Robert Fortune : the tea thief
Diane Perelsztejn (Film producer, Screenwriter, Film director), Willy Perelsztejn (Film producer, Screenwriter), Gilles LeMao (Film producer), Tracey Callander (Narrator), Sue Minter, Antony Wild, François-Xavier Delmas, Ken Sallows (Editor of moving image work), Australian Film Finance Corporation (Production company), Films de la mémoire (Firm) (Production company), Huit Production (Production company), ARTE France (Production company), Radio-Télévision belge de la communauté culturelle française (Production company), AVRO (Firm) (Production company), Film Victoria, Australian Film Commission, European Union Media Programme, SBS Independent, Filmakers Library, inc (Film distributor)
This fascinating film chronicles the role that tea played in the expansion of the British Empire as it sought to dominate trade throughout the world. It follows the audacious espionage mission of a botanist, Robert Fortune, who in the mid 19th century was entrusted by the East India Trading company to wrest the secret of tea production from Imperial China, the sole supplier of this prized beverage. In Fortune's own words from his journal, the film details how this mission was accomplished, as he travelled through China from 1848 to 1851 disguised as a mandarin collecting seeds and plants, observing and learning techniques of tea cultivation and processing, to facilitate the transfer of China's secret technology to the control of the British Empire. When he left China for India in 1851, he went with some 20,000 tea plants and 8 Chinese tea-workers to oversee their cultivation in the foothills of the Himalayas. With the help of present-day tea experts and connoisseurs in England and China, the significance of his achievements are re-assessed
DVD Video, English, [2001?]
Filmakers Library, New York, [2001?]