A Leaf Brings Wealth to a Local People's Tea Travel | Technology | A Local Area
Tea farmers pick Ming Dynasty tea at Jiangkou Tea Garden in Jiangjunfeng, Zhaoping County.
Photo by Yu Xiangquan
Core Reading
Zhaoping, Guangxi fully utilizes its unique natural conditions to achieve large-scale cultivation and green development of tea, empowering the development of the entire industry chain with technology, enhancing product added value, exploring cultural value, promoting tea tourism integration, and making tea culture, tea industry, and tea technology an important force for rural revitalization.
Zhaoping County, Hezhou City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is located in the eastern part of Guangxi, with a vast mountainous area and a mild and humid climate, providing unique natural conditions for tea cultivation. In recent years, Zhaoping County has focused on the goal of building a tea industry worth billions of yuan, continuously making efforts in large-scale planting, mechanical processing, brand building, technological demonstration, and integrated development, promoting high-quality development of the entire tea industry chain.
Large scale cultivation and cultivation of new varieties have elevated the quality of tea
After the rain, in the Dawu Mountain Ecological Organic Tea Garden Base of Xianhui Yao Ethnic Township in Zhaoping County, there are layers of tea ladder fields where tea farmer Liang Zhenju is picking tea. I saw her index finger and thumb close, pinching the tender bud, gently pinching it, and putting it into the tea basket on her shoulder.
"When picking tea, choose one bud and one leaf, and the purchase price is high," said Liang Zhenju.
Good quality tea can only be sold at a good price. "No chemical fertilizers or pesticides are applied to ensure the quality of tea." Huang Qidong, the person in charge of Dawushan Ecological Agriculture Co., Ltd., introduced that a total of 1000 acres of organic tea are planted in the tea garden base. Solar mosquito repellent lamps and integrated water and fertilizer facilities are installed in the tea garden, and organic fertilizer is regularly applied.
The Dawu Mountain Ecological Organic Tea Garden Base is a microcosm of the large-scale cultivation and green development of tea in Zhaoping County. Zhaoping County is vigorously building organic tea gardens, planting and managing tea gardens in accordance with green food production technology regulations and organic food technology standards. In 2022, the tea plantation area in Zhaoping County reached 250000 acres, with an annual output of 18400 tons of dry tea and an annual output value of 2.05 billion yuan. Tea cultivation covered 113 administrative villages in 10 townships throughout the county, with over 100000 employees in the tea industry chain. The per capita tea income in the county reached 4425 yuan. The benefits of "one leaf brings wealth to the people" are accelerating.
In addition to careful maintenance during the planting stage, researching and introducing new varieties of tea trees is also a must answer question on the road to high-quality development of the tea industry.
Previously, there was a problem of a single tea tree structure and low yield in Zhaoping County. How to break the game? With the assistance of China Aviation Group Co., Ltd., in December 2022, Guangxi Jiangjunfeng Tea Industry Group Co., Ltd., a leading tea enterprise in Zhaoping County, built a 50 acre tea industry research base in Fuxing Village, Zouma Town. "The base cooperates with multiple scientific research units to carry out research on the breeding, cultivation management, and pest control of excellent tea tree varieties," said Liu Meizhen, Deputy General Manager of Jiangjunfeng Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd.
In the base, there are so many varieties of tea seedlings such as Bixiangzao, Huangguanyin, Jinmudan, and Guiqing that it is overwhelming. "We hope to cultivate high-quality tea tree varieties that are suitable for the local climate and soil conditions, further improving the quality of processed teas such as green tea, black tea, and Liubao tea in Zhaoping County." Liu Meizhen told reporters that after the base is built, it is expected to breed 10 million tea tree seedlings annually, and the annual sales revenue will reach 3.5 million yuan.
Mechanized processing, extended industrial chain, gradually highlighting brand advantages
As night falls, the processing workshop of Guangxi Jiangjunfeng Tea Industry Group Co., Ltd. is still busy. After weighing each bag of tea leaves, subsequent processes such as spreading, killing, rolling, and sieving are carried out on an automated production line. "Tea farmers pick tea during the day, and we process it at night without any delay," said Pan Shougui, the workshop director.
In 2020, with the financial assistance of China Aviation Group Co., Ltd. and Guangdong Guangxi Cooperation, Guangxi Jiangjunfeng Tea Industry Group Co., Ltd. introduced digital automatic control production technology for tea and built a fully automatic tea processing production line. The daily peak can process 56000 kilograms of fresh tea leaves, and the annual processing of fresh tea leaves is about 2.2 million kilograms, covering more than 5000 acres of tea gardens, driving the average increase in collective income of 75 villages in 10 townships of Zhaoping County to over 50000 yuan.
Production efficiency has improved, and the sales of "Zhaoping tea" have become wider. "Now we have cultivated three major tea industry brands: Jiangjunfeng, Yijian, and Hometown." Liu Meizhen introduced that the processed finished tea is not only sold to Anhui, Fujian, Sichuan and other places, but also exported to many countries and regions.
Pushing open the door of the second packaging workshop of Guangxi Jiangjunfeng Tea Factory, a sweet aroma rushed towards us. Looking for fragrance, I saw bags of tea neatly stacked in the ingredient room. "This is organic Jasmine Earl Green Tea, this is organic Mango Green Tea..." Workshop Director Shen Jianli introduced that with the constantly changing market demand, the company has also launched a series of new products such as cold brewed tea and ginger sugar tea.
Besides selling finished tea, how can we further enhance the added value of tea? On February 20th of this year, Guangxi Zhaoping Tea Technology Academy was unveiled and established. Peking University, China Agricultural University and other research institutes have settled in it, focusing on the development of the entire tea industry chain and conducting industry university research cooperation. With the help of the expert team, hand cream, facial cleanser, mouthwash, toothpaste, facial mask, milk tea and other products containing Zhaoping tea have been developed in succession.
At present, there are more than 140 tea enterprises in Zhaoping County, including 2 leading enterprises at the autonomous region level and 4 leading enterprises at the city level. Zhaoping Tea has been selected as one of the top 100 regional brands in China's brand value evaluation for six consecutive years, ranking 87th in 2023, with a brand value of 4.069 billion yuan.
"We will fully leverage the radiation and driving role of leading enterprises, and strive to create a new pattern of integrated development of tea production, processing and transformation, brand marketing, and technological demonstration," said Guo Zhuangxin, Deputy Director of the Tea Office of Zhaoping County.
Exploring tea culture, integrating tea culture and tourism, and achieving results in integrated development
Zhaoping County has a long history of tea production. In 2018, the craftsmanship of making chess mountain tea was included in the intangible cultural heritage list of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
The representative inheritor of the production technique of Chess Mountain Tea, Liu Zongzhao's family, has been producing tea for generations. In 2012, they founded Zhaoping County Chess Mountain Tea Co., Ltd. In recent years, the company has established the Zhaoping Tea Making Skills Experience Hall, which not only displays and sells finished tea, but also allows tourists to experience the handmade tea making skills.
"We hope to let more people experience the charm of Zhaoping tea culture by experiencing the handmade tea making techniques." Liu Zongzhao introduced that "three frying and three kneading" is the highlight and feature of Zhaoping tea handmade production, which includes eight processes: fresh leaf spreading, high-temperature killing, sieving and heat dissipation. "Tourists can pick tea leaves from the company's self operated 1000 acre tea garden, and then take them to the experience hall to make tea souvenirs for family, friends, or themselves as souvenirs." Liu Zongzhao said.
In the hometown Tea Expo Park scenic area of Zhaoping County, there is a rich variety of cultural and tourism projects. "We have planted peach and Bauhinia flowers in over 600 acres of organic tea gardens, and provided unique ethnic costumes and accessories for tourists to wear. This spring, more than 40000 tourists came to visit and check in," said Wu Yongying, Deputy General Manager of Zhaoping County Hometown Tea Industry Co., Ltd. in Guangxi.
After returning from tea picking and sightseeing, you can also enjoy a soothing and graceful tea art performance. Tourists can personally experience the process of pouring and brewing tea. In addition to the fun of "immersive" experience, there are also tea flavored chicken, tea flavored Dongpo Braised Pork and other scenic spot specialties. During the interview, the tourism team kept calling to book meals. Wu Yongying introduced that the occupancy rate of the company's homestays reached 80% last year.
Zhaoping County vigorously promotes the integrated development of tea tourism in accordance with the concept of "tea garden scenic spots and tea tourism integration". In May this year, the Zhaoping tea tourism route was selected as a national tea town tourism boutique route. Zhaoping County's hometown Tea Expo Park and Nanshan Tea Sea Scenic Area have been rated as demonstration sites for leisure agriculture and rural tourism in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and Guijiang Tea Sea Tourism Resort has been rated as a Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region level tourism resort.
"At present, we are accelerating the construction of tea tourism integration projects such as Guangxi Zhaoping Tea Town, Zhaoping County Liubao Tea Agricultural Tourism Demonstration Park, and Zhaoping County Liubao Tea Centralized Storage and Aging Base, vigorously promoting the integrated development of the entire tea industry chain." said Liu Feiguo, Secretary of the Zhaoping County Party Committee.
