Documenting Chinese Tea Culture

I’m So-Han Fan, the founder of West China Tea. We make our living sourcing and importing traditionally-grown, traditionally-processed artisan teas and tea wares from China for more than a decade now.  In addition to being tea importers, we operate one of the country’s premiere Chinese-style tea houses and produce an award-winning YouTube show. 

China is a beautiful and fascinating place; the places where tea grows are especially beautiful, and the people who make it are especially fascinating. We hope to film the first professionally-produced documentary series about this remarkable world. Come on a journey with us through China’s tea mountains to hear the stories of the farmers, masters, and artisans who make it in their own words. 

The Plan and the Budget

The total budget for the trip is $93,000 to take our crew of 4 to China to meet with, interview, and film our tea farmers, as well as the beautiful places, people, and traditions that make up their world. This includes travel, accommodations, labor, as well as editing and post-production. Our crew is made up of industry professionals including members of Nihaody Productions, who produce our award-winning YouTube channel Tea House Ghost. 

Flights, Visas – $9k

Domestic Travel – $8k
Accommodations – $18,000 ($75/person per night)

Montsho Media Work Pay – $7,000 (2 months) 

Erik Media Work Pay – $7,000 (2 months) 

Cinya Pay – $7,000

So-Han Pay – $7,000

Editing and post-production – $30,000

Documenting Ancient Traditions

Most of the tea farmers, masters, and potters we work with are part of families that have been honing their craft for generations. Many of them are the last in their lineage to do this work, because in most cases their children are uninterested in continuing the family trade. It is our goal to document their traditional craftsmanship and share the beauty and adventure of sourcing tea in China

What if we don’t hit our goal?

Our goal is ambitious, but still a very modest budget to produce a professional film project. Still, we realize there is a chance that we won’t reach our goal. In the event that we don’t get enough funding to take our team to China, we will put all of the money received from this campaign toward producing content here in Austin, TX. Content will appear on the Tea House Ghost Youtube channel and the West China Tea social media channels. This may include, depending on how much funding we secure:

-More new episodes of Gong Fu Tea|chA
-Documentary episodes about life at the Tea House
-Video essays on Gong Fu Cha, Tea House Culture, etc.

How to Help

This project is for people who know who we are and love what we do, or for people just finding out about us. It’s for people who know all about tea and want to learn more, or who don’t know anything about it but love to learn more about the world. 

Please donate if you can; if you can’t, please share! Sharing our campaign on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or by emailing your tea-loving friends will go a long way toward helping us reach our goal!