The Ming Shan District and Yu Cheng District of Yaan City are renowned Tea-growing areas in Sichuan Province. In recent years, the Tea Research Institute of the Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Sciences (hereinafter referred to as “the Academy”) has conducted extensive cooperation with local authorities in areas such as the breeding of new tea varieties and tea production technology, yielding fruitful results that have accelerated the updating of tea varieties, fully utilized summer and Autumn Tea resources, and improved the quality and efficiency of local tea gardens. As the summer tea harvest season begins, reporters visited tea gardens in the Ming Shan District and Yu Cheng District of Yaan City to explore the secrets behind the increased income brought about by new varieties and technologies.

Sichuan Rural Daily Full Media Journalist Zhou Jinquan – Text and Photos

As the summer season arrives, the tea gardens of the Ming Shan District and Yu Cheng District of Yaan City are lush green with healthy tea seedlings. Among them, there are many new tea varieties jointly bred by the Tea Research Institute of the Academy and local agricultural departments. These new varieties have been used to produce delicious Mount Mengding tea, and they are also suitable for mechanized harvesting of summer and autumn teas, supporting the healthy development of Yaan's tea industry.

Local High-Quality Teas Now Have Better Raw Materials

“These Sanhua 1951 tea seedlings can now be ready for transplanting!” On July 25th, Li Wanlin, Chairman of the Perfume Seedling Cultivation Farmers' Cooperative of Ming Shan District, happily said while looking at the healthy growth of the tea seedlings in his nursery base, “Sanhua 1951, which was jointly cultivated by the Tea Research Institute of the Academy and us, has no weak seedlings. When it first came out a few years ago, it sold for 0.5 yuan per plant, and even now, it can still sell for 0.1 to 0.2 yuan per plant, generating very good profits.”

Li Wanlin (left) and Liu Dongna inspect the growth of new tea varieties in the seedling cultivation base.

Li Wanlin has been cultivating tea seedlings for over 20 years, starting with “Fuding Dahai” and “Longjing 43”. With the need for tea farmers to update their tea varieties and market demands, he and many other local tea seedling growers have focused on cultivating new tea varieties jointly bred by the Tea Research Institute of the Academy and local agricultural departments, such as “Ganlu 1,” “Ganlu 8,” “Jinfeng 5,” and “Sanhua 1951.” The pure profit from cultivating one mu (approx. 0.067 hectares) of tea seedlings can range from several ten thousand yuan to more than two hundred thousand yuan.

Regarding new tea varieties, Li Wanlin is well-informed: “Ganlu 1 is suitable for producing Mount Mengding tea, and it has high fresh leaf yield and is easy to pick. A tea farmer can pick 10 to 20 catties (approx. 5 to 10 kilograms) per day, which is several or even more than ten catties higher than ordinary tea varieties. During peak times, the fresh leaves can sell for up to 120 yuan per catty!”

“Yaan's climate is suitable for growing tea, and there are numerous wild tea resources here. Local governments also attach great importance to utilizing these resources,” said Liu Dongna, Director of the Science and Technology Management Center of the Tea Research Institute of the Academy. “For many years, we have relied on projects such as the creation of a national modern agricultural industry science and technology innovation center in Yaan, establishing observation points for tea germplasm resources in various districts of the city, collecting wild tea resources, conducting single-plant identification, and selecting those with unique advantages in terms of color, aroma, taste, and appearance. We then collect cuttings, cultivate tea seedlings, conduct regional trials, and comprehensive evaluations to breed new tea varieties suitable for processing local specialty teas. Over the past decade, we have registered six new varieties, and there are more than ten others that are either in the process of registration or will soon be registered. This year, three new varieties, Ganlu 1, Jinfeng 1, and Jinfeng 2, have received registration for plant variety protection rights from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.”

According to Liu Dongna, tea seedlings of new varieties such as “Ganlu 1” and “Sanhua 1951” have been promoted to tea-growing areas across the country.

Boosting Mechanized Harvesting to Support the Development of the Tea Industry

The new tea varieties “Tianfu 1,” “Ganlu 1,” and “Sanhua 1951,” jointly bred by the National Tea Industry Technology System Chengdu Comprehensive Experimental Station, the Tea Research Institute of the Academy, and local agricultural departments in Yaan, are also suitable for mechanized harvesting, further enhancing the economic benefits of tea garden production.

“After the Spring Tea harvest each year, we gradually start picking summer and autumn teas. At this time, rainfall, sunlight, and temperatures rise, causing rapid growth of tea leaves. If we rely solely on manual picking, it would be impossible to keep up with the large area of tea gardens. Moreover, the commercial value of fresh leaves is low, so it wouldn't be cost-effective for large-scale growers to hire labor. Therefore, large-scale growers prefer mechanized harvesting. Compared to manually picked summer and autumn teas, the price of machine-harvested teas is about 0.5 yuan lower per catty, but the volume harvested is much greater, with one person able to harvest 300 to 500 catties per day, several times more than manual picking, and the benefits are still quite good,” said Liu Quan, Chairman of the Yingquan Tea Industry Cooperative of Yu Cheng District.

In the past, Liu Quan's cooperative had not found a suitable tea variety for mechanized harvesting. “Tianfu 1,” “Ganlu 1,” and “Sanhua 1951” belong to medium-leaf tea varieties, with fast growth and development and larger growth volumes. Their summer and autumn tea yields can be 20% higher than those of ordinary tea varieties. Therefore, in recent years, half of the 500 mu (approx. 33 hectares) of tea gardens under the cooperative have achieved mechanized harvesting, with the output of summer and autumn teas accounting for half of the annual output.

Tea Seedling Cultivation Base

Zhang Yuehua, head of Sichuan Mount Mengding Yuehua Tea Group Co., Ltd., introduced that in the company's tea gardens planted with “Tianfu 1,” “Ganlu 1,” and “Sanhua 1951,” the efficiency of mechanized harvesting is even higher, with one person able to harvest over 1,000 catties per day. Considering the price of summer and autumn tea fresh leaves at 2 yuan per catty, tea farmers can earn over 2,000 yuan in a single day.

Guo Lei, a staff member of the Ming Shan District Tea Industry Development Center, introduced that in recent years, the Tea Research Institute of the Academy has cooperated with the Sichuan Ming Shan Tea Tree Breeding Field and some local cooperatives to jointly breed a batch of new tea varieties, including the national superior variety “Tianfu Cha 28,” the Mount Mengding Ganlu staple variety – the national superior variety “Super Early Bud 213,” and non-major crop registered varieties “Jinfeng 2” and “Ganlu 1.” These new variety tea seedlings have been promoted to over 500,000 mu (approx. 33,333 hectares) nationwide, providing high-quality tea seedlings and fresh leaf raw materials to various production areas.

“A new variety can be popular for 5 to 10 years. Tea seedlings sell for 0.2 to 0.5 yuan per plant, and single buds sell for 120 to 200 yuan per catty, and mechanized harvesting enables the full utilization of summer and autumn teas, greatly increasing tea farmers' income and supporting the development of Yaan's tea industry,” Guo Lei stated. “In the next step, we will continue to cooperate with the Tea Research Institute of the Academy, actively