How the Documentary “Tea, Story of a Leaf” Encodes Tea Culture

Based upon Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding theory, this article analyzes the strategy and effect of the recently released documentary film Tea, Story of a Leaf in encoding tea culture. The film presents tea culture in six unique aspects of coding, which encompasses artistic skills, tradition-inheritance, intangible cultural heritage, infusion/integration, religious belief, and personal cultivation. The innovative encoding the documentary creator employed was professionally executed through viewpoints and perception of an average person that flows from tea to people, connects points into lines, and is explicitly expressed with multiple layers of contents and narratives. The profound tea culture is, thus, effectively disseminated to contemporary audiences in the process from the creator's encoding to the viewer's decoding. The people-friendly, fluid storytelling, exquisite quality, and highly artistic work sets an amiable example for the upcoming filmmakers and show-producers to emulate.