As a tea professor who has long been rooted in Xinyang, Henan Province, dedicated to tea science research and Tea culture dissemination, Guo Guiyi places great importance on the protection and inheritor training of tea-related ICH. Since being elected as a representative of the 14th National People's Congress in 2025, Guo has actively fulfilled his duties, offering advice and suggestions. At each meeting, he submits no fewer than three proposals centered around the current issues in the tea industry. During the 2025 Two Sessions, his suggestion “about setting up a tea culture major outside the undergraduate major catalog” received a response from the Ministry of Education.
During the 2024 Two Sessions, in an interview with the China Cooperative Times Tea Weekly, Guo stated that “ICH protection hinges on people.” Currently, there are issues such as a small number of national-level inheritors, weak theoretical knowledge, vacancies in some project inheritors, and an aging workforce. According to statistics, among the 44 representative tea-related projects, there are a total of 45 national-level ICH representative inheritors (including 19 from the sixth batch, 2 deceased, leaving 43), only 2 projects have 3 national-level ICH representative inheritors (1 deceased, leaving 2), 4 projects have 2 national-level ICH representative inheritors, and 31 projects have only 1 national-level ICH representative inheritor. There are vacancies for national-level ICH representative inheritors in 7 representative projects: Green Tea Making Skills (Wuzhou Juyan), Yellow Tea Making Skills (Junshan Silver Needle Tea Making Skills), Pu'er Tea Making Skills (Dayi Tea Making Skills), Dark Tea Making Skills (Zhao Liqiao Brick Tea Making Skills), Temple Fairs (Rusha Tea Festival), Jing Shan Tea Feast, and Bai Ethnic Three-course Tea.
Therefore, Guo suggested further improving the inheritor system of tea-related ICH, appropriately expanding the scale of national, provincial, and municipal-level inheritors, increasing attention to elderly inheritors; refining standards for evaluating national-level ICH representative inheritors in tea-related projects; strengthening training for ICH inheritors with scientifically arranged content at various levels; and supporting Xinyang Agricultural and Forestry University (Tea College) as an institution participating in the “Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage Inheritor Research and Training Program.” Additionally, he suggested selecting outstanding universities in other main tea-producing areas that offer tea science majors as institutions participating in the “Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage Inheritor Research and Training Program,” effectively leveraging the crucial role of the Chinese ICH Inheritor Research and Training Program in systematic ICH protection, combining the “Three Teas” approach, and increasing the intensity of research and training for tea-related ICH.
Chinese tea culture has a long history, leaving us with abundant cultural and material legacies. At the end of 2025, China's “Traditional Chinese Tea-making Skills and Related Customs” passed the review at the 17th regular session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage under UNESCO, and was included in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This world ICH consists of 44 national-level ICH representative projects, truly shining together in brilliance. This is unparalleled worldwide.
There is every reason to believe that with strong support from the MC&T, the tea industry will further implement ICH protection and inheritance work, focus on cultivating a new generation of ICH talent, significantly enhance the quality and effectiveness of ICH protection, inheritance, and development, strive to find connection points between traditional culture and modern life, better integrate ICH into modern life, tell the story of Chinese tea culture well, showcase the unique charm of Chinese tea culture, and help ICH shine in the new era.
Produced by: China Cooperative Times Tea Weekly Media
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