Good news for Chinese readers: related article has been published in Wenzhuo‘s column Tea Perspectives of November 2021 <Tea Times 茶博览> tea magazine in Chinese, 观茶者专栏-“Laszlo Montgomery: 洛杉矶的中国茶史博客”.
Modern people read less and listen more. Podcasts in the form of audio on demand may be the future development direction of we media. The podcast has low production cost and simple operation, as long as the audience has an Internet connection, it can be shared with anyone anywhere in the world. Laszlo Montgomery, who lived in Los Angeles after retirement, started to build China’s history podcast Teacup Media in 2010 out of his personal interest in Chinese history. Laszlo had many contacts with Wang Xufeng, a tea novel writer who won the Mao Dun Literature Award and a columnist of China national tea journal <Tea Times>…, and was invited to give a speech at Zhejiang agriculture and Forestry University where she taught. Inspired by this, Laszlo added the tea history series to the podcast in 2014. The celadon teacup given by Mr. Wang at that time has been used so far.
Laslzo and Wang Xufeng
In order to better understand the long history of tea, Laszlo also personally visited Qionglai, Sichuan along the ancient tea horse road, visited tea mountains and dark tea processing, and experienced the local tea culture. His tea history series mainly focuses on the history of Chinese tea. From Shennong (legendary god of farming) chat to the end of the 19th century, it has received millions of hits and downloads. In 2016, Cathay Pacific Airlines took its Chinese idiom series podcast as part of the on-board entertainment system. In order to attract more tea listeners, Laszlo separated the tea history part from his main Chinese history podcast, re edited, recorded and added new content, arranged in chronological order, and produced a 20 episode independent podcast. The program was re launched in May 2021, updated weekly, and is now all online. He said that once the content of tea history podcast enters the early 20th century, he will adjust the program form and try to interview tea experts and other guests familiar with tea history and culture.
Tea is a topic of interest to people all over the world, tea culture is very popular all over the world. More and more serious tea people focus on tea culture, they can be found in almost every city. In their tea space, people can not only experience tea culture, but also understand new types of tea from all over the world. Laszlo looks forward to visiting cities around the world to learn more about local tea culture and record it on his podcast and YouTube channel after the end of the COVID-19. Laszlo received invitations from tea people from Africa and India, they hope he can introduce some of their tea history. Each tea producing country has some interesting stories, origins and history. If he has the opportunity to visit the author in Germany, he is particularly interested in enjoying the German tea ceremony and tasting a cup of East Frisian tea. Laszlo had a listener from East frisland who learned about this tea culture.
Before retiring, Laszlo had been involved in sales and marketing in China’s manufacturing industry for 35 years. He joked that now he no longer sells made in China, but “peddles” Chinese history to the world. Laszlo hopes that with his unique broadcasting method, through objective and neutral narration, it can achieve the effect of both refined and popular tastes. Most listeners are ordinary people who like to learn or re learn Chinese history in a way of teaching and fun, and are also welcomed by professionals and celebrities. Compared with reading thick Chinese history books or listening to relatively boring academic lectures, ordinary people in the fast-paced modern society prefer the form of podcasts. Whether it is businessmen or institutions from various countries who want to communicate with China seeking opportunities for understanding and communication, or the roots seeking of overseas Chinese and their descendants, or the curiosity about China because their partners or friends are Chinese, there are also Chinese students who listen to the podcast for learning English.
In today’s tense US China relations, in such an era of fierce political struggle, propaganda and misinformation, Laszlo narrates Chinese history objectively and neutrally, and the audience understands China’s past history through listening, so as to better think independently and objectively, alleviate people’s anxiety and doubts about China to some extent, and help improve US China relations. He believes that any sponsor or advertiser should be happy to be associated with the quality and cleanliness of his podcast content.
Good news for Chinese readers: related article has been published in Wenzhuo‘s column Tea Perspectives of November 2021 <Tea Times 茶博览> tea magazine in Chinese, 观茶者专栏-“Laszlo Montgomery: 洛杉矶的中国茶史博客”.
Tea Perspectives of November 2021 <Tea Times 茶博览>