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.

In 1375, China was in chaos between Yuan Dynasty and Ming Dynasty. Coryo (an ancient kingdom of Kore...

The story of the romance between the King of Siam (now Thailand) and the widowed British school teac...

The third installment in Dan Přibáň's series of travel documentaries describes the author's journey ...

Over the course of 10 months, a camera travels to Buenos Aires, Argentina and Hanover, Germany to me...

In their infinite quest for virgin big walls, adventurers Sean Villanueva O’Driscoll, Nicolas Favres...

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 ...

"Fascinating India" spreads an impressive panorama of India’s historical and contemporary world. The...

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

How the Monuments Came Down is a timely and searing look at the history of white supremacy and Black...

Bored with the limited and tedious nature of provincial life in 19th-century France, the fierce and ...

A distinguished military leader whose reign was touched by great scandal, shocking betrayals and rou...

American high school students from the privileged Silicon Valley travel to Manang, Nepal in this doc...

How could a German Wehrmacht soldier become a celebrated soccer idol of the Britons in the post-war ...

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

Between 1968 and 1970, J M Goodger, a lecturer at the University of Salford, made a film record of t...
Kathy's family left on a Saturday morning in 1965. The rumble of bulldozers echoed through the neigh...

In early 1860s New York, Irish immigrant Amsterdam Vallon is released from prison and returns to the...