In the 19th century, China held the monopoly on tea, which was dear and fashionable in the West, and the British Empire exchanged poppies, produced in its Indian colonies and transformed into opium, for Chinese tea. Inundated by the drugs, China was forced to open up its market, and the British consolidated their commercial dominance. In 1839, the Middle Empire introduced prohibition. The Opium War was declared… Great Britain emerged as the winner, but the warning was heeded: it could no longer depend on Chinese tea. The only alternative possible was to produce its own tea. The East India Company therefore entrusted one man with finding the secrets of the precious beverage. His mission was to develop the first plantations in Britain’s Indian colonies. This latter-day James Bond was called Robert Fortune – a botanist. After overcoming innumerable ordeals in the heart of imperial China, he brought back the plants and techniques that gave rise to Darjeeling tea.

A story of love and honor that takes place during the mid-nineteenth century during revolutions, as ...

The Great Northwest is a documentary film based on the re-creation of a 3,200 mile road-trip made in...

Amidst the grand walls of the Forbidden City, the film takes us on a deep journey through the ceremo...

In pre-unified China, the King of Qin sends his concubine to a rival kingdom to produce an assassin ...

The Tea Explorer documentary follows the journey of tea enthusiast Jeff Fuchs along the Tea Horse Ro...

The Founding of an Army is a 2017 Chinese film commissioned by China's government to commemorate the...

LIONESSES: HOW FOOTBALL CAME HOME gives unrivaled insight into England’s historic Women’s EURO 2022 ...

A fascinating compilation tracing the development of British trains throughout the 20th century. Thi...

How do you reconcile a commitment to non-violence when faced with violence? Why do the poor often se...

In Imperial Russia, Anna, wife of the officer Karenin, goes to Moscow to visit her brother. On the w...

Lucien de Rubempré, a young, lower-class poet, leaves his family's printing house for Paris. Soon, h...

Enraged at the slaughter of Murron, his new bride and childhood love, Scottish warrior William Walla...

The impact of Marx on the 20th century has been all-pervasive and world-wide. This program looks at ...

Warsaw's Central Railway Station. 'Someone has fallen asleep, someone's waiting for somebody else. M...

A dramatisation of the workers' protests in June 1976 in Radom, seen from the perspective of the loc...

In this wildly entertaining vision of one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists, Bob Dylan is ...

Using historically-accurate, battle-filled re-enactments and interviews with expert historians and n...

A week in the life of the exploited, child newspaper sellers in turn-of-the-century New York. When t...

No matter what your age you'll love watching this impressive and comprehensive story of the developm...