Lü Yongjiang
Introduction
On October 22, the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China successfully closed in Beijing.
To study and implement in depth the spirit of the 20th Party Congress, exchange insights, and turn learning into vivid practice in building the tea industry, China Cooperation Times · Tea Weekly all media proudly launched the column “The Tea Industry Studies and Implements the Spirit of the 20th Party Congress.”
This is the third installment of the column.
Consistently playing the three cards of “tea products, tea tourism, and tea people” well
to promote high-quality development of the tea industry
Lü Yongjiang, member of the Standing Committee of the Shaoxing Municipal People’s Congress, Zhejiang Province; deputy director of the Rural Economic Work Committee of the Shaoxing Municipal People’s Congress; director of the Zhejiang Agricultural Economics Society
In the report to the 20th Party Congress, the General Secretary pointed out: “We will comprehensively advance rural revitalization, give priority to agricultural and rural development, consolidate and expand the gains of poverty alleviation, and accelerate the building of an agricultural power.” The tea industry has always held a pivotal position in China’s agricultural development, connecting the vast countryside and its farmers. In March 2021, inspecting the Yanzike ecological tea garden on Wuyi Mountain, the General Secretary noted that the tea industry, once the pillar industry of local poverty alleviation, must henceforth become the pillar industry of rural revitalization. The General Secretary’s instruction has pointed the direction for China’s tea industry. To advance rural revitalization and achieve an agricultural power, this author believes we must consistently coordinate “tea products, tea tourism, and tea people,” playing the three cards of “tea product innovation,” “tea-tourism integration,” and “tea people cultivation” to promote high-quality development of the tea industry.
Consistently playing the “tea product innovation” card
In the report to the 20th Party Congress, the General Secretary noted: “Through sustained struggle, we have achieved moderate prosperity, the millennia-old dream of the Chinese nation, and China’s development now stands at a higher historical starting point.” The report also mentions the substantial increases in average life expectancy and per capita disposable income, and new gains in common prosperity. It states: “We must take promoting high-quality development as our theme, organically combine the strategy of expanding domestic demand with deepening supply-side structural reform, and enhance the endogenous momentum and reliability of the domestic grand circulation.” This brings better prospects to the tea industry, and also imposes higher requirements. We must consistently play the “tea product innovation” card, developing tea varieties through multiple channels to continuously satisfy the people’s aspiration for a better life.
In the new era, as consumption keeps upgrading, people’s demand for tea is more diverse and more individualized, with differing pursuits of taste, aroma, liquor color, nutrition and health benefits. We must deepen supply-side structural reform and put real thought and effort into upgrading and innovating tea products.
First, make premium teas excellent. Good products earn good prices and good sales—this is the iron law of the market. The tea industry must uphold the primacy of quality and make its premium teas truly excellent. For example, Zhejiang Huafa Tea Co. has customized three mid-to-high-end “Yuexiang Longjing” teas made by Xu Jie, a master with a national competition gold medal; its 75-gram handmade Longjing, priced at 1,688 yuan per pack, was an instant hit upon release. Keqiao District applies “six unifications”—of technique, quality and more—to “Rizhu tea,” giving surer quality assurance, higher prices, and a steadily expanding market; some farmers happily report that fresh-leaf prices rose three- to four-fold this year.
Second, grow black tea bigger. In recent years the black tea consumer base has kept expanding, and many people have formed the habit of black tea in the morning and green tea in the afternoon. Tea regions and enterprises with the capacity can grow black tea bigger and stronger for more people to enjoy. In Shaoxing, black tea output value has grown over 20% a year on average, approaching 100 million yuan in 2021; some enterprises have also crafted inventive black teas such as “Snow Day Red” and “Genggeng Yuhuai.”
Third, develop more tea bags. With their convenience, hygiene and variety of flavors, tea bags are increasingly favored by the market—a vast market worth the tea world’s attention and development.
Fourth, actively develop summer-autumn tea. Picking only spring tea and abandoning summer-autumn picks, many tea regions suffer low-output inefficiency, overcapacity and waste of tea resources. Greater development of summer-autumn tea would have immeasurable value for the industry. Xinchang County’s development of “strip-dried tea,” a new product from summer-autumn leaves that has become a hot commodity while drawing veteran tea farmers home to start businesses again, deserves emulation everywhere.
Consistently playing the “tea-tourism integration” card
The General Secretary noted in the 20th Congress report: “We must firmly establish and practice the concept that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets, and plan development from the height of harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature,” and “develop rural specialty industries and broaden channels for farmers to increase income and prosperity.” This has pointed practical significance for the tea industry. Tea regions are everywhere lucid waters and lush mountains; as long as we play the “tea-tourism integration” card well, we can not only give play to the tea industry’s diversity, richness and multiple functions, develop varied rural specialty industries, and digest some products locally, but also greatly raise the industry’s returns. More and more beautiful tea regions will surely prove to be mountains of gold and silver.
First, build tea scenic areas. Make full use of large tea regions with beautiful natural scenery and rich cultural resources to build tea scenic areas under unified planning, linking the whole tea region into contiguous pieces, with trunk roads, cycling paths, walking trails, viewing platforms, camping grounds, parking lots, RV bases and public toilets built as a complete set; support rural guesthouses, specialty homestays, country resort hotels and other formats, so that visitors to a tea scenic area can enjoy themselves to the full—cycling, camping, hot-pool soaking, watching the mists, stargazing, sightseeing, barbecuing, singing, tasting tea—immersed and reluctant to leave.
Second, build micro tea estates. As China’s consumption keeps upgrading, more and more people pursue resort-style leisure, and spending weekends on a “micro-vacation” in nature has become a new way of life. Micro tea estates answering the demand for micro-vacations have come at exactly the right time. They can evolve from small tea farms and tea enterprises, integrating tea planting, production, marketing, culture and tourism with tourism as the mainstay and peace of mind and wellness as the themes, developing specialty tea events, tea products and tea banquets, paired with fashionable elements such as calligraphy and painting, traditional learning, Hanfu and Song-dynasty aesthetics, and designing multi-format functional spaces—tea halls, cafés, hot-spring pools, camping slopes, stargazing rooms. In the view of Wang Xufeng, renowned tea culture scholar, professor at Zhejiang A&F University and writer, these micro tea estates are simple to learn, distinctive, full of vitality, and boundless in prospect.
Third, build tea schools. Against the national policy backdrop of “double reduction” in compulsory education and stronger labor education for students, teachers, students and parents are flocking to the countryside for study tours, bringing many new development opportunities to the tea industry. We can adapt and use tea bases, tea-making workshops, tea museums and other facilities, as conditions permit, to create new-style tea schools. Working with education authorities to organize students in tea picking, tea making and tea tasting not only broadens children’s horizons, awakens their sense of nature and sparks their interest—lighting a lamp in a child’s heart with a single cup of tea—but also cultivates wave after wave of new tea consumers.
Consistently playing the “tea people cultivation” card
In recent years, tea industry development across China has faced acute problems—clearly slowing output growth, low per-mu output value, aging tea farmers, and abandoned tea gardens—seriously constraining high-quality development. The most fundamental reason is the lack of talent. A breakthrough for solving the industry’s difficulties is to play the “tea people cultivation” card well and foster a large corps of tea industry talent.
First, cultivate the “second generation of tea.” Growing up in tea families and steeped in the trade since childhood, the “tea second generation” know tea better; they have rich knowledge, broad horizons and advanced ideas of development, deep bonds of family and hometown with villagers, and a stronger foundation in the tea industry. Returning to help rural revitalization, they enjoy incomparable advantages: they know how to play strengths against weaknesses, how to apply modern technology, and how to devote their talents to their native soil—and can walk a path of tea industry development more innovative and advanced than their parents’ generation.
Second, cultivate “new tea people.” To renew its vitality, the tea industry urgently needs the fresh force of new tea people. New tea people come to change the industry, to upgrade it, to upgrade consumption; they possess unique creative thinking, open market concepts, and transformative technical capability. With new tea people joining, the tea industry can achieve limitless change and growth.
Third, improve the cultivation mechanisms. Establish policy mechanisms for tea talent cultivation—introducing pro-“tea” policies specifically on land guarantees, infrastructure, conflict coordination and financial support, so that the “tea second generation” and “new tea people” can “come back, stay on, and do well.” Establish training mechanisms, using universities, research institutes and famous tea enterprises to organize multi-skill training for tea talent. Establish incentive mechanisms, rewarding tea talent who succeed in entrepreneurship and strongly drive development, so that more tea talent returns to the countryside, promoting high-quality development of the tea industry faster and better and accelerating rural revitalization.
Produced by: China Cooperation Times · Tea Weekly All Media
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Author: Lam Sam (LamSam), the Old Tea Head
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