Director Chen Xiaoqing has never lost his appetite for making food documentaries, and he still relishes every chance he gets to put Chinese cuisine under the lens, Li Yingxue reports.

Nine months ago, the first season of food documentary Once Upon A Bite was released, attracting nearly 1 billion views on Tencent Video, while notching up a rating of 9.0 out 10 on popular review site Douban.

The eight-episode documentary takes an up-close look at Chinese food and examines its relationship with other forms of international cuisine.

The show's director Chen Xiaoqing, 53, was nervous about the audience feedback ahead of the airing of the first episode. His heart soared when, within 14 hours of its release, the first episode racked up 150 million views online.

But online comments prompted him to tweak the editing mix for the following episodes to reflect the audiences reaction to the opening episode.

"Viewers commented that they want to see more footage of food rather than listen to stories, so we added more scenes of the dishes and cut some storylines," says Chen.

"The quality of the documentary and the reviews it receives do not always match up," says Chen. "Sometimes you just need a bit luck to make a successful documentary."

According to Chen, shooting of the second season is underway and he plans to finish production by the end of the year. Chen hopes to explore more possibilities in terms of technology and storytelling in the second season of the documentary.

From the patterns on the surface of a preserved duck egg to the growth of penicillium under a microscope, the use of microphotography in season one became a hot topic online, which was reflected in audience retention and ratings, and even in the number of danmu ("bullet-words", or short live comments) that the series generated.

"We are not the first team to use this technology, but we tried to use it to present the beauty of food," says Chen. "Just like the Beauty of Science team, who made science more attractive."

Chen recalls how impressed he was when he first saw the work of the Beauty of Science team in 2017. The next day, he asked one of his directors to go and meet with them.

In the first series, the opening ten-second shot about the growth of penicillium actually took four months to film.

"The most challenging part was to choose what kind of matter and what microphotography process to use," says Chen. "We finally figured out that something a little bigger than the cell of onion was the most appropriate size."

For the second season of Once Upon A Bite, Chen plans to shoot even more scenes using microphotography. "Some documentary directors are obsessed with technology, while others focus on content. For me, I like to find a balance between both," Chen says.

Chen started to make documentaries in 1991 and since then has filmed many award-winning documentaries including Forest China and Zhu De. He is best known for directing the food series A Bite of China in 2012.

Chen's habit of exploring tasty food started long before A Bite of China. In 1987, He filmed the first Chinese Food Festival in Beijing as a freelancer, and relished the chance to eat in the many restaurants.

He suffered from depression in 2013 and could not sleep well, but it did not affect his appetite. In 2006, he started to write a food blog to record his impressions of the dishes he had sampled.

Chen used to take notes on his mobile phone about every restaurant he visited, mostly in Beijing, with details like its phone number, address, the quality of service and which dishes to try. He even once asked the waiter to suggest which dishes required extra salt.

He used to have the details of over 4,000 restaurants saved on his phone, and when his friends asked him to recommend a restaurant, he simply sent them a text message with the information.

Unfortunately, one day when he was fishing on the Yellow River, he dropped his phone in the water and lost all his notes.

"I was upset about it for a while, but now people can research restaurants on review sites like Dianping, and I don't really have much time to explore new restaurants," says Chen.

While he started out telling food stories from a macroscopic perspective, Chen now likes to focus on the smaller details.

In February, a new food documentary named Flavorful Origins was released on Tencent Video. The first season focuses on Chaoshan cuisine, with each episode lasting around 10 minutes and featuring one ingredient or a dish prized in the Chaoshan region in eastern Guangdong province, such as rice noodles, white olives or mandarin oranges.

Chen wrote the script for the show. He believes in different cities of China, there are special ingredients or dishes that represent the characteristic of each city.

Picked up by Netflix in February, the show has aired in more than 190 countries and regions, making it the first original documentary in China to bought by the global media giant.

According to Chen, the second and third seasons of Flavorful Origins will focus on Yunnan and Gansu provinces, which are now currently under production.

"Audiences all over the world love food, and since this is aimed at an international market, we tried to add a few more stories that represent Chinese food culture and history," says Chen.

Chen's team includes young directors as well as more experienced ones. From directing a specific scene to suggesting the length of a line in a voice-over, Chen likes to be involved in every stage of the shooting and production processes of making the documentaries.

He enjoys spending time with the young directors and offering as much advice as he can.

"I hope to train more young directors, and help them to grow into experienced ones," he says.