“Shaanxi Tea No. 1” is the first asexually propagated tea plant variety registered in our province. It has been designated as the main tea plant variety for the 14th Five-Year Plan period. It is characterized by dark green leaves, raised leaf surfaces, strong luster, early budding, and robust buds and leaves.

In the list of “Leading Agricultural Varieties and Main Promoted Technologies for 2025” released by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, “Shaanxi Tea No. 1” is included, making it one of the 18 leading fruit and horticulture varieties nationwide.

The development of “Shaanxi Tea No. 1” fills the gap of asexually propagated tea plant varieties in our province, ending the history of complete reliance on out-of-province varieties for the development of Shaanxi's tea industry.

In Longquan Village, Shuanglong Town, Hanbin District, Ankang City, there is a tea plant surrounded by a retaining wall. In the summer sun, this tea plant shines with a lush green glow, its branches, as thick as thumbs, appear full of moisture. This is the mother plant of “Shaanxi Tea No. 1.”

On July 22, standing under this mother plant, Wang Yancheng, the breeder of “Shaanxi Tea No. 1,” introduced: “We discovered this old tea plant in 1993. By cutting branches from this tea plant for propagation, we have cultivated 210,000 mu of tea gardens in Hanbin District today.”

Workers pruning dead branches at the “Shaanxi Tea No. 1” demonstration garden in Xieping Village, Shuanglong Town, Hanbin District, Ankang City (file photo). Photo by Lu Qingbo, Correspondent

Breeding a New Variety

March 12, 1993, is an unforgettable day for Wang Yancheng. At that time, as the deputy director of the Tea and Fruit Technology Extension Station of Ankang County (now the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau of Hanbin District, Ankang City), he had been on the road to select new tea plant varieties for a year. On this day, he was caught by an old tea plant outside his ancestral home in Longquan Village. This tea plant, over 80 years old, had plump winter buds showing new green, with raised leaves, shiny and lustrous.

“This means that this tea plant meets the three criteria for selecting superior individual plants: raised tea leaves, shiny and lustrous leaves, and deeper and stronger bud growth,” Wang Yancheng judged based on his many years of research experience.

To make tea plants reproduce asexually would clone the best genes of the old tea plant, but this technology was still a blank in Shaanxi at that time. Wang Yancheng decided to use the old tea plant near his home as the maternal parent for asexual reproduction experiments.

In Ankang, a mountain city where tea plants had been propagated using seeds for thousands of years, few people could accept his viewpoint. Therefore, Wang Yancheng had to conduct experiments on his own land. In August 1994, he asked relatives for a plot of fallow land covered with tall weeds, and started the experiment.

Clearing the ground, leveling the soil, forming ridges, and cuttings… Amidst everyone's puzzlement and observation, he propagated seedlings by cutting branches from the mother plant, completing the seedling propagation experiment alone.

In October 1995, 74 tea seedlings were produced, with 72 successfully transplanted, successfully realizing the leap from a single plant to a variety.

In 1998, 1,500 tea seedlings were produced.

In 2000, Wang Yancheng established a tea garden of about 0.4 mu.

In 2003, the tea garden welcomed its first harvest.

With the advantages of earlier market entry and better taste, this new tea variety was well-received upon its launch, with each kilogram priced 60 yuan higher than existing varieties.

For the next decade, Wang Yancheng worked hard to apply for the registration of the new tea variety. Following the naming requirements, he named the variety he bred “Shaanxi Tea No. 1.”

In 2014, “Shaanxi Tea No. 1” received a certificate of new plant variety rights from the state.

Extending an Industrial Chain

How to transform variety advantages into industrial and developmental advantages?

This question not only faces Wang Yancheng but also the local government.

In 2006, Wang Yancheng founded Ankang Hanwater Rhythm Tea Industry Co., Ltd., leasing land in Hanbin District to build experimental, demonstration, and breeding bases for new varieties. Subsequently, Hanbin District issued a series of supportive policies such as “Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Selenium-rich Tea Industry” and “Hanbin District Selenium-rich Tea Industry Innovation Action Plan,” providing policy support for the development of selenium-rich tea industry.

“At that time, I firmly believed in ‘Shaanxi Tea No. 1' and led villagers to plant it. Looking back now, it was the right choice. Currently, the village has developed 30,000 mu of tea,” said Xu Henghai, the Party branch secretary of Hede Village, Yinhuhu Town, on July 6, pointing to clusters of Green Tea rows.

Lei Hong, the person in charge of Shaanxi Ankang Shanchuanxiu Mei Agriculture Co., Ltd., said, “In 2015, the company transitioned from the fishery industry to the tea industry, choosing ‘Shaanxi Tea No. 1' right from the start. After just a few years of planting, we saw benefits, and it provided employment opportunities for more than 500 people around us.”

“Now, our Guihua Village has six small and two large tea processing factories. From March to now, we have purchased 100,000 catties of fresh leaves, with an average annual income per household exceeding 9,000 yuan,” said Liu Rulin, the Party branch secretary of Guihua Village, Yinhuhu Town, proudly.

Wang Xiaolong, the director of the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau of Hanbin District, introduced that so far, Hanbin District has built a germplasm resource nursery and a quality breeding base of 1,000 mu for “Shaanxi Tea No. 1,” capable of producing more than 50 million seedlings annually. In addition, “Shaanxi Tea No. 1” has been demonstrated and promoted in Henan, Hubei, Chongqing, and other six provinces and municipalities, bringing the “golden key” of wealth to more tea farmers.

Building a Tea Brand

“This is our ‘Shaanxi Tea No. 1,' with a sweet and pure taste, clear and bright color…” On April 20, during the high-quality development press conference of the “Shaanxi Tea No. 1” tea industry held in Shuanglong Town, local internet celebrities in Hanbin District promoted “Shaanxi Tea No. 1” through live streaming to netizens.

Holding the high-quality development press conference of the tea industry in Shuanglong Town, the birthplace of the tea variety, is just one example of Hanbin District's multi-faceted, multi-angle, and multi-element promotion of “Shaanxi Tea No. 1.”

In June, the Ankang Supply and Marketing Cooperative organized 30 companies to set up a 300-square-meter special exhibition pavilion for Ankang selenium-rich tea in the Shaanxi Supply and Marketing Exhibition Area, with the theme “Ankang Selenium-rich Tea, Drink Often for Good Health.” They conducted exhibitions and sales of selenium-rich green tea, Black Tea, Honeysuckle tea, and new-style tea drinks, competing with famous teas from all over the country.

Currently, the Ankang Selenium-rich Tea City is in operation, with 19 tea companies already operating there. In terms of brand promotion, the “Shaanxi Tea No. 1” brand has held promotional activities in Beijing, Lanzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu, Xi'an, and other places.

A small tea leaf genuinely supports a big industry.

“Currently, we are mobilizing the entire district to solidly promote