But unlike their previous works, including A Bite of China and Once Upon a Bite that attached importance to using the dishes to tell emotional stories of people, Flavorful Origins focuses more on showing the bonds between the food and the soil in which the ingredients are grown.

In a chapter featuring Yunnan, the camera didn't avoid moments when the younger generations of locals were not used to the tastes of some local food.

However, by deconstructing local food, one may get a clue of how the predecessors of people living there have adjusted to the place, and how evolving tastes indicate the subtle differences in nature and culture even in neighboring towns.