Mindong Tea II: Upgrade Gongfu Tea

China Youth Daily, China Youth Network reporters Zhang Maggie, Zhang Yi, Chen Qiang

Four young "tea second generation" started a business together, made a new trick of the old brand in their hometown, integrated traditional tea into the fashion tea that young people love to drink, and wrote the tea industry into the poem of rural revitalization.

They grew up when the "Tea Generation" was in trouble. Fujian tea varieties are full of flowers, and there are many tea farmers. The old tea farmer and forestry chief book located in Shekou Town, Fu'an City, Mindong Tea Township, has been immersed in making tea for most of his life, but he has always been troubled by poor sales. In 2006, her 20-year-old daughter Lin Liping wanted to let her own tea "go out", so she simply followed the Anhui tea merchant to the unfamiliar anhui south of Anhui and talked about 10 customers.

The tea made by the Lin family is called "Tanyang Gongfu", which is the first of the three major Gongfu teas of "Min Hong". A hundred years ago, "Tanyang Gongfu" was exported overseas, once became the afternoon tea of the British, and also won the "Panama International Exposition Gold Medal".

Young people who grew up drinking "Tanyang Gongfu" have not forgotten the taste of their hometown. In 2013, lin Jianhong and Lin Jianliang brothers returned to their hometowns after graduating from university. Three years later, the sisters and brothers established the Hongxin Tea Industry Company, and the three people performed their duties according to their strengths, and Wu Jianjian, who had been wandering outside for many years, was hired as a "trader".

At first, Lin Jianliang sold "Tanyang Gongfu" in Guangzhou, and it was inevitable to eat closed doors. "The tea merchants don't want to listen to my introduction, and they don't want to buy it." Lin Jianliang did not say much, directly leaving two bags of tea and his own contact information. A few days later, the other party took the initiative to contact Lin Jianliang and asked to order two boxes.

Lin Jianliang believes that if good tea is to be recognized by the public, it must first be named. In order to seize the online opportunity, he invited two students working in foreign companies back, settled in Fu'an University Student Entrepreneurship Park, established a tea culture company, designed characteristic brands, and live-streamed goods. "Down-to-earth at the same time also need to find another way", "Tanyang Gongfu" is very inclusive, aiming at the tastes of young people, they have integrated the rich taste of white tea and oolong tea into it through a new process, becoming an "innovative flower and fruit flavor black tea", also known as "cocktail in tea".

"Siyuan tea" is one of the special ones, "trader" Wu Jianjian introduced, as the name suggests, drinking water thinks of the source, do not forget the tea farmers. With the support of the local government, they built the former poor township Ofeng into their own organic green tea base, signed contracts with more than 1,400 tea farmers in 7 cooperatives in various townships and towns in the city, purchased tea at an insured price, settled payments on the spot, purchased tea greens from poor households at a price higher than the market price, and gave voluntary guidance in tea picking, fertilization and management.

Lin Liping, who has a straightforward personality, gathered the unemployed women in the village and opened a road to employment for rural women. In Hongxin Tea Company, female employees account for the vast majority.

"Enterprises with industries, industries with farmers", the tea produced in this mode was named the Rural Revitalization Series by them. In Wu Jianjian's view, tea enterprises and tea farmers complement each other, and in order to truly rejuvenate the vitality of weak industrial villages, it is necessary to innovate business concepts and formats to enhance local hematopoietic functions.

"If the tea industry is likened to an airplane, then tea culture and tea technology are the two wings of this aircraft, which effectively promotes and guarantees the take-off of the tea industry." Chen Zongmao, the first academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in the tea industry, once had such a discussion on the tea industry.

In the past, tea was made by a pair of hands, and now, in the standardized factory building of 3600 square meters of Hongxin Tea Industry, the automated processing equipment rotates non-stop for 24 hours, and the raw materials consume more than 30,000 kilograms per day. A production line that used to require 36 workers can now be completed by five or six people with an annual capacity of more than 800 tons.

On the wall of the factory office hangs a photo of Lin Jianhong, the son of Lin Jianhong, making tea, which is the cultural inheritance of two generations of tea people. In the same land, "Tanyang Gongfu" is rejuvenating.

Source: China Youth Daily