The Taste of Tea

The Taste of Tea
The Taste of Tea poster
Original title茶の味
Directed byKatsuhito Ishii
Written byKatsuhito Ishii
Produced byKazuto Takida
Kazutoshi Wadakura
StarringTadanobu Asano
Takahiro Sato
Maya Banno
Satomi Tezuka
Tomokazu Miura
Tatsuya Gashuin
Anna Tsuchiya
Rinko Kikuchi
CinematographyKosuke Matushima
Edited byKatsuhito Ishii
Music byLittle Tempo
Distributed byGrasshoppa (Japan)
Viz Media (USA)
Release date
  • July 17, 2004 (2004-07-17)
Running time
143 minutes
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese

The Taste of Tea (茶の味, Cha no Aji) is a 2004 Japanese comedy drama fantasy film written and directed by Katsuhito Ishii. Described as a "surreal" version of Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander (1982), it follows the daily lives of a family living in rural Tochigi prefecture, north of Tokyo. Main influences for the director were the magical realism of Nobuhiko Obayashi, the unexpected humor of Takeshi Kitano, the eccentric surrealism of Seijun Suzuki and the daily life medium-class stories of Yasujiro Ozu. Ishii was It was a selection of the Cannes Film Festival.