At the Three Gorges Tea Culture Festival held on May 15th, the booth of "Changshengchuan" attracted many consumers. Photographed by correspondent Liu Jincheng.
More varieties and more brands
On the morning of May 15th when the opening ceremony of the Three Gorges Tea Culture Festival was inaugurated, dozens of local tea enterprises set up their booths in Yichang Three Gorges International Tourism Market. In front of the booth of Hubei Changshengchun tea, many merchants were attracted by Xiong Xinfu, the general manager of the tea brand, who was “telling stories”. "When come to brick tea, most people know Yunnan Pu\'er. Actually the green brick tea produced in Yichang has won the gold award in Panama International Exposition as early as 1915." In exploring the “origins” of Yichang tea culture, the traditional techniques and flavor are maintained and developed. "In the Fourth China Tea Expo, the new Changshengchuan Mi-zhuan tea got the gold award and Changshengchuan green brick tea won the silver award.”
Developed from the ordinary to the outstanding, Green tea, black tea, dark tea and white tea forms a new pattern of Yichang tea market, and the tea industry has entered a new era of "intensive" farming. Xiong told reporters, the black tea and dark tea of Yichang had been exported in large amount and enjoyed a good reputation in history. The new varieties including Fuxing black tea and Fuxing dark tea are complementary to green tea, which can make full use of tea resources and bring more incomes to tea farmers. Above all, they can help to expand markets. Now brick tea produced in Yichang plays an important role in northeast market and some are exported to Russia.
Having operated and accumulated experience for many years, tea enterprises in Yichang have made improvements in developing brands and specific marketing capability. Every booth displayed the origin of tea, the drinking tips, product design or ceremonial clothing, all of which show the enterprises’ efforts in designs and packaging. In order to display the charm of tea culture, some of them used multimedia devices to broadcast the historical origins of tea. The activities like “the tea art show” and “visiting tea plantations” make tea culture accessible to ordinary people. Besides, the new concept "Aged Tea" becomes popular in the tea culture festival, and has been adopted by the green brick tea. Its date of production, according to the reporter, is no longer a simple date code, but a remarkable logo which enriches the tea collection culture and promotes the value of tea. Accordingly, the culture kernel in the small brick is growing bigger.
In The Classics on Tea, written by Lu Yu of the Tang Dynasty (618 A.D.-907 A.D.), Xiazhou Tea of Yichang is relegated into top grade. "As the major tea distribution base of China, Yichang is making strides into the tea brand base.
Better quality and richer aroma
Li Wei, a tea merchant from Shanxi, went to Yichang to see the “tea fairs” as ever. Collecting information and taking sips from booth to booth, he benefited very much from the festival.
"The taste is heavy and the aroma is rich." This is Li’s evaluation of Yichang tea. In 2009, when he came to investigate the tea market in Yichang, he chose to buy the less profitable loose-leaf tea, but he found that even so, the tea soup was clear without impurities or inferior leaves.” Since the strict quality management assured Li, he then chose to cooperate with some leading tea companies to introduce green tea to Shanxi market and its good quality gradually opened the door of the market. Li pays close attention to the tea fairs in Yichang and often organized distributors to come to Yichang to investigate and negotiate.
Li told the reporter that Yichang tea distributed to Shanxi market through his hand has hit 200 tons. As the classification of tea becomes more detail and the tea varieties and tastes diversify, he hopes to bring a new variety to Shanxi market this time.
Tailor-made financial services for the tea industry chain
After offering services to tea enterprises, tea farmers and tea merchants, local financial organizations build up a more close relationship with tea industry. In the tea culture festival, apart from the booths set up by various tea enterprises to attract customers, the Three Gorges Branch of Agricultural Bank of China, as the representative of financial sector, also set up a booth.
According to a senior staff of the bank, with the guide of attaching importance to agricultural development, the bank offers service to the whole industry chain covering the leading tea enterprises, tea cooperatives and tea farmers. The bank gives an impetus to promoting, innovating and strengthening the tea industry via financial cooperation, such as offering low-interest loans to tea farmers especially so that farmers can enjoy the preferential and convenient policy. By the end of April, the Three Gorges Branch of the Agricultural Bank of China had issued small loans of nearly 60 million yuan to tea farmers in Yiling District.
In addition, the services for tea merchants are also gradually improved. Given that most of the tea orders are from other regions and the merchants have frequent financial settlements, the bank offer a special fee package base on the service times to reduce operating costs for the merchants. ( Reporter: Long Yizhou Correspondent Lin Qian)