The Great Tea Heist: Secrets Revealed (Part 2)
Robert Fortune’s journey was far from over. After infiltrating China in disguise, Fortune now sets his sights on the Wuyi Mountains—steeped in legend, veiled in mist, and home to the most coveted tea ...
22 Apr 20251h 18min
The Great Tea Heist: Mission Received (Part 1)
The British thirst for tea had become insatiable by the mid-19th century, but there was one problem: nearly all of it came from China. For the East India Company, this dependency was a costly vulnerab...
15 Apr 20251h 10min
The History of Chili Peppers (Part 2)
When Portuguese traders arrived on India’s western shores in the early 1500s, they brought more than religion, colonial ambition, and a lust for spice - they also carried with them a tiny, crimson fru...
8 Apr 202547min
The History of Chili Peppers (Part 1)
For millennia, chili peppers have been at the heart of the Americas - long before Columbus set sail, before the Aztecs built their empire, and before the Incas wove them into myth. Originating in what...
1 Apr 202548min
Death by Olives (Livestream)
On August 23, 1919, a celebratory dinner at the Lakeside Club in Canton, Ohio, was held in honor of Col. Charles C. Weybrecht’s return from France at the end of the First World War. But what began as ...
25 Mar 202539min
The History of Olives
The story of the olive is one of resilience, empire, and cultural transformation. From its first human interactions in Africa over 100,000 years ago to its role in the economies of the great Mediterra...
18 Mar 20251h 5min
Saemaul Undong: How a Rural Movement Transformed South Korea’s Agriculture
In the wake of war, division, and rapid industrialization, South Korea’s countryside faced a crisis. By the late 1960s, rural poverty was deepening, farmers were abandoning their fields for the cities...
11 Mar 202546min
Russia, Ukraine, and the Battle for the Breadbasket
The relationship between Russia and Ukraine is as much about soil as it is about politics. The fertile black earth of Ukraine—cherished by empires, fought over by nations—has been both a source of gre...
4 Mar 202541min
