Intangible Cultural Heritage | Intangible Cultural Heritage Tea Man Jiang Zixiang: Inheriting historical brands and creating industry benchmarks

"In 2022, we will seize the great opportunity of the construction of The provincial tea industry chain in Hubei, focus on the construction of the blue roast standard system, broaden sales channels, support key franchisees, and promote the branding of blue roast." A few days ago, Jiang Zixiang, the inheritor of the traditional production skills of the national non-heritage Enshi Yulu and the chairman of Hubei Enshi Blue Roasted Tea Co., Ltd., revealed his New Year's plan in an interview.

Enshi Yulu is a traditional Chinese tea, inherited from the Steaming Qing Process of Tea Manufacturing in the Tang Dynasty 1300 years ago, which was pioneered by Lan during the Kangxi Period of the Qing Dynasty, and is a typical representative of Chinese steamed green tea. Enshi Yulu's traditional production techniques were included in the "National Intangible Cultural Heritage List" in 2014, including 9 processes such as spreading green, steaming green, drying water vapor, stir-frying head hair fire, kneading, shoveling ermao fire, plastic glazing, roasting Titian, and picking, etc. The tea leaves made are round, firm, green and white as jade.

Jiang Zixiang (left) shows off the traditional craftsmanship of Enshi Yulu photographed by Qu Xiangtao

Adhering to the belief of carrying forward the traditional production technology of Enshi Yulu, in August 2012, Jiang Zixiang founded Enshi Blue Roasted Tea Co., Ltd., which creates a new "Blue Roasting Enshi Yulu" selenium tea brand by integrating traditional skills and modern processing technology. "In 9 years, we have achieved self-breakthrough and won the titles of National High-tech Enterprise, Hubei Provincial Agricultural Industrialization Key Leading Enterprise, Hubei Provincial Key Poverty Alleviation Leading Enterprise, Specialized New Small Giant Enterprise, etc., and have become the head enterprise of Enshi Yulu brand." Jiang Zixiang said.

According to reports, in December 2021, "Blue Roast Enshi Yulu" was recommended by the China Tea Museum as the 2021 annual display tea sample, which was exhibited at the China Tea Museum.

"From the first day of the establishment of the enterprise, we have established the strategic goal of 'inheriting the historical brand of Enshi Yulu and creating a benchmark for the selenium-rich industry'." Jiang Zixiang said that he will not forget his original intention, firmly adhere to this goal, and let the traditional production technique of Enshi Yulu shine brightly.

Editor-in-charge: Wu Min