Inside a tea master’s Paris salon | Her Scents of Pu Er

In this intoxicating film, the Chinese tea master Yu Hui Tseng describes how the power of aromas can evoke rich sensory memories.

Director: Anna-Claria Ostasenko Bogdanoff
Director of photography: Malte Daniel Hoekstra
Composer: Wenceslas Ostasenko

For Yu Hui Tseng, drinking tea isn’t simply a daily habit or a cultural norm, but a spiritual practice at the very core of her being. A Chinese tea master, Tseng describes flavours with a rich, refined specificity. She finds aromas that evoke ‘an old trunk where clothes are stored with camphor’ or ‘bricks after a summer storm’. Each sip is imbued with a swirl of intermingling memories – of the life of the tea, and her own.

In Her Scents of Pu Er, the Paris-based filmmaker Anna-Claria Ostasenko Bogdanoff visits Maître Tseng in the tea cellar beneath her salon, Maison des Trois Thés (House of the Three Teas) in Paris. With the ageing vintages stacked ceiling-high behind her, Maître Tseng describes how each tea, like a person, expresses its own rich, evolving story, and how a once-unfashionable tea, pu er (or pu-erh), became her passion. Like her subject, Ostasenko Bogdanoff luxuriates in detail, assembling a beautifully shot sequence that weaves scenes from the elegantly adorned Maison des Trois Thés with images that conjure up the complex smells that Maître Tseng describes. The resulting film forms is its own intoxicating sensory experience, evoking the power of aromas and tastes to launch us into the past and to places as yet unknown.

[jessk]

Manikya, a sanskrit word meaning, "One whose words are like rubies." Thank you for the words and for the experience of seeing earth as one who holds our deep, collective memory and of friendship with the earth.

[noone_at_midnight]

Truly beautiful video. There's way to little videos about tea and master's of tea. Learning about tea in the eest is hard so I appreciate every video.

[TJM]

This was incredibly well made, and as a 'tea head' I massively appreciate the subject matter :) Bravo!

[uqox]

I feel this way about tea, but do not have the words to express how much I enjoy the taste and the ceremony of drinking it. What a wonderful movie. Thank you.

[originorder]

Incredible cinematic scenes and story telling. 👏🏻

[reneenadia]

Thought evoking...thanks for this documetary.

[Shmyrk]

Wow. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. So beautiful and truly moving

[dwightmansburden]

I’m new to pu er, and so far I just can’t get over the leathery smell. It’s just too overpowering, and makes me almost nauseous. But I think I am simply not ready for it yet. I will put it away and come back to it later.

Beautiful video, it helped my blood pressure immensely.

[MikaelBondestam]

Maison det trois thes is a must when you visit Paris.

[misha_gulko]

Good video 👍🏻 Enjoyed it a lot.
However, what does it mean “the first female tea master”? “Tea master” is not an official title. Moreover, there is no public consensus regarding whom to call a tea master. Some call it people who produce tea, while others call it those who brew it. There are so many females in Gong Fu Cha, both in China and in Taiwan. – Weird.

[michaelmarchal]

Jai acheter du the a Pu'er et j'ai visite Des ateliers. Ils ne sont pas mort.

[IAMZERG]

Yup. Gotta be careful drinking pu-erh. can be a bit much sometimes.