By LI MENG

JING County, an area of 2,000 square kilometers, lies at the foot of Mt. Huang in southern Anhui Province, and 40 kilometers southwest of it is the town of Taohuatan, site of over a hundred ancient residences with carved beams and painted pillars. It also houses the oldest guildhall in China, as well as a famed ancestral temple. The author did not go to Jing County to visit its places of historic interest, however, but to report on the famous Yongxihuoqing tea of the locality, and its producers.

The Story of Yongxihuoqing

According to historic records, Jing County has a long tea-producing history. Yongxihuoqing tea originated here about 500 years ago when China had numerous varieties of tea, which made the market extremely competitive. It was under these circumstances that, during the reign of Emperor Shunzhi (reigned 1644-1662), the tea planters of Yongxi, Jing County created the excellent quality and unique blend of Yongxihuoqing tea.

Making Yongxihuoqing tea is a complex process. Its leaves are the fresh spouts picked between 5th and 20th April, on days when there is no rain, from the local willow-leaf tea shrubs that grow on the northern hills. Leaves that meet the required standards are sorted from the rest and placed in round, shallow baskets made from split-bamboo, and aired in a shady, cool place for a maximum of six hours.

Yongxihuoqing tea is made by old hands whose skill consists of stirring the fresh leaves at varying temperatures until they have dried. This procedure, carried out totally by hand, usually takes more than 20 hours, and only 20 kilograms or so of this supreme quality tea are produced every year.

Yongxihuoqing tea production reached its peak during the reign of Emperor Xianfeng (reigned 1851-1862). As tea growers cultivated tea shrubs for their own consumption, rather than for commercial reasons, however, it gradually dwindled, and it was not until 1955 that Jing County began to resume its production of Yongxihuoqing tea. In 1982, it was designated one of China's famous teas by the Ministry of Commerce, and in 1998, it was awarded the bronze medal at the first session of the Chinese Food Exposition. Today, Yongxihuoqing tea has expanded to encompass a dozen series of products that all sell well on the international market.

Green Tea Maker

Jing County has abundant hills, a cool, damp climate, and soft, fertile soil, all of which make it ideal for tea planting. Ding Zhihua was born to a land of flourishing tea shrubs, and grew up amid the fragrance of tea. These deep and positive associations have encouraged him to invest in tea production, and to establish the Taohuatan Green Food Co., Ltd.

Ding's company experienced several years of prosperity shortly after its establishment, but then encountered difficulty. Improved Chinese living standards resulted in consumers no longer being content with the limited tea varieties available on the market, and Ding's company became overstocked with its known products, while new ones were still at an experimental stage, and unready to be produced and launched on the market. This was the busiest time Ding Zhuhua had ever experienced, as he needed to carry out market research and accelerate the development of new tea products, while trying to locate a suitable site on which to grow his new strain of tea shrub. During the picking season in March and April, he was obliged to live on the tea production base and labor together with the other workers.

Ding eventually overcame these difficulties, and made his company a well-known tea-producing township enterprise in the locality. The company now owns an environmentally friendly tea production base of more than 600 hectares about 500 meters on an extension of Mt. Huang, with an ideal climate for growing tea shrubs. The Chinese Green Food Development Center has, moreover, granted Ding's company the right to use the green food logo.

The Taohuatan Food Company has over a dozen name brand tea products, including Yongxihuoqing, Tingxilanxiang, and Aimincuijian. Yongxihuoqing tea is especially suited to the north Chinese palate, and the company expects to earn a big market share in Beijing, as well as internationally.

Tasting New Tea at a Planter's Home

More than 100,000 tea planters live in Jing County, accounting for a third of its population. They formerly produced tea independently, with each family having its own production method and packaging, but insufficient funds and out-dated methods of keeping tea fresh often resulted in its growing stale before it could be sold.

Tea planters no longer have any need to worry about selling their tea, as the Taohuatan Company sends out staff to collect it from their homes each year. A local tea farmer says, "In the past, we had to shoulder a tea basket and walk the long distance to the county seat to sell our tea from door to door, but earnings from sales of tea were far from enough. In order to subsist we also needed to raise pigs and ducks. After reform and opening up, the economic situation improved, and people had more money to buy tea, but our sales of tea were still restricted owing to a shortage of information on the tea market. This is how the Taohuatan Food Company has saved us, as it not only sends experts to instruct us on tea planting but also collects the tea from our homes. Within just two years, most of the tea planters around this area are more well off than ever before."

Ding Zhihua, this hospitable tea planter, made us some of his fragrant tea, and as we talked, occasionally glanced at the green tea garden on the opposite hill, in which grows his dreams for the future.