Tea growers are busy picking the spring tea. (Photo by Chen Danping, Correspondent of Three Gorges Daily)

　　Qinggangling Ecological Tea Plantation Base in Wufeng County is at nearly 700 meters altitudes, covering with patches of green tea. Groups of tea growers, scattered in the field, can be seen picking tea leaves along the mountain up.

　　Lu Zhitao says: “Our family of three can pick hundreds of pounds every day. Yesterday we sold some fresh tea worthy of 800 yuan.” They pick up tea very early in the morning and each of them is responsible for one line. With sophisticated skills, they quickly get their bags filled with tea.

　　Lu has earned more than 10,000 yuan by selling fresh tea for a whole month. Under continuous work of 75 tea-grower households, a total of 40,000 kilograms of fresh tea has been sold in the Qinggangling Base, covering an area of 1000 acres.

　　Tea growers are in a hurry to pick while “midnight tea tune” is sounded in the tea factory.

　　At 3 p.m. that day, Wufeng Jiming Tea Workshop just starts to work with tea machines operating. The general manager Mei Yuanhong is staring at the conveyor belt of tea, sometimes picking up to check.

　　“Workers stayed up all night making tea for 20 hours last night and went to rest at 9 a.m next morning. It was another sleepless night.” Mei says that the situation is getting better so tea factory has been resumed while collection has increased day by day. Workers have to stay up late to work. Compared with feelings of nervousness before resumption, Mei and Lu are now repeatedly saying the same: “This is unbelievable.”

　　Compared with the same period last year, sales of this year do not reduce but increase by 40%. “In previous years, one car is enough for the delivery of one day, however, we need two cars right now.” Mei took out his mobile phone: lines of orders appear on the screen saying most of the tea are being sold to downtown area of Yichang, Wuhan, Jingzhou and other cities.

　　Tea fragrance is pervading in Wufeng right now, however, it was a different story just a month ago. Warm spring brought adequate rainfall, germination was nearly two weeks earlier than usual. Because of the epidemic situation, tea growers and enterprises could only wait even though it was the picking time

　　On March 5, Wufeng was listed in the first batch of low-risk epidemic counties by the provincial center for disease control and prevention. In order not to delay the picking, 6 tea enterprises at low altitudes were resumed to work and encouraged to buy fresh tea with the principle of “No limitation , no discount, no arrearage”. Tea growers were orderly arranged to pick while “helping teams” were set by villages and communities to guarantee tea growers income maximumly by delivering fertilizer and selling fresh tea.

　　Up to April 1, 70 tea enterprises in Wufeng have resumed work while a total of 1.35 million kg of fresh tea has been purchased with more than 67 million yuan paid, which guaranteed the picking, income and profit of 130,000 tea growers.

　　At the same time, Wufeng e-commerce, logistics and other supporting industries have resumed work, tea sales have been promoted through the online spring tea festival and “Hundred YuanDiscount” of Yichang spring tea supervised by the city tea industry association. At present, a total of 300,000 kg dry tea has been produced and 120,000 kg has been sold with the sale volume of more than 50 million yuan. (Three Gorges Daily Reporter, Song Zhihao; Correspondent Yu Juan.)