Looks like David Lee Hoffman may need to sell his aged tea collection to pay a $200,000 fine to Marin County for all the unpermitted buildings on his residential property.
Hoffman is known to many as a pioneer in China-US tea importation. He is perhaps better known amongst we teachatters for the documentary All in this Tea, where he does not bargain with tea farmers, doesn't speak Chinese despite forty years of operating as a tea importer in China, and makes the claim he can smell pesticides on dry tea leaves in a single whiff.
His many home improvements were red flagged for years as he snubbed the county's permitting process and ignored the mounting fines. He has a petition on his website to save the property, which has such improvements as a moat with a concrete boat fed by well water, a vermicompost building, a bell tower, and--of course--his tea "caves."
The fine is due soon, so maybe we'll see some eBay listings of the stuff he has sitting in his storage. Otherwise, the county will order the demolition of all the unpermitted structures on the property.
/end snark
In fact, way more.
