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ZHA ATH (7 E'HAS 9) SCRIPT - PENCHARNER TRANSLATION DISCLAIMER THIS PENCHARNER-LANGUAGE SCRIPT OF ZHA ATH, AS WITH ANY OTHER SCRIPTS ON THIS WEB-BULLETIN, IS INTENDED FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, TO ENABLE THE AUDIENCE TO APPRECIATE DACHENVERAZHID FILMOGRAPHY WITH GREATER CONTEXT AND TO FACILITATE INTRODUCING THE MEDIUM TO OTHERS, IN COMPLIANCE WITH TITLE 17 OF THE PENCHARN CODE, THIS SCRIPT MAY BE EXCERPTED FOR DISCUSSION, PROMOTION, AND OTHER NON-PROFIT PURPOSES AS LONG AS NO ALTERATIONS TO THE CONTENTS ARE MADE. THIS SCRIPT IS NOT INTENDED AS A COMPETING PRODUCT TO ANY COMMERCIAL RELEASE OF THE FILM, AND ALL COMMERCIAL USES OF THIS SCRIPT ARE EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED. USERS OF THIS SCRIPT ARE RECOMMENDED TO PURCHASE THE COMMERCIAL RELEASE DISTRIBUTED BY SECOND FIDDLE CINEMA, TONG VEY, PENCHARN.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE THE MAJORITY OF THE NARRATION AND INTERVIEWS IN ZHA ATH WERE RECORDED IN THE DIALECT OF VERAZHIN SPOKEN IN AND AROUND THE CITY OF AVEIO, IN THE WESTERN ORCHORENS OF THU-EVRESAR PROVINCE, WITH SUBTITLES IN NI-CELVAZ (TRANSLATED BY DOCUMENTARY SUBJECT ORAVO NEDANEZHEN) BURNED IN. THIS SCRIPT IS A TRANSLATION OF THE OFFICIAL NI-CELVAZ TEXT, NOT A TRANSLATION OF THE VERAZHIN OR OF THE CORRECTED NI-CELVAZ TRANSLATION CREATED BY CMFFD (THE CELVAZ DACHENVERAZHID KINEMA TRANSLATION PROJECT). THERE ARE A LOT OF VERAZHIN WORDS LEFT UNTRANSLATED IN THE SUBTITLES, MOSTLY UNITS OF MEASUREMENT, CURRENCY, AND TEA VARIETIES. I LEFT THESE WORDS AS-IS. WHEN SOMETHING IS UNDERLINED IN THE SCRIPT, THAT MEANS IT'S A NI-CELVAZ LOANWORD. FOR EXAMPLE: IF YOU READ "TEA" THAT MEANS THE SPEAKER USED THE VERAZHIN WORD "ZHA"; IF YOU READ "TEA" THAT MEANS THE SPEAKER USED THE NI-CELVAZ WORD "BAELVA". OBSERVATIONAL: A cotton-gloved hand puts a five-zashan piece into the slot of a gas stove of the style common to rented apartments across the Elflands. Flames lick the bottom of a pot of water. NARRATOR (V/O): Every day, almost one hundred crore cups of tea are consumed worldwide. Dachenverazheisei drink about half of them. OBSERVATIONAL: Beside the stove, the hands unwrap a palm-sized cake of dark orchor from a square of undyed cotton cloth. With a knife, the hands break off a small section. NARRATOR (V/O): Nearly every cup of tea begins its life in Dachenverazhan. The nation grows more than 75 ½—or 97%—of the approximately 78 crore zhin of tea leaves sold every year. OBSERVATIONAL: The hands place the chunk of orchor into a clear glass bowl with a wide lip and a flat-knobbed lid. They ladle now-boiling water into the bowl and cover it with the lid, swirling the water around the bowl for a few seconds to wash and loosen the tea. Then they pour the water out, careful to use the lid to trap the tea leaves inside. The hand ladles more hot water into the bowl, now letting it steep. Through the clear glass, we watch the tea liquor grow darker and darker over the course of some 45 seconds, until it is almost black. NARRATOR (V/O): This 130 crore muranai industry accounts for twelve percent of Dachenverazhan's gross domestic product—a staggering number considered alongside the textile and manufacturing industries—and employs twenty lakh Dachenverazheisei, most of whom are women. OBSERVATIONAL: The hand steadily pours the tea from the bowl into a ceramic cup. The dark orchor inside the bowl has expanded considerably during the steeping. NARRATOR (V/O): We invite you today to come with us zhaoi at the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory, whether you are Dachenverazheisei or foreigner, to see the work that goes into a cup of tea: the growing, the picking, the many stages of processing, the packaging, the selling, and—of course—the making. OBSERVATIONAL: The hands lift the cup of orchor, and the kamera pans up to follow it as it rises. The pair of hands belong to an elven female figure: daintily beaded cotton belt, pristine shirtwaist with puffed gigot sleeves, a green veil printed with the outlines of assorted leaves held in place beneath a half-mask of pale wood. NARRATOR (V/O): The drinking, you can do while you watch. OBSERVATIONAL: She holds the cup of orchor with outstretched arms, as if offering it to the kamera. Unreadable beneath veil and mask, her head tilts to the side; angles slightly up. B-ROLL: A crowded convention hall full of rows of tables, seated staff on one side and standing customers on the other. There are only a few elves among the throng. (MURMURATIONS OF THE CROWD) OBSERVATIONAL: A sign board reading: "CELVAZ TEA EXPO → NARRATOR (V/O): Let us begin at the end of our journey, the Celvaz Tea Expo. Held every year in Seleya, the expo is where distributors like shops and restaurants make connections with tea producers. There are workshops and tastings, and a competition, if a tea producer is brave to put her blend to the test. Winning in your category makes very good business. OBSERVATIONAL: A booth staffed by three elven women, two in full mask and veil, one bare-faced. The booth is merchandised with an assortment of Edrehasivareise Revival style glass tea-jars, and one of the employees—the green veil wearing woman from earlier—is pouring samples for customers. The banner behind their booth reads, in ni-Celvaz and Ethuverazhin, Foundling Girls Orchor Factory. NARRATOR (V/O): The Foundling Girls Orchor Factory is the only Dachenverazheise woman-owned tea producer attending the Celvaz Tea Expo. OBSERVATIONAL: The faced employee, a white-faced and green-eyed woman with plain metal hoops in her ears and simple wooden tashin sticks in her braids. She is around forty years old. She sits at a two-seat tea table with various accoutrements, including a jar of Foundling Girls Orchor Factory branded tea, and holds a cup of a pale golden tea in her hands as she speaks. ORAVO: (IN NI-CELVAZ) We were the first Dachenverazheise company to attend CTE. We—that is, we myself—might make enemies saying it, but it is true. There are other companies who do almost everything in Dachenverazhan, not just growing and drying but all of the processing and packing for sale, and maybe you want to call this company Dachenverazheise, but it is not really, because the packaging was designed by a foreigner, the tea is all processed and blended for foreign tastes, it is not sold at home or only a very little, and the company is a business partnership between Osmer So-and-so and a foreigner who says he handles marketing. So really it is no different from any company which buys raw kol leaf from Dachenverazheise gardens and makes Celvazhid tea here, for Celvazheisei. OBSERVATIONAL: She waves. ORAVO: (IN NI-CELVAZ) We are very proud, that we ourselves do all this, and do not make concessions. Powder tea or resin tea is very popular with foreigners, but it is not drank in Ethuveraz—in, in Dachenverazhan. So we do not produce it. OBSERVATIONAL: Oravo unlatches the amber lid of the tea jar in front of her, and spoons out some loose tea into a small bowl, and holds it out to the kamera. ORAVO: And so we expanded from orchor to a wider range of traditional Dachenverazhid teas, including isevren and an isevren blend we are introducing this year for the first time to the Celvaz Tea Expo, which we are all very excited about. OBSERVATIONAL: Close view of the tea, which has pale yellow leaves blended with pieces of dry fruit and nuts. ORAVO: Three minutes. OBSERVATIONAL: The timer run out, Oravo pours herself a cup, the tea leaves remaining inside the pouring vessel without her having to do anything. She sniffs the pale golden liquor with a satisfied smile, then takes a sip. OBSERVATIONAL: The FGOF booth at the Celvaz Tea Expo. Oravo, at far left of frame, is speaking animatedly with a Pencharner man; the two masked and veiled employees wave gloved hands to the kamera. Text overlay in a handwritten bilingual scrawl, arrows pointing to each woman. OVERLAY: ORAVO, HEAD OF GLOBAL MARKETING. Getting a distribution deal with a luxury greengrocer in Tong Vey. PARU, TEA BLENDER. Her first time out of Dachenverazhan. EMERO, EXPORTS COORDINATOR. Bravely nursing a hangover. PARU: It's so satisfying to see it all come together! Look, look— OBSERVATIONAL: Paru, in the green veil and half-mask, shows off the merchandise display to the kamera. PARU: All of the packaging is so pretty, with the glass all sparkling under the lights... We do not have space to show everything we're selling on the table at once, we have the catalog for that, but here we have out our most popular. Here is the classic golden orchor, and the dark orchor—both of these are pure kol leaves, the different flavor is just in the processing—and then is the kolveris blend... OBSERVATIONAL: She opens up an amber glass jar whose label reads "KOLVERIS SPICED TEA BLEND", showing off the blend of golden-brown leaves, course-ground salt, peppercorn, pieces of nuts, cinnamon bark, and citrus peel. PARU: I made this one! It is so strange to see it like this, all loose leaves and spices like how it left my table. PARU: For foreigners, they don't like the cakes, thou see'st. They don't know what to do with them! And Oravo says it is better when they have a souvenir when they have finished, not just a paper wrap. But, ah, anyway, then there is the new isevren blend, this was a very interesting tea to work with. I said to thee before already—oh, but thou knowest, Csesa, but the film is backwards, isn't it! So I shall say it again, for you watchers in the future. PARU: Our gardens grow kol, small-leaf tea, this one right here. OBSERVATIONAL: Paru stretches out a part of her veil and points at one of the leaves printed on it, narrow with a smoothly tapered pointy leaf-tip. PARU: Kol is traditionally processed into orchor and kolveris, and sometimes the milk teas, eladriät and so on. I grew up at the foundling school, so I've been working with kol ever since I was... ten, eleven years old? First as a picker, then a sorter, and then I began training to process the tea when I was fifteen. PARU: I know our kol very, very well. How it behaves when it is grown in sun, when it is in shade, the difference between the high mountain gardens and the gardens down in Aveio proper, the flavors that come out with different oxidation levels, what botanicals and fruits and spices will bring out the best qualities in the tea. PARU: With isevren, I know none of this. OBSERVATIONAL: She points to another leaf printed on her veil, this one still small but almost oval shaped. PARU: Isevren is not just a different cultivar, it's a separate subspecies altogether, and its likes, dislikes, these are a mystery to me. Like men. (SHE LAUGHS) PARU: Our isevren, we spent a lot of time taste-testing from different gardens before we decided to work with Osmer Mila Zhelenar. The Zhelenada have operated a smallholder isevren garden on the city limits of Zhaö for almost eighteen hundred years. It is very, very good tea, and we are pleased to be able to share it with the Celvazheisei. OBSERVATIONAL: Opening the two jars of isevren, one full of pale tea-buds covered with fine hairs, the other a combination of these and a handful of other flower buds and dried fruits. PARU: Isevren is usually processed and drunk as a pure tea, without any botanicals, but Osmer Zhelenar worked with us, myself and my colleague Iman, to put together a blend well suited to uplift isevren's unique characteristics. The result of months of experimentation with different ratios and processing methods, our 'Zhaö By Starlight' isevren blend is a modern twist on a classic cup. EMERO: (UNDER HER BREATH) Didst remember to say it after all! I had my doubts. PARU: Oh, hush! OBSERVATIONAL: Paru swats at Emero with the back of her hand. OBSERVATIONAL: The women packing up their merchandise for the night; loading it onto carts; bringing it upstairs to their hotel room. (UNINTELLIGIBLE CHATTER) OBSERVATIONAL: The women settle down to a meal, ignoring the bar-height seats at the kitchenette in favor of stacking plates and cups atop a small piece of luggage. OBSERVATIONAL: Emero brings a copper tea pot over from the kitchenette. Paru pats the ground at her left. PARU: Csesa, come on! OBSERVATIONAL: The kamera jitters as it is set down to keep the meal in frame. Csesa comes into frame from the waist down in a jacket, waistcoat, trousers, and heavy workman’s boots. Fabric falling into frame as he throws on a dot-print veil. EMERO: Oh, very handsome. OBSERVATIONAL: Oravo, still unveiled, begins pouring tea for everyone at the makeshift table, beginning at her left-hand side and pouring for herself last. (VOLUME DUCKS, CONVERSATION BECOMES UNINTELLIGIBLE) OBSERVATIONAL: Paru and Csesa swap a single cup back and forth, the motions awkward underneath the veils they wear for the kamera. NARRATOR (O/S): Tea is a part of daily life in Dachenverazhan, with a place at the breakfast table and the pilgrimage site. Courting couples often share a single cup of orchor, a very old tradition from Thu-Istandaär that had almost died out before Iäna Pel-Thenhior's film Salt Upon Stone famously depicted it. B-ROLL: From the "cup passing" sequence in Salt Upon Stone: while chaperoning his sister and her intended, protagonist Herta watches the pair from across the parlor. We see the exact moment of exchange, when the cup connects her hand to his; Herta sits alone. He runs a thumb along the chipped rim of his own cup. Through the window, he looks out at a memory of himself and the late Edis sitting in the grass. Edis takes a sip from a small cup with a diamond pattern along the rim–the very cup which Herta holds now. Edis smiles from behind the cup; eyeline match to present day Herta as he holds the cup to his lips. He does not drink from it. NARRATOR (O/S): But what is tea? In ni-Celvaz, the word 'tea' actually means 'from the elves'. When we borrowed it back as 'belva', it came to mean any hot drink, whether that's tea or a tisane or a drinking soup. We even have a 'belva Celvazheise', or c'elva—that's what we call copeä berry tisane. (TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Pneumapedia and my bilingual dictionary both proved unhelpful here, but I think she’s talking about coffee.) NARRATOR (O/S): Neither is 'tea' easily defined, lest you be an agronomist or botanist. Around the empire, perhaps it varies, but in Thu-Evresar, if someone asks if you want tea, what they mean is, will you let them pay for dinner at a teahouse? A warm cup or three is assured, but so is a hearty meal. Zhaö—the nymph, not the city named for her—is, after all, known for the generosity she showed Enceda, feeding him when he was starving with the fruit of her own body. B-ROLL: A tea stall at a street market in Aveio, Thu-Evresar, its hand-written signage all chalk-on-slate in an Ethuverazhid script. The Foundling Girls Orchor Factory logo is visible on the paper wraps of several tea cakes of varying sizes, from tiny cakes sized for a single pot to platter-sized blocks. There are also tea cakes from other producers, as well as large jars of loose chamomile and other flowers, whole coffee beans, and other dried herbs. Figures visible onscreen are either veiled or carefully cut out. Those cut out reveal more b-roll footage of carefully tended tea gardens beneath their silhouettes. NARRATOR (O/S): Botanists recognize more than a dozen subspecies of the zhaö tree, but only three are cultivated to make tea: aika, kol, and isevren. Within these subspecies are dozens if not hundreds of kultivarsin. Some zhaoi also produce 'wild tea' from untended zhaö trees, including those of different subspecies than the traditional three, but this makes up only 4% of tea processed in Dachenverazhan. OBSERVATIONAL: Within the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory. With their figures shrouded, it is impossible to gauge the ages of the girls sitting on small stools with enormous bags of loose-leaf tea between their legs, scooping tea into the glass jars that will later sit out for sale at the Celvaz Tea Expo. Each girl has a different kind of tea blend, one with very bright green leaves curled up tightly and mixed with chunks of dried ginger; another with straight, narrow leaves so dark they look almost black; a third is the kolveris we saw earlier. NARRATOR (O/S): Aika grows best in the south, as it does poorly with frost. It was first cultivated in the Khelanra region of what used to be Barizhan. Kol and isevren are both heartier plants, originally cultivated in Thu-Evresar and along the banks of the Athamara respectively. NARRATOR (O/S): Orchor, the fermented tea for which the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory gets its name, is grown in the Orchorens from kol leaves; fermented tea made of aika or isevren, or in kol from a different terroir, is called 'black' or 'golden' tea, depending on other aspects of its processing. Fully oxidized teas are called 'red tea'; partially oxidized teas including vezvaishorisevren are called 'blue tea'; unoxidized teas are 'green' or 'yellow' depending on the other particulars; tea that has only been air-dried is called 'white tea'. OBSERVATIONAL: There are six girls working in the dingy room: three pack jars, and three take the newly-packed jars and brush hot wax around the lids to seal them. OVERLAY: Names and arrows. BENU (attending history classes at the University of Aveio), MALEÄN (marrying next month!), and IÄRO (has forgotten all her interests) pack tea. LELO (adventure novel enthusiast), CSETHIRO (aspiring judicial Witness), and HELAN (loves tending her flower garden) seal the jars. MALEÄN: An thou wert a vegetable, what vegetable wouldst thou be? CSETHIRO: What? IÄRO: Okra, I think. HELAN: Thou'rt hardly slimy enough to be okra. BENU: Helan is a potato, to be certain. MALEÄN: I can see it. Very hard-working vegetable, a potato. NARRATOR (O/S): Packing the tea for sale is time consuming work, and at the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory, like many other small tea producers, the work is done entirely by hand. OBSERVATIONAL: Close on Lelo, working as she's interviewed. LELO: We chat, mostly. It is a lot of busy work with your hands and not much thinking, so we gossip, or talk about gentlemen... Some of the girls, the older ones, are married and don't live at the foundling school any longer, so they're always talking about their gardens or their children. Csethiro and I both spin, though she spins drop and I use a treadle, so half the time we're talking about dyeing and boring everyone else to tears. If someone is a good storyteller, we'll probably set her to recounting a book until she gets sick of it. CSESA (O/S): Do all of the girls who work here live at the foundling school, or used to? LELO: Not everyone, but most of us. All of the grunts, certainly. Packers and pickers. CSESA (O/S): Do you like it here? LELO: Why wouldn't I? It's good work, and the school gives us food and beds and warm clothes, and Osmerrem Acranaran—that's the woman who funds the foundling school and the company—went to university, so she insists we're all taught to read and write and do sums, which means if we don't want to stay in the tea industry after we turn sixteen we can make better entry rates and needn't pay out of pocket for literacy classes. LELO: You won't lose a hand processing tea, neither, and you certainly can't say that about some of the other manufactories. The worst I've ever gotten was a wax burn. Airships explode! OBSERVATIONAL: An assortment of posters pinned to the wall. One reads ALL WORKERS HAVE A RIGHT TO: A SAFE WORKPLACE, REPORT WORKPLACE SAFETY VIOLATIONS TO THE THU-EVRESAREISE WORKER SAFETY COMMISSION, ACCESS MATERIAL SAFETY SHEETS IN A LANGUAGE ACCESSIBLE TO YOU, et cetera. Another: YOUR EMPLOYER CANNOT COMPEL YOU TO: TAKE MAZ-BOUND OATHS, WORK FOR MORE THAN FOURTEEN HOURS PER WORKDAY, OR MORE THAN EIGHT HOURS WITHOUT A BREAK, OPERATE MACHINERY YOU DO NOT HAVE A LICENSE TO OPERATE, et cetera. A third: THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN IN THE WORKPLACE... NARRATOR (O/S): Working conditions have come a long way since the days of the Varedeise emperors. Edrehasivar VII's labor reform act focused on implementing safety protocols around fire, dangerous chemicals, and machinery, improving sanitation, air quality, and lighting conditions on the manufactory floor, raising wages, shortening the work day, and protecting the interests of working children. NARRATOR (O/S): But many important jobs cannot be made perfectly safe. Workers in dangerous professions are well-trained, well-paid, and well-supported should the worst happen, but many prefer to earn lower wages for little to no risk—and foundlings, like all working children in Dachenverazhan, must be employed in safe environments. B-ROLL: Tea cake wrappers (in Ethuverazhid script) and labels for the glass jars (multi-lingual) are stamped by disembodied hands, a multi-step process taken one color at a time. B-ROLL: Molten glass coming out of a furnace, then fitted and blown into a mold. OBSERVATIONAL: Oravo again, this time stood against a brick interior. Despite the lighting’s best efforts, half of her unveiled face is in shadow. ORAVO: The Foundling Girls Orchor Factory is not the only foundling school that puts its girls to work in the tea industry, but it is unique in the care it takes both in producing quality artisanal teas and training up the girls in its charge both with a strong, well-rounded knowledge of the industry they're employed in and with a generalist education. OBSERVATIONAL: A plain brick building with a sign out front reading ACRANADEISE SCHOOL FOR FOUNDLING GIRLS. The figures of girls and young women are cut-out, with fresh tea leaves again beneath. ORAVO: They learn to read, to write, to do sums and algebra; there is a small library at the school and Osmerrem Acranaran made an agreement with the University of Aveio that the girls may use the university library, free of charge—her brother is on the board of directors there, we believe? ORAVO: The girls have access to a few typewriters, if they're interested in learning that skill. B-ROLL: A classroom within the Arcanadeise school. A whole pack of cut-out figures crowd around one girl’s desk as she demonstrates her typing speed. ORAVO: There are vegetable gardens on the grounds, so the girls are taught to tend them, and they're encouraged to take up other interests. B-ROLL: An older, veiled girl directs two of her juniors (themselves cut-out) in pulling weeds from a small patch of vegetables. B-ROLL: A veiled girl works carefully at a table-loom. She pauses her work to take down notes. B-ROLL: Supervised by a veiled woman, a girl with protective goggles over her mask uses glass-blowers’ shears to trim away excess. ORAVO: One of the glassblowers we contract with, to make the jars we sell to foreigners, is actually a former student of the foundling school, who took up a glassblowing apprenticeship while she still lived at the school, supported by her earnings as a picker. ORAVO: We—that is, we myself—have worked with the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory for five years now, and it really is a wonderful environment. We believe in the mission, we see how well the girls are treated. B-ROLL: Several girls, some older, some younger, and all veiled, sit in a circle on the grass. Each one pursues her own fiber-craft; some knit, others embroider, others chain knots into bracelets or bookmarks. One girl drapes the hat she is making over her friend’s head. The friend bats the other away until they fall over together, laughing. ORAVO: Food, clothes, sanitary products, everything they need they get from the school, and they still earn wages. More than the company is required to pay them. If we had had the option as a girl to live and work somewhere like this, we would have loved it. CSESA (O/S): You were a foundling? OBSERVATIONAL: Back to Oravo in front of the brick interior. ORAVO: Our father couldn't support us or our sister. The foundling school we were sent to just chopped off our hair and set us to work as domestics-for-rent. We became a courier at thirteen; we had the head for it, luckily. CSESA (O/S): What of your sister? ORAVO: She became a prostitute. Many foundling girls do. When one hasn't a name or an education, hasn't a dowry or the funds to support an apprenticeship or novitiate, where else does one go but the procurers? ORAVO: That is why places like this are so important. None of these girls will be forced into that work. An they join the ranks of the demimonde, be it as prostitutes, operaneisei, kinemeisei, or whatever else, it will be their own choice. They have resources enough from their upbringing that they will not fall prey to men pushing them before a kamera in order to earn their keep. B-ROLL: Two girls, masked and veiled, dig through a costume chest. They take turns choosing pieces for one another—a crown of worn silk flowers, a knit shawl decorated with chipped glass beads, a scarf of hand-quilted leaves. The girls sit on either side of a table. They fan themselves with folded paper and mime sipping tea. B-ROLL: Oravo and a third girl sit at a distance. The third girl talks silently to Oravo while working on a charcoal sketch of her costumed friends. Now we see the sketch itself. The artist, though clearly a beginner, shows promise. Oravo smiles and nods along. She laughs at something the sketch artist has said. CSESA (O/S): You're opposed to the kamera, then? I assumed... ORAVO: 'Opposed' is a strong word. We grew up Adaneise, and we do not know if we believe what the Ulineisei preach about photographs and the dead, or if it matters an they're correct. A person's choice is a person's choice. But our sister had no choice but to pose for photographs an she wanted to keep her room at the brothel, and... wherever she goes, in the end, we would go with her. B-ROLL: Some time later, the costumed girls stand behind Oravo and the artist. They jump up and down, excited to see themselves depicted in a friend’s hand. Close on Oravo. She watches the three younger girls fondly. ORAVO: Now His Serenity Mahar'avar has ordered the selling of faced films permissible, our selfishness is put to good use. It is easier to forget there is a person behind a veil, and what we want—what all of us here at the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory want—is to show the world the people behind the products they consume. ORAVO: A lot of skill, a lot of time, goes into even the making of mass-produced manufactory goods like airship parts and motor-loomed fabrics... B-ROLL: A veiled trio focuses intently on sorting refuse out from viable leaves. A set of gloved fingers quickly picks a series of bug-eaten and discolored leaves from the pile. The contents of the refuse bin grow leaf by leaf. ORAVO: ...and the quality of our work, Dachenverazheise work, is clear in that foreigners seek it out to buy, but the whole country becomes a big manufactory to them, like we are machines and not artisans. We want to change that perspective! We do not want foreigners to associate our country with... with Zhelsu and sharadansho. B-ROLL: B-ROLL: A short clip of the opening sequence from Pel-Thenhior's Zhelsu in which a line of manufactory workers toil miserably away at the same metal sheet. The Overseer’s shadow stretches across the screen, consuming the workers. Backlit, the Overseer’s face is barely visible save for the cold glint in his eyes. B-ROLL: A second clip from Zhelsu; in this one, Zhelsu keeps her chin held high in defiance of the Overseer. B-ROLL: A clip from the BTS footage of Zhelsu in which Zhelsu’s actress is happily embraced by one of her fellow actresses. The pair grin wildly. ORAVO: A lot has changed in the last forty years! Dachenverazheisei produce luxury goods with a high standard of craftsmanship in good conditions. ORAVO: Our country has a bad habit of putting only the very worst of us in front of the kamera. By sharing stories from the girls whose educations a purchase from the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory supports with every jar of tea—by making this film!—we hope to show tea-making personalized, and help change how people think of women's labor, girls' labor, and how foreigners think of our nation. OBSERVATIONAL: Seated around a low, northern-style table, several veiled women glue the colorfully-printed and designed labels onto the glass jars for foreign sale. OVERLAY: Arrows point out TEVO (woodcut artist), MARAN (widowed mother), RECSU (wants to visit Pencharn one day), CORAN (everyone's favorite), and LEILAN (loves Thu-Athamareise cal’operai). NARRATOR (O/S): Few of the girls are as bold as Oravo to take off their veils before the kamera. TEVO: I can't say I've thought much about Ulis's opinion, but I want to marry one day, and I won't have my husband's family thinking me loose because I've been on film. CORAN: (LAUGHS) That shan't be why they think thee lo—(SHRIEKS) OBSERVATIONAL: Tevo flings the cup of water the girls use to wet their paintbrushes at Coran. OBSERVATIONAL: A brightly lamp-lit room with tiled floors and walls, with shelving on two of the visible walls. One holds enormous bowls, scoops, ladles, and whisks, and large wooden crates full of empty drawstring bags; the other wall's shelves hold those drawstring bags full to bursting, with hand-written tags on their cords. A small all-metal console desk beside a large stone-topped table holds a clipboard with a sheaf of papers, a pen, and a long, skinny length of fabric. PARU: I don't usually do this veiled. Um... OBSERVATIONAL: Her back to the kamera, Paru unfastens the cord holding the back of her wooden half mask in place, setting it down on the table, then carefully folds her veil back so it rests atop her head. CSESA (O/S): The veils we use on set for the crew have an extra band sewn into the inside that ties around one's forehead and at the nape of the neck, so the front of the veil can flip back. PARU: That sounds so much easier! Ah, anyway, I'm putting on more layers because when we're blending tea, there are a lot of small particles of tea dust that will come off of the leaves and other ingredients in the blend. If you inhale a lot of the dust, it will make you cough, or it can even make you sick with a bronchine over time. So you want to keep from breathing it in. OBSERVATIONAL: With a gloved hand, Paru reaches for the length of fabric, and tightly winds it around her face and over the loose veil, twice over her nose and mouth and once over her forehead. Knotting the ends together secures both veils, and then she ties her mask back on. PARU: All right, I think I've got it. OBSERVATIONAL: She turns around and gives the kamera a little bow. CSESA (O/S): Wonderful! Good job. PARU: I look a right fool, don't I. CSESA (O/S): I'm not fool enough to tell my girl any such thing, thankee. PARU: Good boy. I've trained thee well! Now, ah, in order to meet our targets, I'll have to blend 100 zhin of tea today, though I'd like to get 140. OBSERVATIONAL: With a wet rag, Paru wipes down the table and the pen, then follows with a dry rag. CSESA (O/S): How many more batches of tea is that? OBSERVATIONAL: She takes down one of the bowls. Made of steel, it's so large around that it's hard for her to get a grip on it. Several smaller bowls are nestled inside. (CLANGING OF METAL) PARU: Oh, just two. 20 zhin is about the point where the tea is too unwieldy to blend by hand. CSESA (O/S): It's all done by hand? OBSERVATIONAL: The bowl goes atop the work surface, beside a large tabletop scale. Another bowl, much smaller, is placed on the scale. She tares the scale with a dial, then pulls down a stack of large scoops. PARU: 'Tis! The larger factories, they're machine work, but everything here is hand-blended, hand-sorted, hand-picked. The price is higher, but so is the quality, and no one is getting her braids caught in a rotary. OBSERVATIONAL: Next, several of the full bags from the left wall's shelf are pulled down and lined up against the wall on the work surface. PARU: Now everything is prepared, I can get to blending. This is a batch of Zhaö By Starlight, our new isevren blend that will be premiering at the Celvaz Tea Expo. CSESA (O/S): Wilt walk me through through it? PARU: Oh, yes! Here we have the ingredients, which we pack down into these bags to make them a bit more manageable for blending. CSESA (O/S): How much is in a bag? PARU: That depends very much on what it is. Some things, chamomile flowers for example, are incredibly light, and one of these bags will only hold one zhin. Tea leaves might be three to ten zhin, depending on the way it's processed. Roots might be ten, fifteen zhin to a bag. PARU: Once we have the ingredients, as we do, the first step is paperwork. OBSERVATIONAL: She holds up the clipboard for the kamera. As she speaks, she scribbles things down, flipping through several pages on the clipboard and also checking the tags on the bags on the work surface. PARU: For each ingredient we mark down the lot number—one must never mix two lots—and confirm that our certificates are all in order from the supplier, if it comes from outside. Basically, are they using the correct pesticides, has it been tested for molds, was the whole production process during a timeframe while the supplier was certified to be in compliance with the Farm Workers Wages Act, which is mandatory in order for us to keep our government subsidies... I know it is boring. Everything here is in order, so I can initial and date everything and fill out all of the lot numbers. PARU: After that, we begin weighing! I cannot show thee the ratios, I'm afraid 'tis a secret. OBSERVATIONAL: Paru opens the bag of isevren, and begins to fill the bowl on the scale with heaping scoops of tea leaves. Once she is satisfied with the amount, she empties the smaller bowl into the large mixing bowl. She repeats this step six times. PARU: First the isevren... This comes from the Zhelenada, whose tea garden is just outside Zhaö. They were so wonderful to work with on this project. Iman and I—Iman is our other blender, but she didn't want to be on kamera even veiled—went down to Zhaö last harvest and we worked with Osmer Zhelenar using the harvest flush to test out different processing methods before we landed on the perfect marriage of what the Zhelenada and we Acranadeisoi do best. PARU: This, the final tea, is from the second flush, of course. And how we do it, well, that is a secret. But I will say the resulting cup is a little bit blue. OBSERVATIONAL: The next ingredient, delicate flower buds. Once weighed out and added to the mixing bowl, Paru begins to toss the mixture of isevren and jasmine with her gloved hands. PARU: After the tea, jasmine flowers, and one can wait until every ingredient is added before mixing, but I find it easier to blend in stages, so I'll mix these two until it is reasonably homogenous. PARU: Next by volume, there are these... oh, I honestly don't know what they're properly called, but these sour berries that grow everywhere in Aveio. These are from our own gardens, and we dry them and break them down to go into blends like this. It adds body, and it's a bit tart, it's very nice. OBSERVATIONAL: Small chunks of a deep purple berry. Paru once again portions it out with a scoop, then measures and mixes. PARU: Then nannari root, which is naturally sweet, so don't go adding any honey to this! You listen to me, no honey! You do not need it! OBSERVATIONAL: A light brown, crumbling ingredient, chopped into pieces about half the size of the jasmine buds. PARU: The last ingredient in this blend is a kind of mint, just the smallest of portions. It acts like salt in one's baking, bringing out notes which otherwise go unnoticed. It is very bright, mint. OBSERVATIONAL: Crumbled, bright green leaves, not even one full scoop for the entire mixing bowl. With all ingredients added, Paru mixes them for an extra long time before she seems satisfied. OBSERVATIONAL: She takes down four empty cloth bags, and starts scooping the tea into them, one scoop to each bag in sequence. PARU: Now, I am weighing everything and marking them down as I go, so once it is all blended, it is time to pack them in bags again. This tea fits into four bags, five zhin apiece. It is very fluffy! PARU: I mark the blend, the lot number, the date and my name, and then I tie off the bags and it is time to clean everything up and start the next blend! CSESA (O/S): Will those be packed straight-away? PARU: No, no. Tomorrow one of the managers will double check my paperwork and make a cup to test that everything is in order and I haven't put the wrong ingredient in. OBSERVATIONAL: Once full, the bags are tagged, tied, and set up on the shelf. CSESA (O/S): Has that ever happened before? PARU: A few times! We have actually had some happy accidents that way. But I haven't done it yet, and I shan't be upset if I never do. OBSERVATIONAL: Under a corrugated metal awning on a sunny afternoon, an unveiled girl in her late teens with pale skin, black eyes, and silvery eyebrows sits on a stool in front of a large wooden crate, straddling it with her bare feet leveraged against the crossbraces. She wears brightly patterned high-waisted trousers and a coordinating shirtwaist with rolled sleeves. Her hair is mostly covered by a scarf in another colorful pattern, coiled into a thick bun at the back of her head and pinned into place with a pair of tashins. Wood-and-copper jewelry hangs from her oxidation-stained ears. OVERLAY: A subtitle introduces us to MIRO / Foundling Girl & Aspiring Jeweler NARRATOR (O/S): While almost all of the kol the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory sells is picked and processed right here in Aveio, some of the ingredients used in our blends, like these jasmine buds, come from other parts of the Commonwealth. OBSERVATIONAL: Miro leans down into the open crate with one of the cloth bags we saw in the blending room, skimming the crate's contents (thousands upon thousands of tiny flower buds) like a fishing net. MIRO: This crate holds 100 zhin of jasmine flowers, which is about... thirty-five bags? We get all of our bulk ingredients delivered by cart, and they'll drop them off out here because it's easiest. We pack down the material into more manageable portions and warehouse them. OBSERVATIONAL: Once the bag is filled and tied off, Miro bites off the cap of a pen tied to the neckline of her shirtwaist and writes on the bag's tag: ingredient name, manufacturer, lot number, date, and her own name. She tosses the bag into a growing pile of filled bags, then leans down with another bag. MIRO: The most important thing with the storage is making sure that it is not too humid in the warehouse. Too humid—more than about seven or eight percent water content in the plant matter—and mold can begin to grow. Obviously, we do that on purpose when we make dark orchor! But for most things, it will make a very bad taste, and might even be dangerous. B-ROLL: Several glass bowls of tea steep side-by-side, their liquor ranging from almost perfectly clear to so dark it is nearly black. They are not arranged in a gradient. OVERLAY: Arrows point to white isevren, vezvaishorisevren, steamed green aika, roasted green aika, blue kol, golden orchor, dark orchor. NARRATOR (O/S): Dark orchor is one of the most popular kinds of tea in Thu-Evresar. Traditionally made here in Aveio, it makes up 70% of the tea sold by the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory every year. Would you like to see how it is made? OBSERVATIONAL: Exterior of a large warehouse. A veiled woman stands just outside the closed door. One section of her veil is embroidered to match the floral pattern of her walking-skirt. OVERLAY: ULIVAN ACRANARAN / Fermentation Specialist ULIVAN: This is the heart of the operation. Come on, we'll show you. OBSERVATIONAL: She opens the door and leads inside. ULIVAN: Welcome to the wet pile room. It is here that golden orchor becomes dark orchor. OBSERVATIONAL: The warehouse is empty of shelving or furniture: against the wall are a number of shovels and picks, and large, folded tarps are piled in one corner of the cavernous space. On the floor are several evenly spaced, enormous tarp-covered mounds about knee high, as long as four people laying tip to toe and as wide as two. ULIVAN: All orchor is fermented, but dark orchor has a much higher degree of fermentation and very quickly. Golden orchor slowly oxidizes and slowly ferments while it is being stored. It's something of an acquired taste when it's young, and it's very expensive when it's old. Dark orchor cuts out the decade or more of fermentation considered optimal for a cup of orchor. ULIVAN: Using a technique called 'wet piling', we take new leaves of golden orchor and speed up the process of fermentation in a controlled manner. The result is a redder, smoother tea with the earthiness we expect from a good cup of orchor in only a fraction of the time. OBSERVATIONAL: Ulivan comes up to the nearest mound and crouches beside it, lifting the tarp to reveal the mountain of tea beneath. It is very dark, looking almost like wet mulch. ULIVAN: This pile is almost finished, it has been fermenting two months now, and as you can see it is very dark. Wet piling is something of a new process. The Acranada have been using it for only four hundred years. OBSERVATIONAL: As she speaks, Ulivan scoops up handfuls of tea, showing the leaves to the kamera, breaking them apart. ULIVAN: How it works is, we wet the leaves and pile them, like this, which allows fungus on the leaves to propagate and ferment over a period of weeks or months, depending on the specific character of the orchor we are trying to achieve, a redder orchor or a darker orchor. There is one ton of orchor in each pile. OBSERVATIONAL: She rises, and covers the edge of the mound with its tarp once again. ULIVAN: We carefully monitor the temperature of the piles, as the activity, the growth of the fungus, makes it become very hot. If it becomes too hot, it will sour the tea. So we mix up the piles every few days to keep them at the most desirable temperature. OBSERVATIONAL: She walks through the cavernous space as she speaks. ULIVAN: When we are satisfied with the result, then the orchor will be allowed to sun-dry, and then it can be compressed into a cake for domestic sale, or jarred for the international market. NARRATOR (O/S): Before the orchor goes into the pile, though—or, in the case of golden orchor, moves on to be blended or pressed into cakes—it first visits the one and only machine in the factory: the roller. OBSERVATIONAL: Close on a woven basket full of yellow-green withered leaves. NARRATOR (O/S): Rolling the tea breaks apart the surface of the leaves, releasing certain enzymes which aid in the oxidation and fermentation processes and make the tea more permeable to water, which allows for a faster steeping. OBSERVATIONAL: A veiled-and-masked woman, heavily pregnant, empties the basket into the mouth of a contraption which consists of a frame sitting atop a large textured plate, with a second, smaller plate on a corded dowel above. Once the tea leaves are inside the frame, the woman lowers the upper plate to compress the leaves, and then flips a switch. The frame moves over the large lower plate in a circular motion. OVERLAY: An arrow indicates the woman: INO, looking forward to maternity leave. Another arrow indicates the contraption: ROLLING MACHINE. NARRATOR (O/S): This process is traditionally done by hand, but machines are much better at doing it reliably, with the same amount of pressure, and like everything with tea, the amount of time rolling the leaves and the pressure used while doing so has a great impact on the character of the tea. INO: We want a light touch here. Rolling the tea makes the leaves more water permeable, which is why it helps with fermentation, but it also makes steeping faster. Too much pressure, and all of the flavor in the tea will extract into the water at once when you brew it. This is good for kolveris, which you usually make a great big concentrated samovar of for the whole house or office to drink throughout the day. You aren't steeping it multiple times, you're just watering down the very, very strong tea with hot water. INO: With orchor, though, you're sitting with a bowl and a cup... and perhaps a book, a friend, or a lover... and you are making a small amount of tea, savoring it, and then reusing the leaves several times, so you do not want it all coming out immediately. You want to experience all of the stages of the tea. OBSERVATIONAL: The kamera pivots from Ino and the rolling machine to the other side of the factory floor, where along the wall are several enormous round metal bowls inset into a counter. Pipes and dials make clear that this is an enormous, specialized gas range. NARRATOR (O/S): Before the leaves are rolled, there is a very important step called "killing the green". There are many ways to do this, and different methods will create teas with different qualities. For most orchor, wilted tea leaves are put inside these enormous pans and are tossed at a particular temperature until they are oxidized to the level we are looking for. OBSERVATIONAL: Three of the pans are in use right now, with two veiled women and a third, dark-skinned woman who is unveiled, but has her hair covered by a kerchief. All wear very heavy gloves that reach up to their elbows, as they toss the tea in the pans with their hands. OVERLAY: Arrows indicate the unveiled RAIAN (plays elesthwood flute) and veiled SERO (can recite the dialogue from The Third Ship by heart) and CHELANU (number one pneumatic-whisperer). RAIAN: It's very important we don't heat the tea too much, because too much will fix it at this amount of oxidation, killing off the enzymes which make the tea darken over time. Instead, when we are making orchor we always want to begin the oxidation process, and then cut off most of it. That way, a golden orchor will very slowly oxidize as it ages, and a dark orchor will oxidize as it ferments. RAIAN: At the same time, heat is what enables quick oxidation, so it is a careful balancing act between heat and the amount of time we cook the leaves. The best temperature for an orchor is—oh, should I say that? CHELANU: Probably not. NARRATOR (O/S): Good catch! Competition between tea factories can be stiff. OBSERVATIONAL: Time skip. The women continue to toss the leaves, which have changed in color significantly. Chelanu scoops out her leaves, and replaces them with a new batch acquired off-kamera. The women chat amongst themselves almost as if they have forgotten the kamera. CHELANU: —turns out that Csenis has been putting out cans of sardines for her every day, which does at least explain where our sardines have been going. But now she just stands without the window and stares at me. SERO: And hast not let the poor thing in? Thou monster! CHELANU: I don't want a pet cat! RAIAN: Seems a bit late for that, dear. And—kinemeisa, here, this is looking right. OBSERVATIONAL: Close on Raian's pan, where the leaves look as she describes. RAIAN: See how it is a more yellow-green now? The stems oxidize faster—it's normal to see them darker in comparison to the rest of the leaf. OBSERVATIONAL: We pull back to see her scoop the batch of tea into a basket, tossing it a few times to evenly distribute the leaves inside. Then, the kamera follows behind Raian as she walks to a shelving unit full of baskets of bright green leaves. She takes down a basket and begins walking it back to her station. NARRATOR (O/S): These leaves are freshly withered. What that means is they have been allowed to rest in the shade for a few hours. This makes the leaves less stiff, and easier to work. OBSERVATIONAL: A disembodied pair of hands hold up two bright green stems. One stands straight, freshly picked. The other's leaves are drooping, slightly wilted. NARRATOR (O/S): Wilting is the very first thing we do with freshly-picked tea leaves. And that means it's time for you and I to climb a mountain. OBSERVATIONAL: The tiered tea gardens of the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory, verdant and picturesque in the heart of the Orchoren mountains. The tea plants grow in even, well-trimmed rows like hedges. They come to about hip height on the taller pickers working in the field. Most of the pickers have been carefully cut out of the frame, and B-roll of fully processed dark orchor plays beneath their figures. NARRATOR (O/S): This is our primary tea garden. About 90% of the tea we sell is produced with the crop from these cultivated kol plants. The remainder comes from wild kol trees up on the mountain. A wild tea plant can grow to be five times the height of a person— OBSERVATIONAL: A downed tree leans at a steep angle against the branches of an enormous kol tree. A girl, approximately fourteen, climbs up the downed tree with her arms outstretched and a basket strapped onto her back. Her skin and curly hair are pure white, and she has a birdlike face with big hazel eyes and a pointy chin and nose. NARRATOR: —which makes it very tricky business to harvest from them! These wild plants propagate naturally, too, which means their flavor is unique from batch to batch. In the gardens, we grow new kol plants from cuttings, so they're completely identical to the plant we started with, and we'll always know exactly what to expect from the crop, assuming everything else goes well! OVERLAY: A hand drawn arrow reaches out to CSORO ACRANIN, your friendly narrator! OBSERVATIONAL: Back in the tea garden. Csoro, no longer wearing a tea-picking basket, plucks a bud and the first two leaves from one of the kol plants. CSORO: This is what pickers are usually after, the very tip of the plant. That's the newest, freshest growth, and it tends to make the best tea. Some types of tea prefer older leaves, but mostly we pick them to make tea that goes home with us at the end of the day. CSORO: The most highly prized tea comes from what's called the first flush, picked at the very beginning of Spring. Unlike other tea producers, though, the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory never sells our first flush tea. Some of it is saved for special occasions—for Winternight, or when one of the girls gets married—but almost all of it is reserved to be sent to the Untheileneise Court, for the emperor himself to enjoy. CSORO: Our family, the Acranada, have been growing and producing orchor for over a thousand years, but for a long time we were just a family farm. We expanded and became the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory in the reign of Edrehasivar the Seventh. He created subsidies to help fund the upkeep of foundling schools that taught a vocation—and my great-great-grandmother answered the call. Now the foundling girls are family, too! B-ROLL: The pickers move slowly but steadily through the rows in four-times speed as the sun rises and sets. CSORO: We keep harvesting tea throughout most of the year, from the beginning of Spring right up to the very end of Harvest. Right now we're picking an early Harvest flush, which makes an affordable but deeply aromatic tea, sometimes used for dark orchor and sometimes used for boronat. OBSERVATIONAL: Csoro stands in the bed of a motor-cart, filling bags with the freshly-picked tea leaves from open-topped baskets lined up by the tailgate. The bags slowly fill the bed of the cart. CSORO: It's hard work, and it gets very cold up here on the mountain when we start picking just after dawn, but we love what we do, and we're so happy to get the opportunity to share our tea with you, whether you're in Cetho, Amalo, or even Estelveriär. OBSERVATIONAL: The winding mountain road, seen from the back of the moving cart. Csoro's loose braids rustle in the wind as she sits among bags of tea as large as she is. |