Les Blank and Gina Leibrecht follow David Lee Hoffman throughout China as he hunts for some of the best artisanal tea that the country has to offer. With trade laws and trade companies and tea factories standing in his way, his attempts to deal directly with the farmers who grow and harvest and cultivate the tea grows more and more frustrating. What makes All in this Tea stand out to me, however, is how Blank and Leibrecht have stumbled upon how modernization has set other countries on a path to exploitation almost by accident as Hoffman seems to deride the ideals of the people he is dealing with - businessmen and factory owners - as being stuck in ways that are too “traditional”, when in truth there is nothing traditional about the layers of yellow tape he comes across. Nearly all of it is an invention and adaptation as a result of having to deal with an international market and a desire to protect a singular identity which has resulted in a loss of some of that identity as it is packaged and sold. There is an irony to Hoffman, a tea enthusiast from California, “introducing” these ideas of direct contact between the buying public and the farmers that grow the tea to China all in an attempt to bring tea over to the US all while picking apart bits and pieces of that Chinese identity to do so. It’s utterly fascinating while also being somewhat sad, the fact that a hobbyist is behind all this. But, as the end text sprawl notes, perhaps Hoffman truly is invested in ways of the earth in ways that others simply just aren’t.
Les Blank and Gina Leibrecht follow David Lee Hoffman throughout China as he hunts for some of the best artisanal tea that the country has to offer. With trade laws and trade companies and tea factories standing in his way, his attempts to deal directly with the farmers who grow and harvest and cultivate the tea grows more and more frustrating. What makes All in this Tea stand out to me, however, is how Blank and Leibrecht have stumbled upon how modernization has set other countries on a path to exploitation almost by accident as Hoffman seems to deride the ideals of the people he is dealing with - businessmen and factory owners - as being stuck in ways that are too “traditional”, when in truth there is nothing traditional about the layers of yellow tape he comes across. Nearly all of it is an invention and adaptation as a result of having to deal with an international market and a desire to protect a singular identity which has resulted in a loss of some of that identity as it is packaged and sold. There is an irony to Hoffman, a tea enthusiast from California, “introducing” these ideas of direct contact between the buying public and the farmers that grow the tea to China all in an attempt to bring tea over to the US all while picking apart bits and pieces of that Chinese identity to do so. It’s utterly fascinating while also being somewhat sad, the fact that a hobbyist is behind all this. But, as the end text sprawl notes, perhaps Hoffman truly is invested in ways of the earth in ways that others simply just aren’t.
