The Paper's reporter Diao Fanchao Fudan University Records China Team Chen Zhiqin Li Yivan Liu Hanyu Zhang Zihan Wu Yuqing Liu Qianqian
Xiao Junjing will be asked by many people why he chose to return to his hometown to sell tea after graduating from college. This tea girl born in 1997, even if she has responded countless times to her original intention of returning to her hometown to start a business, when she talks about it again, she can still see a kind of firmness in her tearful eyes.
"I'm coming back, and I'm going to help the tea farmers in the mountains sell all the tea leaves." Xiao Junjing said.
In the town of Xunhegang in Xunhe District, Xinyang City, Henan Province, tea farmers work in tea fields. Photo by Wu Yuqing
Xiao Junjing was born in the intangible cultural heritage family of Xunhegang Town, Xinhe District, Xinyang City, Henan Province, her maternal grandfather was Zhou Zuhong, the inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage representative project green tea making technology (Xinyang Maojian tea picking technology), and her father Xiao Xingliang was the inheritor of the green tea making technology (Xinyang Maojian tea picking technology) of the representative project of Xinyang Municipal Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Since March 2019, from original social media articles to online media video dissemination, as long as it is a channel that can let more people know about Xinyang Maojian, Xiao Junjing is willing to try. While promoting Xinyang Maojian tea culture, while registering a company to create its own family brand, she broke the traditional "acquaintance economy" sales model of Xinyang Maojian, believing that it is far from enough to grasp the cultural connotation and traditional craftsmanship of Xinyang Maojian, "If only the roasting tea craft does not understand that the market will be eliminated sooner or later, long-term development also needs to face various norms required by the market, meet food safety certification standards, and adapt to changes in the modern market, because the market needs your qualifications and will not listen to your story." ”
Young people return home
"Xinyang Maojian is a product with particularly strong seasonal requirements, and every time the tea season is busy, my father and grandfather have been busy making tea for more than 40 days, and only rest for an hour a day when they are particularly busy. The tip of Xinyang Mao requires 'thin, round, light, straight, and more white', and this 'milli' will stain the hair when it is fried, like a white head overnight. Xiao Junjing said.
Zhou Zuhong told the Record China team that he began to stir-fry tea at the age of 17 and has been frying for 52 years. He summed up four sentences to summarize the technique of Roasting Tea in Xinyang Maojian: the green should be in place, the dry strips should be even, the standing strips should rely on the feel, and the heat is the key. In order to prevent the oxidation of fresh leaves, the tea leaves of the day must be fried on the same day, and when it comes to the tea picking season, the tea farmers are busy for several days and nights without sleep.
When I was in my senior year of internship, I was busy with tea, and Xiao Junjing went home to help her family make tea. One day at three o'clock in the morning, before dawn, she saw an arbor pass by the door of his house, carrying a large bag of tea leaves and preparing to go to the market to sell. Abel shouted excitedly at her father, "Old Xiao, I can fry the tea leaves well today, and I can definitely sell them for a good price!" ”
In the morning, Xiao Junjing and her father were sitting at the door eating dumplings, and she saw that The Uncle had returned with the bag of tea leaves on his back, and his back was very lonely.
That was the first time Xiao Junjing had the idea of returning to his hometown after graduation.
With the desire to "sell the tea leaves of the whole village", Xiao Junjing chose to return to his hometown after graduating from university, and began to shoot and publish short videos using his college major. In order to tell the story of the tea town, Xiao Junjing cooperated with friends to shoot videos to record the process of tea picking and making tea, and also wrote articles to tell the story of his own three generations of intangible cultural heritage. In addition, she and her grandfather Zhou Zuhong carried out the "Intangible Cultural Heritage into the Campus" activity to popularize tea knowledge to the students of tea villages. Zhou Zuhong will teach the actual tea roasting operation to the students of the Tea Department of Xinyang Agriculture and Forestry College, and Xiao Junjing will popularize the tea theory for the children of Xunhegang Town and cultivate their understanding of Xinyang tea and tea art etiquette.
Wenxin Tea Co., Ltd. Tea Garden. Photo by Wu Yuqing
Xiao Junjing said that the process of making tea is very complicated and difficult for many people to reach. Through the presentation of videos and the dissemination of social media, the tea making process has entered the public vision, and people have learned about the techniques, tools and the entire tea making process, so as to better understand Xinyang Maojian, and many customers have purchased tea through reviews.
Not only online channels, Xiao Junjing also took Xinyang Maojian all over the country. At the World Garden Fair in Beijing, the Zhengzhou Ethnic Minority Games, and even the closing ceremony of the Global Cultural creation, she and her beloved tea can be seen.
In March 2020, Xiao Junjing divided the fried Xinyang Maojian into different grades and sent it to the Life Science Institute of Xinyang Normal University for tea testing, testing more than 60 of them all in line with the national standard, and the scientific data made those who did not understand tea know how good her Xinyang Maojian was. The first thing she did after she returned was to set up Xinyang Zhou Xiao Tong Ming Tea Industry Co., Ltd., and registered three brands of "Junjing and Tea", "Zhou Zuhong Tea" and "Xiao Xingliang Tea" according to the names of the three generations of heirs in the family. At present, she mainly focuses on "Junjing and Tea", designing packaging and developing cold brew tea to meet the fast-moving consumption needs of young people.
For most tea farmers, Xinyang Maojian's sales model mainly relies on the acquaintance economy, but this path is getting narrower and narrower. "The customer is never fixed, the customer is always changing." Xiao Junjing believes that Xinyang Maojian will face a larger audience in the future. With the development of the Internet, products are sold on various platforms through various channels, consumer choices are gradually complex and diverse, and people are more focused on the cost performance of products.
Zhou Xiao Tong Ming Tea Co., Ltd. tea plant. Photo by Wu Yuqing
As a non-hereditary heir, Xiao Junjing knows that only the roasting tea craft will be eliminated by the market sooner or later, and it is far from enough to grasp the cultural connotation and traditional craftsmanship, and the long-term development also needs to face various norms required by the market, meet the food safety certification standards, and adapt to the changes in the modern market. She built a factory at home to standardize the production of tea: "The market needs your qualifications and will not listen to your stories." ”
However, there are still difficulties in selling Xinyang Maojian to more distant areas. Imitating the tea shop model such as Xicha is not realistic for Xiao Junjing. Compared with the raw materials of Heytea tea, the tea quality of Xinyang Maojian is better, but the price will rise accordingly, and the high cost will cause difficulties in sales. Xiao Junjing did not have sufficient financial support in the early stage and could not achieve multi-faceted management. At present, she hopes to use the brand of "Junjing and Tea" to beat out the fame of Xinyang Maojian and help tea farmers sell tea leaves.
Xinyang Maojian "broken circle"
In addition to the marketing of young people returning to their hometowns, leading enterprises are also indispensable for the development of Xinyang Maojian. Founded in 1992, Xinyang Wenxin Tea Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Wenxin Company) is a national key leading enterprise integrating tea planting, processing, sales, research and development, tea culture and tea tourism. In the core production area of Maojian in Xinyang, the huge billboard of Wenxin tea is eye-catching. In recent years, Wenxin Company has driven local tea farmers to generate income and increase income through the model of "leading enterprises + cooperatives + poor households" and the model of "beautiful countryside + base + poor households".
Chen Yubin, head of the "Longrun Tea" cooperative, has been growing tea in Longtan Village, Xunhegang Town for generations, he said: "Wenxin Company has played a great leading role in the Xinyang tea industry and has a great impact on the market, and their publicity of Xinyang Maojian has indirectly brought us some economic benefits and popularity, which is the greatest help to the people." ”
Chen Yubin, head of the "Longrun Tea" cooperative. Photo by Wu Yuqing
"Although the price of tea is similar to the past, sales have obviously increased. Wenxin's advertising is also doing very well. He attracted people, and those who traveled to us here basically came to Xinyang Maojian, and after visiting, they would bring some Xinyang Maojian back. Chen Yubin said.
As a famous tea in China, in April 2021, according to the assessment of the CARD China Agricultural Brand Research Center of Zhejiang University, the brand value of Xinyang Maojian was 7.108 billion yuan, ranking among the top three in the country for 12 consecutive years.
Xinyang Maojian tea leaves. Photo by Wu Yuqing
With its special geographical location and good natural ecology, Xinyang City, XunheGang Town has become the core production area of Maojian in Xinyang. As a northern tea region, Xunhegang Town has its own unique advantages. Guo Guiyi, dean of the Tea College of Xinyang Agriculture and Forestry College, said that the temperature difference between day and night here is large, the winter dormancy time is relatively long, and the production cycle is also long, so the containment substances are very rich. "The sweetness of Xinyang Maojian is particularly good, the freshness is particularly good, the amino acid content is generally very high, and it is also more resistant to bubbles."
However, due to conservative production areas and tea drinking habits, the market share of Xinyang Maojian is not high. "Drinking tea is indeed influenced by culture, tea producing areas will be more conservative in drinking tea, generally locals like to drink local tea, its taste is more in line with the taste of locals, less inclusive." Therefore, Xinyang Maojian can only sell to Wuhan to the south, and occasionally someone in Guangzhou will drink a little. Xinyang Maojian in Anhui is definitely not feasible, people there will feel that Xinyang Maojian is bitter, Shanghainese people do not like Xinyang Maojian, they drink Longjing, Biluochun is more accustomed. Guo Guiyi said.
Zhang Jiuqian, head of the Xinyang Tea Industry Development Center, said that Xinyang has a strong taste of hair and is not used to drinking in the south. In addition, compared with the West Lake Longjing, the historical and cultural heritage of Xinyang Maojian is also lacking, which is also an important reason for restricting its "breaking the circle". In addition, looking at the whole province of Henan, the tea industry is not conspicuous.
"The state's positioning of Henan is a big grain province, and Henan's focus is on grain, not on tea." Zhang Jiuqian said that Henan's tea-producing areas are concentrated in Xinyang, and it is difficult for the Xinyang tea industry to get additional policy support.
How Xinyang Maojian "breaks the circle" to break through, expand the scope of sales, and increase market share is the common desire of the government, enterprises and tea farmers.
Guo Guiyi said that the Xinyang municipal government has done a lot of work in improving the construction of the public brand of Xinyang Maojian, for example, the Xinyang Tea Culture Festival, which began in 1992, has been held for the 29th session this year. "This activity is of great significance to improving the popularity of Xinyang City and Xinyang Maojian. Except for the suspension of SARS in 2003, this activity has persisted and has been done online for two years. Without this activity, the popularity of Xinyang Maojian would certainly not be as high as it is now. Running festivals can improve urban construction on the one hand, and on the other hand, it can also improve popularity. ”
Guo Guiyi believes that the public brand building government has done a good job, but the publicity in enterprise brand building is still not enough, and enterprises should be supported to participate in some exhibitions, hold more projects or introduce incentive policies to encourage enterprises to participate in the review. "The government must not only find ways to increase the awareness of the Public Brand of Maojian in Xinyang, but also increase the degree of differentiation, and also provide the awareness of corporate brands." Only when the popularity of public brands and corporate brands is raised, can the overall income level of tea farmers be driven. ”
HaoJiachong Village, Xunhegang Town, visits Ye Wei, the owner of the homestay. Photo by Zhang Zihan
Ye Wei, owner of Haojiachong Village Xiyue Visit Homestay in Xunhegang Town Ye Wei Zhang Zihan, owner of Haojiachong Village Xiyue Visit Homestay in Xunhegang Town, believes that the endless "fake maojian" on the market is also a major problem affecting the brand image of Xinyang Maojian. "They use foreign raw materials, made according to our Xinyang Maojian process, and the quality of local tea cannot be compared, but the market has demand and sells cheaply, which affects the sales price of local tea."
In this regard, Dong Lei, deputy secretary of the party committee of Xunhegang Town, said that at present, they are learning from foreign experience, cooperating with universities, and using Internet of Things technology to establish a traceability system of origin and protect the public brand of Xinyang Maojian.
In terms of the construction of product quality system, Xunhe District is building a whole-process quality monitoring system for tea products, piloting the construction of a traceable system for tea quality and safety, and joining hands with Xinyang Normal University to establish a district-level tea quality and safety traceability system to strengthen the safety supervision of tea picking, production and sales. Carry out the "anti-counterfeiting" action in the tea market, strengthen the supervision of the tea sales market and food safety supervision, crack down on the illegal behavior of selling counterfeit Xinyang Maojian, and resolutely safeguard the brand value of Xinyang Maojian.
In recent years, relying on natural environmental resources, Haojiachong Village, Xunhegang Town, has improved the living environment and tourism environment, developed the integration of tea tourism, and built a pilot village for tea township tourism. Ye Wei is also a young generation who went out and returned to his hometown, and he and his wife Tu Yaqing opened a homestay restaurant and registered a cooperative to operate tea. Every year in April and May, during the peak tea season, the Ye Wei family has to work from morning to night, and they have to hire another chef and waiter. The integrated development of tea tourism has brought considerable benefits to them, and the turnover of Ye Weijia's Xiyuefang Homestay has reached 300,000 yuan this year.
"Young people who return to their hometowns to start a business can have more vision after a trip outside, and can bring different new blood to the countryside." Ye Wei hopes that the government can set up a special platform to register the tea production and sales volume of each tea farmer and realize the modern and standardized management of tea. He also mentioned the same problem as Xiao Junjing - the formalization of tea production. He is looking forward to a large-scale modern tea factory that concentrates on processing tea, which can not only realize the finishing and packaging of tea, but also solve the problem of retail tea farmers selling tea.
Editor-in-Charge: Yuhao Zhong