On October 22nd, the opening ceremony of the 5th Hunan Anhua Black Tea Cultural Festival was held in Hunan, and guests from all over the world gathered in Anhua because of a small tea leaf.
Anhua black tea is the representative of the six major tea categories in China, the tea color is black and oily, because it is produced in Anhua, Hunan. In late October, The Anhua Tea Mountain is still full of greenery, with tea trees growing in clusters, domineeringly occupying the top of the mountain, and each small piece of tea leaves gathers into the fist of the prosperous people, which has played an important role in the development of Anhua City.
Thousand years of black tea accumulates thickly and thinly
Anhua first had tea, then there was a county, and this small city itself was born of tea. Located in the north-central part of Central Hunan province, Anhua has an area of 4,950 square kilometers and is the third largest county in Hunan Province. The territory is mountainous, with an average altitude of more than 600 meters, mild and humid throughout the year, surrounded by clouds and mist, and has unique natural conditions for the development of tea plant cultivation and tea production. The natural good conditions make the tea "not grow on its own", "there are few reproductions between the cliffs and valleys, only the tea states and counties." Not only is there plenty of tea, but it's also of high quality." As early as the Tang Dynasty, there are records about the tea produced in Anhua.
In the Ming Dynasty, the name "black tea" officially appeared in the literature, and Anhua black tea was designated as the official tea shipped to the northwest. Since then, the Anhua tea industry has seen an unprecedented boom. Anhua black tea, as the official tea of the "Storage Edge Yima" and the "drink of life" of the farmers and herdsmen, together with silk, porcelain and other commodities, is exported to the frontier along the Tea Horse Ancient Road and directly to Central Asia and Europe. Today, many old tea houses and tea gardens are still preserved along the Tea Horse Trail.
At this year's Black Tea Culture Festival, the Anhua Gong Camellia Roll "Qianliang Gong Tea" collected in the Palace Museum will be exhibited at the Anhua Black Tea Museum from October 22, 2021 to February 10, 2022. It is understood that "Qianye Gong Tea" is the earliest surviving Anhua Qianliang Tea physical object, which appeared during the Qing Jiaqing period. Wang Zhijie, deputy director of the Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau, introduced that the "Qianlianggong Tea" collected in the Forbidden City is still intact and full of tea aroma, truly showing the good quality of Anhua tea.
The history of thousands of years has precipitated a rich heritage for Anhua black tea. The production technology of Anhua black tea "Qianliang Tea" was included in the National Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection List. In 2009, Anhua black tea became a national geographical indication protected product, and in 2010, it was recognized as a well-known trademark in China. In 2015, the "National Anhua Black Tea Industry Well-known Brand Creation Demonstration Zone" was officially awarded by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic of China, and Anhua Black Tea was once again selected into the China Famous Tea Gold Award of the Centennial Expo (Milan).
Based on black tea for a long time
"The tea market is the most dense, and the people on both sides of the strait are thick." All along, Anhua black tea has provided an inexhaustible source of impetus for the economic development of Anhua, and this poem describes the prosperous scene of Anhua tea market in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. At that time, tea merchants in Jin, Shaanxi, Gansu, Exiang and other places came to Anhua to operate tea, and there were more than 300 tea shops and tea trumpets in Anhua, which lasted until the early years of the Republic of China.
Entering a new era, the Anhua County Party Committee and the county government continue to explore the potential of black tea based on resource endowments and development foundations. From 2007 to 2020, the area of Anhua tea gardens has grown from 109,000 mu to 360,000 mu, and the number of tea processing enterprises has grown from 20 to more than 200. In 2020, the tea processing volume will be 85,000 tons, the comprehensive output value will be 23 billion yuan, and the tax revenue will be 150 million yuan.
On October 21st, Anhua Yuntai Mountain OctagonAl tea industry Co., Ltd. Yuntai Cliff Factory 20th Anniversary Celebration and Rural Revitalization Counterpart Signing Meeting was held. Since the early 1980s, Gong Shousong, the first generation of tea people in the octagonal tea industry, began to make black tea, followed by daughter-in-law Deng Chaozhi and grandson Gong Yicheng. The octagonal tea industry has grown from a small workshop in the early days to a small factory hidden in a hutong, and then to the expansion of the tea garden and the construction of a new factory. At present, the octagonal tea industry tea garden covers an area of 6,000 mu, the plant area reaches 12,800 square meters, and the three modern production lines achieve standardization, cleanliness and intelligent production, and the daily processing capacity of tea leaves is more than 40,000 kilograms. The octagonal tea industry is a microcosm of the development of anhua tea industry.
The development of the industry has further led to an increase in the income of tea farmers. According to statistics, at present, more than 350,000 people in the county are engaged in tea-related production and operation activities, and the labor income alone exceeds 3 billion yuan. Anhua black tea industry has gradually grown into a rich democratic-led industry with the largest scale, the loudest brand, the highest comprehensive benefit, the strongest driving ability, the largest number of employees and the best growth in the county. Of the more than 150,000 poor people in the county, 100,000 people have been lifted out of poverty because of tea, forming an "Anhua model" of industrial poverty alleviation.
Small tea leaves drive large industries
"Eight mountains, half water, half field, one dry land and manor." In recent years, around the black tea industry, Anhua County has adhered to the concept of ecological priority and green development, and actively built a tea tourism cultural and sports characteristic industrial system based on "tea as the basis, tourism as the medium, literature as the connotation, and Kang as the extension", and deeply promoted the integrated development of industry and city.
In the tea tourism industry, the most representative is the Anhua black tea characteristic town. The planned area of the town is 20.52 square kilometers, covering the waters of the Zijiang River between Zhuxikou Power Station and Dongping Power Station and 10 administrative villages on both sides of the river. The project was launched in 2017, with a total investment of 10 billion yuan in five years, and 25 sub-projects have been implemented so far, with a total investment of more than 4.6 billion yuan. In addition, Anhua has created a 24-hour healthy tea life boutique tourism route in Anhua with the theme of "beautiful tea beauty, tea tasting, tea ceremony, tea garden, tea feast, tea viewing drama, tea house, and tea reminiscence", using a tourism route to string together local attractions, tea gardens, specialties and culture.
In further expanding the depth of Anhua black tea brand, Anhua County has successively established scientific research institutions such as Anhua Black Tea Research Institute, Hunan Tea Industry Technology System Xuefeng Mountain Experimental Station, Baishaxi Anhua Black Tea Enterprise Technology Center, and established industry-university-research cooperation with a number of scientific research institutes and colleges and universities at or above the provincial level, and the contribution rate of science and technology in industrial development has reached 75%. This year, Liu Zhonghua, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, has the only workstation in Anhua. At this cultural festival, Liu Zhonghua released a new book "Scientifically Unlocking the Chemical and Health Code of Anhua Black Tea" to interpret the health code of Anhua Black Tea.
During the Fifth Hunan Anhua Black Tea Cultural Festival, Anhua County negotiated more than 30 cooperation projects of various types, reached 14 investment cooperation projects, and attracted 10.2408 billion yuan in contracts, an increase of 163.94% over the previous Black Tea Cultural Festival. The signed projects involve all aspects, including the development of tea tourism and health town, the comprehensive development of new energy, furniture production, and the development of the whole industrial chain of Anhua black tea.
A piece of tea nourishes one side of the water and soil, and a piece of black tea writes a wonderful story of Xingye and the rich people. On the road to becoming a dominant characteristic industry with large regional scale, loud brand, good benefits and strong driving force, Anhua black tea is still running.
Xiaoxiang Morning News reporter Shen Xiaoyi