WI Film Festival - The Meaning of Tea

While many people were enjoying a cuppa, I spent some time Sunday morning down at the WI Film Festival taking in The Meaning of Tea. It's a bit ironic that it would be shown as I've been drinking a lot of tea this year. I'm no expert, mind you. I couldn't give you a long discourse on why loose leaf is better than bagged or any such thing. But I love me some Earl Grey after work and some herbal before bedtime. Apparently others are jumping on the bandwagon as well since a second showing was added for the festival.

A collage of people from around the world drinking tea gives way to a serene shot of a waterfall. We move to San Francisco where an interviewee tells us that tea makes space for the spiritual in the busy modern world. So begins a journey which takes the viewer around the world to visit various cultures in which tea plays an important role. (The short segment filmed in the U.S. being the exception.)

The first stop is India where the camera wanders the lush, verdant fields of a tea estate. A taster explains his trade and the estate's owner extols the palliative virtues of tea for the soul. Elsewhere Buddhist monks at the Dali Monastery in Darjeeling engage in a ritual involving tea. Moving onto Morocco we learn that tea was not drunk generally until the 20th century though, when the trend started, it would permeate all of Moroccan society. "Tea is something beyond," a man offers.

I had the pleasure of listening to a radio series from the BBC called "An Englishman in Search of a Tea Ceremony" a few months ago and so I knew that tea ceremonies in the next country visited, Japan, could take hours. But the focus of this segment lay in the words of one old gentleman who said that his fellow Japanese have "ceased to enjoy the spirit of tea". The younger set is portrayed as generally enjoying coffee more than tea and the Western connotations of the former were noted. A new product was demonstrated. It was a bottle of water and, when the cap was opened, a green tea hoolie dropped down. A couple shakes and you've got instant tea of an unearthly green hue. A woman who was a tea sensei (someone who performed the traditional tea ceremony) tried the stuff and the look on her face upon tasting it was priceless.

To the west, the Chinese take tea as seriously as any other culture in the world, if not more. There, tea is an "exchange of friendship" and we're also told that "the art of tea is profound". As with Japan, the youth are portrayed as being indifferent to tea and its rituals. Closer to home, the United States gets a brief showing here. Tea, South Dakota is profiled briefly with the familiar refrain of tea being a drink for old people and one that aids relaxation. The short shrift given to domestic tea drinkers drew the ire of one of them in the audience during the Q&A session with the cinematographer. "My friends and I drink tea," she protested. I think the DP had a great response. I can't quote it but he basically said, however much you and your friends may like tea, the U.S. ain't got nothin' on China. I agree. Most Americans' idea of ceremony is getting together to watch American Idol, not, as one person said, to go on a journey after drinking a cup of tea.

I was a bit disappointed that there was nothing about how tea goes from being grown in fields to dried leaves in your cup. And so I asked the DP (Gordon?) about this and he replied that it would have taken too much time to explain it. Bullshit. If Andrew Jefford can give a good overview of the process in 10 minutes on the radio, so could have the filmmakers. However, I certainly can understand and would defend the aesthetic choice to omit this. The Meaning of Tea is about using the drink as part of one's spiritual health regimen as opposed to a story of the beverage that you might see on the Food Network.

While I enjoyed The Meaning of Tea, the theme of tea as meditation wore on me a bit. I found myself wanting to know why younger people tend to eschew tea in favor of coffee or other drinks because traditions and how they change is of particular interest to me. By what mechanisms was the tea drinking handed down previously that today's kids seem impervious to? What role does the spread of Western (i.e. – American) culture have to do with it?