Changning: Utilizing Tea Resources to Extend the Industrial Chain

Changning County is the only registered and recognized “Millennium Tea Township” in China, known as the “Cangjiang Tea Source”. This is one of the first four high-quality tea base counties in China, as well as a demonstration county for high-quality black tea production in China and one of the top ten charming tea towns in the country. At present, the tea plantation area in Changning County reaches 315000 acres. In the first half of this year, a total of 13.052 million kilograms of dry tea were produced, with a production value of 736 million yuan.

Zhou Zengzhi, a national agricultural technology expert and Baoshan craftsman, introduced that Changning black tea contains more effective ingredients such as amino acids, caffeine, catechins, theaflavins, and tea polysaccharides than other tea regions. “Changning black tea” has become a true selenium rich black tea with a selenium content of 0.14 milligrams per kilogram of black tea.

In 2018, Changning County released the local standard “Geographical Indication Products – Changning Black Tea” in Yunnan Province, breaking the traditional production process of Dianhong and stimulating the warmth, fragrance, and sweetness of black tea to the extreme. By utilizing light fermentation technology to retain theaflavins to the maximum extent, a “amber golden soup” that better meets the needs of modern consumers was created, and Changning black tea officially embarked on the path of branding development;

Making good use of tea resources and tea culture has become a compulsory course in Changning County. In recent years, Changning County has deeply implemented relevant regulations on the protection of ancient tea trees, standardized the rational development and utilization of ancient tea trees, and actively carried out publicity and production technology guidance on the protection of ancient tea trees in 9 main tea producing areas such as hot springs and receiving water. This has consolidated and improved the management ability and level of ancient tea trees among farmers. While protecting tea tree resources, it has greatly increased farmers’ economic income and promoted the sustainable and healthy development of ancient tea production; Carry out technical training and guidance on the construction of organic tea gardens in six townships including Tianyuan and Heshui, consolidate and expand the certification results of 90000 mu organic tea garden conversion, and further increase the efforts to create organic tea gardens; Further improve the infrastructure of tea gardens, support the improvement of inefficient tea gardens, promote technologies such as soil testing formula fertilization, organic fertilizer substitution for chemical fertilizers, and green prevention and control of tea diseases and pests, promote green organic production of tea gardens in six townships, and build a safe defense line from tea gardens to tea cups.

In order to improve technological level, innovate product research and development, extend the value chain, and enhance development momentum, Changning County has established the “Liang Mingzhi Expert Grassroots Research Workstation” and collected 48 representative black tea samples for ingredient analysis. At the same time, the “Yunnan Changning Tea Industry Science and Technology Mission” was established to complete the research on the Changning tea industry and the soil sampling work for tea gardens in the early stages of the project. We will continue to build a demonstration county for the national tea industry technology system, and all work is currently being carried out in an orderly manner.