During this year’s Spring Festival, Guangdong Zhenghao Tea Industry Co., Ltd. solicited tea culture photography works nationwide under the theme “New Spring Hao Gifts, Blessings for the Year of the Tiger.” Although the pandemic kept flaring up, through one photograph after another, tea lovers expressed their love of tea and their joy at the flourishing of tea in this prosperous era. Recently, Pan Jian, chairman of Zhenghao Tea Industry, told the all-media reporter of China Co-operation Times Tea Weekly that Zhenghao will put a “tea photography competition” on its agenda, combining tea with photography and using rich event formats and diverse display channels to promote the inheritance and development of tea culture and photography culture.
With the spread of mobile phones, almost everyone shoots video these days — so why is Zhenghao Tea Industry still so devoted to photography? At a time when “tea photography” is all the more precious, what photographic experiences and insights does Pan Jian, a “hardcore” photography enthusiast, have to share with everyone? Here is the Tea Weekly all-media reporter’s exclusive interview.
“Tea Photography” Is the Personal Accumulation of Pan Jian’s Quarter-Century Life in Tea
Pan Jian was born in Guangning County, Guangdong Province, a place that has produced generations of tea people. He entered the tea industry in 1997, starting as an agent for well-known tea brands, founded Guohao Tea Industry in 2011, and founded Zhenghao Tea Industry in 2016. A quarter-century of experience has earned him many honors — member of the 11th CPPCC of Guangning County, Guangdong Province; vice president of the Guangdong Tea Culture Promotion Association; vice president of the World Guangning Fellowship Association; vice president of the Xishuangbanna Guangdong Chamber of Commerce; one of the “Guangzhou Top Ten Young Tea Merchants” in 2013; one of the “Top Ten Entrepreneurs” at the first Guangdong Tea Safety Summit Forum in 2017; the “Ingenuity Tea Person Award” at the Chinese Tea People Summit Forum… Beyond all this, Pan Jian treasures another “honor” deep in his heart — lover and practitioner of “tea photography,” a “hardcore” photography enthusiast.
Pan Jian says: “Tea photography,” like “landscape photography” and “railway photography,” is a small art category born of tea, centered on tea, expressing tea, and conveying people’s understanding and love of tea. In the early days of reform and opening-up, as crazes for literature and poetry arose, a passion for photography took hold in society and has continued to this day; but because photography is relatively “expensive,” it has always remained fairly niche. Pan Jian says: since entering the tea industry in 1997, through my deep immersion in making tea, I formed an inseparable bond with photography!
A Cantonese man entering Yunnan’s tea mountains and ethnic minority regions — the freshness and allure of the scenery, the cultural differences and insights, the preciousness and unforgettableness of his experiences in tea — all compelled Pan Jian, almost involuntarily, to choose the camera and raise it. Over the years, having traveled all the major tea mountains of Yunnan, Pan Jian often carried his heavy camera bag to shoot tea mountain landscapes, tea garden scenery and close-ups of tea trees and leaves, and also captured much of Yunnan’s local customs and folk life. The past is all experience; different people simply choose different ways to record it. Pan Jian chose photography — and has been shooting for more than 20 years, reaping a rich deposit of life experience.
The Aesthetics and Emotion of “Tea Photography” Can Help Weather Market Storms
Yunnan’s mountains, waters, tea gardens and folk customs are all highly distinctive; in photography this manifests as a rich regional style and aesthetic expression. But beauty needs not only to be discovered — it must be “pursued.” To capture the most beautiful sunrise in his mind’s eye, Pan Jian often drove up the mountain at three or four in the morning, found a good shooting angle, set up his equipment and quietly waited for dawn… Those moments from utter silence to the first break of morning light and the chirping of birds, when sunlight awakens the mountain forest and rims the tea trees in gold, when the misty fragrance of tea slowly embraces you like the breath of the earth — all became feelings beyond words, forever kept in his heart.
On his journeys with a camera bag over his shoulder, visiting mountains in search of tea, Pan Jian often encountered various difficulties and even dangers. Most memorable was 2004, when transportation conditions in Lao Banzhang village were still very backward: the roads were rough and muddy, and with so many people going up the mountain to buy tea, he had to rent local cargo trucks and motorcycles, enduring six or seven hours of bumpy travel before reaching his destination. How could the village have hotels or restaurants? Pan Jian says: I brought dry rations, a tent and a sleeping bag up the mountain, ate dry rations, and slept on the terraces of local farmers’ homes. The journey of seeking tea and shooting was quite arduous, but these genuine tea mountain experiences, the real lives of tea farmers and the local customs left deeply etched memories. Not only did he capture many precious images of tea life and tea culture, he also gained a deeper understanding of this land and its people. Pan Jian says: this accumulation of emotion and aesthetic experience later provided me with unexpected strength and support when the enterprise hit rough patches.
That “tea photography” can use aesthetics and emotion to help weather market storms is perhaps something those without photographic experience can neither imagine nor truly appreciate.
“Tea Photography” Has Become a Bond Linking Zhenghao Tea with Consumers
“‘Tea photography’ is part of my life, and also part of Zhenghao Tea’s brand assets, complementing the enterprise’s inner substance and cultural deposits,” Pan Jian says.
The internet is now developed and video spreads widely and rapidly, but images remain precious. Pan Jian says: I feel images are the most intuitive form of expression, able to reach consumers more directly and create emotional and aesthetic connections. At the same time, photography records the course of an enterprise’s development and is the most scientifically documentary tool in building corporate culture. On the one hand, we give full play to photography’s documentary nature, ensuring the objective and accurate recording of the enterprise’s development and history; on the other, we also use it for external publicity and promotion. For example, our photographic records of Zhenghao’s raw material bases, production workshops and craft processes form image-based communication that lets more consumers understand the enterprise directly, become familiar with its products, and build a good corporate image.
Over the course of his tea journey, Pan Jian has organized many photography-themed events, such as the 2015 “Boundless Hao Shadows, Tea Fragrance Drifting Across the Land” [Guohao Cup] tea photography event, the 2017 [Zhenghao Cup] “Tea Culture Photography Competition,” and the 2022 “New Spring Hao Gifts, Blessings for the Year of the Tiger” [Product Photography Competition], soliciting tea culture photography works nationwide. Through shooting and displaying a series of images of Chinese tea cultivation, craftsmanship, tasting, tea art performances and tea-drinking customs, these events reflect the historical roots and living continuation of tea culture in China, gradually building up an image library of tea culture photography. Pan Jian especially mentions 2015, when Zhenghao Tea and the Guangdong Photographers Association jointly held a tea culture photography competition showcasing the essence of the tea ceremony, the life of tea tasting and contemporary tea customs, spreading the cultural charm of tea and photography to society. Using photography to advance the building of tea culture brought the whole tea industry a fresh cross-disciplinary perspective.
Pan Jian says: through holding these events I found that participants truly love this kind of activity. Photography lovers and appreciators constantly seek beautiful subjects, and tea happens to be a thing of beauty and elegance; when the two meet, they bring out the best in each other.
“Tea Photography+” Carries the Hopes of Industrial Innovation and Enterprise Development for Tomorrow
Under the era’s task of coordinated development of tea culture, the tea industry and tea science and technology, if tea culture wants to stand out among so many new mainstream cultures, innovation is essential. The tea industry is constantly seeking answers, accumulating experience and building confidence through innovation — innovation not only in products and their development, not only in tea culture, but breakthroughs in every field of the tea industry. Only thus can the traditional industry of Chinese tea achieve a new leap and new development. In fact, the innovation the tea industry has already begun in many fields is nurturing more, newer and deeper creation, and Zhenghao Tea is also developing toward a modern new-type enterprise.
Appreciation of Pan Jian’s “Tea Photography” Works (1).
Brands and photography have much in common; many of the deeper truths of brand building lie hidden in the laws of the art of light and shadow. Pan Jian says: photography’s visual effects endow a brand with visual impact; and building a brand means forming differentiated cognition in the minds of the target audience and a vivid imprint in their minds — a continuous process. To achieve this efficiently, one must focus — focus on the brand’s strongest and most differentiated point, persist with it unswervingly, and engrave it deeply into consumers’ minds; in this it is highly similar to photography. Photography is more accessible to the public; the integrated development of tea culture and photography culture should be vigorously promoted so that tea culture can be better presented and spread.
Appreciation of Pan Jian’s “Tea Photography” Works (2).
Appreciation of Pan Jian’s “Tea Photography” Works (3).
Speaking of his understanding of “tea photography,” Pan Jian says: tea photography and the tea industry are inextricably linked. The lens can record tea products and tea culture, presenting and spreading, in artistic form, tea’s rustic beauty, technological beauty and beauty of life. In the digital age, compared with words, images are more easily read and remembered. In my view, whether “tea photography” or other photographic creation, it is a process of pursuing perfection to the utmost. Over the years, I have brought this same extreme passion and dedication to my attitude toward making tea. Pan Jian believes that to shoot a good photograph or make a good tea, one must keep practicing throughout the creative process to reach a better state — it takes one hundred percent passion and perseverance.
Produced by: China Co-operation Times · Tea Weekly All-Media
—
Author: Lam Sam (LamSam), the Old Tea Head
ZENTEA MANOR
Alliance Supply Chain Services Limited
Unit 902-3, 9/F, Mini Cube, 10 Sam Chuk Street, San Po Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong
www.zentea-shop.com Email:info@zentea-shop.com
