season, and let's say the tea leaves were washed before processing. Smelling pesticides on the finished product is quite a different matter from smelling pesticides that were recently sprayed in the air. For example, could you go to a grocery store, and tell me, only by smelling, which fruits are organically grown and which ones aren't? It's entirely possible that DLH has a more refined nose than the rest of us, but again, I remain skeptical.

Of course, there are other clues which you could use to determine whether a tea was grown with pesticides, but they would mostly involve inspecting the leaves, brewing the tea, etc. etc.

[nonc_ron]

But if I read the titles right, I believe a lot of the film was filmed quite a while back, no?

I've just checked my copy.
http://www.allinthistea.com
Copyright Flower Films 2007

Yes, but that's when the film was released, not when it was filmed. Based on the text at the beginning of the film, as well as what I can see online, I'm pretty sure this stuff was filmed in the mid-90s,

Yes I agree, But the copyright said 2007 so thats what I posted.
I was thinking at least 5 years before that. Maybe one of us should send him an email? That would make an interesting Topic.

I think that was actually me you were quoting, not gingko. But my point is not that pesticides themselves aren't smelly, but that being able to consistently smell all traces of pesticides on a finished tea is a different thing. Let's say pesticides were used several times on a tea plant during the season, and let's say the tea leaves were washed before processing. Smelling pesticides on the finished product is quite a different matter from smelling pesticides that were recently sprayed in the air. For example, could you go to a grocery store, and tell me, only by smelling, which fruits are organically grown and which ones aren't? It's entirely possible that DLH has a more refined nose than the rest of us, but again, I remain skeptical.

No I couldn't tell ether , But this is what he does and he's been doing it since 1963 (JFK's assassination). In the film he sticks his nose in every bag of tea that he comes across. If we practiced anything for 40 years we would become experts at it.

[nonc_ron]

This is not the tea cultivation practice as I learned about. I once wrote a blog about it:
http://gingkobay.blogspot.com/2010/04/c ... ation.html
The information I've learned of may not be consistent with what some other people have learned of, but I did try my best and will try to ask more questions about it.

Wow, That was a nice blog article. I bookmarked the home page so
I could come back and read more, Thanks.

[rabbit]

I just watched the film and I liked it alot, it wasn't exceptionally made but it's just nice to see some tea footage for a person like myself who doesn't have the chance to travel and see the production and such in person.


The film DID seem to stress that we should focus more on helping the little guy and not supporting the big corporations in china which are lowering the quality of tea produced and putting these little farms out of business.

But all in all it was a nice watch. I'd give it 3.9/5 stars