TeaForum.org

This is a list of documentaries related to tea that I've gathered over the last couple years. I am still discovering new ones all the time, so I will edit them in as I find them. If you happen to have any suggestions on documentaries/videos to add to the list, just post them as a reply and I will add them.

Also, if any of the links are broken or lead to videos that do not exist, let me know please and I will try to find a replacement link.

Many of them are from CCTV, but there are a few others as well.


Tea: The Story of a Leaf (playlist)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... aGJA2QaR3U


The Ancient Tea Horse Road:

http://english.cntv.cn/program/document ... _tea_road/


Tea Culture of the Wuyi Mountains:

http://english.cntv.cn/program/documentary/wuyitea/


Harmonious Yunnan: Tea Mountain:

http://english.cntv.cn/program/storyboa ... 6756.shtml


Pu-erh In Yunnan:

Part 1: http://english.cntv.cn/program/document ... 4251.shtml

Part 2: http://english.cntv.cn/program/document ... 3948.shtml


China Insight Tea Glorious Tea:

Part 1: http://english.cntv.cn/program/rediscov ... 5262.shtml

Part 2: http://english.cntv.cn/program/rediscov ... 5718.shtml


Tibet Tea:

http://english.cntv.cn/program/rediscov ... 5718.shtml


Travelogue Following the Tea Horse Trail:

Part 1: http://english.cctv.com/program/travelo ... 0887.shtml

Part 2: http://english.cctv.com/program/travelo ... 0767.shtml

Part 3: http://english.cctv.com/program/travelo ... 1078.shtml


China's Historic Towns Yiwu:

http://english.cntv.cn/2014/05/26/VIDE1 ... 4713.shtml


Travelogue Lijian:

http://english.cntv.cn/program/travelog ... 3197.shtml


A really HD documentary on Yixing pots:




Along the Coast Yixing:

http://english.cntv.cn/program/document ... 5429.shtml


Yixing Clay Teapots Enriching Chinese Culture:

http://english.cctv.com/program/e_docum ... 0840.shtml


Heritage on Fingertips: Zisha Teapots:




Travelogue Jingdezhen:

http://english.cctv.com/program/travelo ... 0729.shtml


Begin Japanology - Matcha

The Tea Explorer, just released this year. Still being shown at various tea venues and airing occasionally on Canadian television. Not been released online or on dvd or digital yet.

http://90thparallel.ca/site2016/portfol ... -explorer/

All in This Tea can be watched here:

https://www.ultramoviejagg.pro/watch-al ... g-v1-85658

Last night I watched a documentary I really enjoyed. Maybe some of you've seen it, but if not it's worth a watch if you're into pottery or art. It's about potter Kevin Crowe and his four day wood kiln firing.

Out of the Fire (2013) [Courtenay Singer]

IMDB wrote:This inspiring documentary film features renowned wood-firing potter Kevin Crowe, and his apprentice Krista Loomans. The film follows a four day wood-kiln firing of nearly 2000 pots, in which six months worth of work - and income - are at stake. The film explores the drive to create, the importance of community, and the roles of chance-taking and authenticity in making excellent work, and living a fulfilling life.

Here's an excerpt on Youtube:


Here's the IMDB on it:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2885396/

If you've got amazon prime you can watch it "free" on there.
https://www.amazon.com/Out-Fire-Kevin-C ... B01HFNM1LK

t-curious wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 29, 2019 4:28 pm

Last night I watched a documentary I really enjoyed. Maybe some of you've seen it, but if not it's worth a watch if you're into pottery or art. It's about potter Kevin Crowe and his four day wood kiln firing.

Out of the Fire (2013) [Courtenay Singer]

thanks. i watched it yesterday and liked it. i didn't realize wood kilns needed to be supervised so closely during firing.

Yes, that is part of why wood fired pottery is usually more expensive.

Here's an interesting documentary about Korean potter Cheon Han-Bong making teaware.

another good one, @t-curious. thank you.

i was a little surprised to see him breaking all those imperfect (or i suppose less interesting) bowls at the end. i would've gladly kept one

@pedant I think the mindset of a potter has to adapt to be able to let go of their own creations, be it by loss in the kiln, lacking quality, or simply being sold to a customer.

I know first hand how precious one thinks every self created piece is, but with time and experience one realises that one needs to be ruthless and let go of what is not good enough.

But I have saved a few pieces from the swinging hammer hands of a potter friend and they now lead a happy life at my tea table

Think this one is relatively well known but not on this thread yet so worth posting:

Short ( 35min aprox ) documentary where we essentially see Mr. Zheng sourcing tea for his Zheng Si Long puerh brand. Directly related to the tea-book "Puer Tea Ancient Caravans and Urban Chic"

Maybe more a tea-related home movie, but one of the attendees to the 1996 "Yixing Symposium For Western Potters", Jeroen Bechtold, filmed the trip.

This might be relevant here:

Tea War: The Adventures of Robert Fortune (2019)

https://www.amazon.com/Tea-War-Adventur ... B07S39WNTL

Everything Stops for Tea, a glimpse of British tea in 1962:



This is an interesting one, as I'm not quite sure who it was made for -- British schoolchildren? Americans? An interesting time because British tea was still largely loose-leaf. This was also around the time the Brits set their personal record consumption-wise, drinking a little less than 10 pounds a year per capita.

*Edit: Supposedly these were shown before films in the theater as a replacement for newsreels, which were no longer popular due to the immediacy of television news.

Not quite a documentary, but a theater trailer describing tea-tasting in 1945. The impact of World War II is apparent in that normally there would have been separate people to fill the kettles, measure the tea, and do the tasting, rather than one person for everything, and the taster would likely have been a man due to the spitting involved (as the announcer comments, "Nice lady-like job..."). Maybe compare to the tea-tasting section in the 1962 reel above.

A "making-of" documentary for The World of Tea, the 1992 equivalent of a tea YouTube channel.