Zhangjiajie vine tea increasingly popular

With the opening of the third Zhangjiajie Vine Tea Culture Festival in Yongding District, Zhangjiajie, a series of activities have been launched, such as public benefit activities, the exhibition of vine tea industry, and vine tea sales for charity on Douyin.Zhangjiajie regards vine tea as its leading characteristic industry for rural revitalization. In 2022, the planting area of vine tea in the city reached over 170,000 mu (about 11,333 hectares) , with an annual comprehensive output value of over 3 billion yuan, which provided employment for over 85,000 people.

On May 21, Li Chunyan sold vine tea products through livestreaming platforms at the exhibition area of vine tea, attracting tens of thousands of netizens in two hours, and achieved a sales volume of nearly 10,000 yuan.

In the vine tea base of Changshou Village in Luotaping Township, Yongding District, a wealth of insect prevention and control facilities such as solar insecticidal lamps, sticky insect boards, and pest traps are well prepared to keep healthy growth of vine tea.

Thanks to its unique natural conditions and effective ecological management and protection, Zhangjiajie has expanded the planting area of vine tea, making it the second largest green industry after tourism. At present, there are 5 national and provincial-level ecological tea gardens and 26 green standardization demonstration parks.

Zhangjiajie vine tea has successively been awarded the “National Geographic Indication Certification Trademark”, “National Agricultural Product Geographical Indications (Maoyan vine tea)”, “Hunan Climate Good Product”, and so on. Yongding District, the main production area of Zhangjiajie vine tea, has been named as one of the 26th batch National Green Food Raw Material Standardized Production Bases.

At the opening ceremony of the third Zhangjiajie Vine Tea Culture Festival, Zhangjiajie vine tea enterprises pledged to donate sales revenue of vine tea to the “Tea Power” public programs to help the career development of the disabled.

On the early morning of May 23, Xiao Wuguo, a disabled person from Qingyan Village, Luotaping Township, Yongding District, organized more than 20 people to pick vine tea leaves. He said, “the vine tea industry has not only improved my family’s livelihood, but also increased the collective income of villagers.”Both Xiao Wuguo and his wife are disabled, and their family had been in poverty for a long time. Since 2017, he has started planting vine tea with the planting area of 3 mu (0.2 hectare). Now he has became a major grower of vine tea, boasting 186-mu (12.4-hectare) vine tea bases, with an annual output of 10,000 kilograms. He has established Wuguo Family Farm, creating a vine tea industrial chain that integrates vine tea cultivation, processing, and sales, which has promoted the employment of more than 20 villagers, including 13 people with disabilities.

“The vine tea industry has provided a lot of employment opportunities for surrounding villagers.” Qin Guoyin, the head of Zhangjiajie Maoyanhe Investment Co., Ltd. , said that every year, the company will spend more than 2 million yuan hiring almost all surplus labor in villages near vine tea bases to pick vine tea leaves.

By the end of 2022, the per capita income of the vine tea industry in the city has increased by over 8,000 yuan, which makes it a leading industry to consolidate achievements of poverty alleviation and promote rural revitalization.

On May 22, workers were busy packing the vine tea products at workshops of Qiankun Biotechnology Co., Ltd. and transporting them to various offline stores.

“There are some highly favored vine tea products in the market today such as vine tea tie dyeing, vine tea drinks and vine tea desserts, with some of raw materials from our company,” said the head of Qiankun Biotechnology Co., Ltd.
Since 2017, the government has made great efforts to promote the cooperation between vine tea enterprises and research institutes and universities, which can ensure the technical guidance and achievement transformation of vine tea.

“The vine tea industrial chain has been extended with the support of technology.” The head of Qiankun Biotechnology Co., Ltd. said that in order to keep the freshness of vine tea leaves, the company has invested more than 80 million yuan in building the first automated production line in China, on which 10,000 tons of vine tea leaves can be processed per time. It also has established logistics and e-commerce platforms.

In 2021, the company signed a contract with the dual academician group organized by Liu Zhonghua and Yin Yulong on jointly establishing the Zhangjiajie Vine Tea Engineering Technology Research Center. They have been committed to vine tea cultivation, technological innovation, and product research and development.

At the exhibition of vine tea products, Qiankun Biotechnology Co., Ltd. launched a series of vine tea products which have been exported to countries such as the United States, Japan, and Australia.