Technology bolsters tea industry in Guizhou

GUIYANG — Strolling through his thriving tea plantation, Chen Shijun was delighted to see the leaves intact, radiating a vibrant green hue.

The daily tea leaf yield of Chen’s contracted plantation — which covers over 6.67 hectares in Changgou village, located in Jinsha county, Southwest China’s Guizhou province — has exceeded 500 kilograms in recent days. With the current yield, he is projected to earn over 300,000 yuan ($42,280) this year.

Dubbed the hometown of gongcha, or royal tea, in China, Jinsha has a rich heritage of tea cultivation, boasting 2,000 hectares of tea plantations. In recent years, the county has transitioned from traditional tea-producing methods to tech-enabled, large-scale cultivation and production.

Chen is among the area’s tea farmers who have benefited from this transition. He took over a plantation from Guizhou Jinsha Gongcha Tea Corp on a contract. The company supplied him with organic fertilizer, mowers, weeders and other farming tools and materials, and also provided pest and disease mitigation services.

According to Zheng Jikui, deputy general manager of Guizhou Jinsha Gongcha Tea, the company manages about 5,467 hectares of tea plantations and has contracted out segmented plots to local farmers. At the same time, the company has consistently aided in honing the farmers’ agricultural skills through its collaboration with research institutes.

For instance, the company’s partnership with the green pesticide laboratory of Guizhou University has helped promote the widespread use of eco-friendly prevention and control technologies among tea farmers.

In addition to tea cultivation, the processing of tea leaves has also undergone industrialization, thanks to technological innovations. At the company’s plant, only a handful of workers are visible on the ground. The entire green tea leaf production process, from preservation to rolling and drying, is carried out by machines based on input parameters such as temperature, humidity and heating degrees.

“The tea leaves we purchase from farmers are of varied shapes and sizes, and classifying them into different grades is the first task,” Zheng said.

He explained that the company uses sieving technologies to grade tea leaves, making the screening for top-quality green tea leaves more efficient.

Last year, the company saw an annual output of 1,500 metric tons of processed tea leaves with an output value totaling 85 million yuan, and its products were exported to five Central Asian countries.

Machinery used for tea leaf processing here can be locally manufactured. To extend and enhance the tea industry’s supply chain, Jinsha county has invited companies specializing in the manufacturing of tea leaf processing machinery and organic fertilizers to set up plants in the county.

The Guizhou Jinsanye Machinery Manufacturing Co produces a wide array of equipment, including fanning mills, sieving devices and machines used to inhibit the oxidization of tea leaves. “Our company offers tea leaf producers a comprehensive set of equipment required for intelligent production lines, resulting in an output value exceeding 60 million yuan last year,” said Hu Zhengjun, general manager of the company.

Currently, Jinsha county is home to over 50 tea processing enterprises, which generated a total tea leaf output value of 1.55 billion yuan last year. At least 58,500 households engaged in tea cultivation saw their income increase by over 10,000 yuan on average, according to Wang Youying, an official with the county’s bureau of agriculture and rural affairs.