Yellow sticky papers at the Zhang Tianfu Ecological Tea Plantation in Ningde city, East China's Fujian province, March 22, 2016. (Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn)
A traditional tea-growing region in East China with a 1,000-year history is undergoing fast growth after further developing natural advantages and introducing new technologies.
Tea production in Ningde city, East China's Fujian province, dates back to the time before the Tang Dynasty (618-907AD), according to The Classics of Tea, by Lu Yu, a tea expert in the Tang Dynasty.
Nowadays, Ningde city, located in eastern Fujian province, boasts a tea-growing area covering 686.6 square kilometers, accounting for nearly one twentieth of its 13,400-square-kilometer land area for more than 25 percent of the total area used for tea growing in Fujian province.
Vast tea cultivation can be explained by the fact that the often fog-enveloped land at least 500 meters above sea level is very suitable for cultivating quality teas, since tea prefers to be grown in a warm, humid and shaded environment, according to local tea planters.
"Thanks to natural advantages, there are so few pests in our tea plantation that we hardly use pesticides," said Shi Xiaodong, owner of the Zhang Tianfu Ecological Tea Plantation in Ningde city.
Like Shi, many tea plantations in the city plant organic teas, as they use animal waste instead of man-made fertilizers to add nutrients to the tea trees, and also use other methods, such as yellow sticky tape to catch winged bugs instead of killing them by using pesticides.
The experiences on the organic tea plantations helped set national standards for black tea and white tea in Fu'an and Fu'ding respectively, East China's Fujian province.
Local tea growers never let go of the chance to fully use natural advantages, so they developed ecological tourism.
In Ningde city, tourists can try plucking tea leaves on tea plantations, enjoy a tea ceremony to further understand traditional Chinese tea culture and even take wedding photos amid the vast and beautiful tea fields, said Li Buquan, head of Ningde Cross-Straits Exchange Association of Tea.
The move undoubtedly complemented the tea industry along with tourism, achieving a win-win prospect for local economic development.
Besides organic tea, Ningde tea producers apply technology and extract tea concentrates, which are raw materials for domestic tea-related beverage companies.
Workers in the companies put rough-processed tea leaves into huge pots and extract the tea concentrates through cleaning, filtering, separating and concentrating procedures.
"Our tea concentrates are provided to household beverage enterprises such as Coca Cola, Master Kong and Wahaha Group," said Zhou Shaoqian, general manager of Fujian Xian Yang Yang Food & Technology Company.
Brand effect also plays its part in the booming local tea industry.
Both Tanyang Congou and Fuding white tea won international accolades, respectively winning gold medals at the Panama Expo in 2013 and the Milano Expo in 2015.
Fuding white tea especially has seen a steady, even growing demand from markets at home and abroad amid the global economic slowdown in recent years, according to Fuding Weekly.
Organic tea, ecological tourism, tea concentrates and a widely-acknowledged brand help tea exports in Ningde city experience salient progress.
In 2015, tea exports in Ningde city totaled more than 2,544 tons, with a value of $84.3 million, and respectively 3.75 times and 12.81 times that in 2010, according to statistics from Ningde Entry-Exit Inspection & Quarantine Bureau.
