Cold climate cultivation now down to a tea

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June 4, 2019

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Cold climate cultivation now down to a tea

Source: Xinhua | 00:00 UTC+8 June 4, 2019 |

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Workers on a tea plantation deep in Taihang Mountain in Lincheng County, north China’s Hebei Province, are busy picking and drying tea leaves around the clock.

“In the past, people considered planting southern tea in north China is a daydream, however, we made it come true,” said Qu Baomin, 42, a tea-planter who successfully brought southern tea to Taihang Mountain.

In 2012, Qu and his wife contracted 2 hectares of land to plant tea in Tonghua Village on Sanfeng Mountain, which is nearly 1,500 meters above sea level, with rivers flowing through it. The cold resistance of Longjing-43 tea introduced by Qu is relatively strong.

But it can be difficult for southern tea on Taihang Mountain where the temperature can be as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius.

“We chose to grow the plant in a greenhouse,” Qu said, adding that it should neither be too cold nor too hot. He always opens windows when the sun comes out.

Since planting tea in 2012, Qu has spent almost all of his time in the tea garden on the mountains. Finally, his hard work has paid off.

Identified by the Tea Quality and Supervision Testing Center, Ministry of Agriculture, in 2014, the shape, color, aroma and taste of Tonghua tea produced by Qu were all high quality.

“This proves that the north can produce good-quality tea,” said Wu Xun, a researcher from the Tea Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

“Once we solved the problem of surviving the cold using greenhouses and other facilities, the quality of the tea has the potential to surpass that of the south.”

Although the tea from Taihang Mountain is not well-known yet, Qu’s tea has already earned a reputation for its good quality in the middle to high-end tea market.

About 100 grams of tea can be sold from 1,000 yuan (US$145) to 3,000 yuan depending on the grade.

“The investment in tea planting is mainly at an early stage, as long as you survive the first five years, the benefits are considerable,” Qu said.

“The economic age of tea plants is 40 to 70 years. If they are well planted, the financial returns will be several thousand yuan per mu per year.”

Qu’s tea-planting business has helped almost 100 farmers shake off poverty.

It has also spread to other areas of the Taihang Mountains, and Shijiazhuang and Baoding cities.

Gong Qiugen, a 63-year-old farmer from Tonghua Village, has been working in Qu’s tea garden since he started.

“The people who work here are all from our village,” Gong said. “Each month, I can earn 2,000 yuan and during the three-month tea-picking season, I can earn up to 10,000 yuan.”

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Cold climate cultivation now down to a tea

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