Village thrives on hard work and love of tea
Print Edition
Everybody at Maoping Village in central China’s Hunan Province greets village head Long Xianwen with warmth and admiration, but it was not the same five years ago.
When Long initiated a tea plantation cooperative in 2009, skepticism from more than half of the 1,300 villagers clouded the plan, as they did not believe high-grade local green tea could sell for more than 600 yuan (US$96) per 450 grams, as its price at the time was only about half that.
About 95 percent of Maoping’s residents are from the Miao ethnic minority — one of the largest in central and southwestern China.
Miao people with business savvy like Long are rare. He made his fortune from property and spent most of his time before 2009 living away from the village.
But in July of that year, a fire gutted more than 20 wood houses in the village and plunged their owners into poverty, and their chief into deep thought.
Soon after he came up with a plan to open a cooperative to promote tea making and tourism.
“I plowed millions of my own money into the cooperative to show my confidence,” he said.
“I stopped my property business and returned home to help my neighbors get rich by growing tea, which is a better testimony to my values,” he said.
His plan got off to a bumpy start. Long asked villagers to invest in the cooperative, but most refused at first, only to be swayed later.
“I borrowed 30,000 yuan to support Long’s plan. It was a bold move for our family, but we don’t want to live in poverty for ever, as we need to support our daughter through university,” said villager Shi Xiujie.
Shi’s confidence paid off. After several years of hard work, the cooperative has began to turn a profit. Last year, Shi was paid 7,000 yuan in dividends and earns 2,000 yuan a month working at the cooperative.
As a result, more villagers are now pitching in money and farmland to expand the cooperative. Its tea plantation now spans 4,000 mu (267 hectares), and Long hopes to grow that to 10,000 mu by next year.
Its output — Guzhang Maojian tea from Maoping — is now sold in markets as far afield as Australia.
The local people are also seeing the financial gains. From 800 yuan in 2008, the village’s per capita income surged to 7,300 yuan last year.
Every family also now has access to tap water and about half of them are connected to the outside world via the Internet.
Long also wants to diversify the business into tourism, as more and more Chinese discover the joys of traveling. An expressway under construction in the area will shorten the journey time between Maoping and Changsha by an hour.
“I am dreaming a big dream,” Long said.
“I want tea lovers to stay in hotels in the village, pick the leaves themselves, eat organic food and enjoy beautiful sunrises and sunsets at the plantation,” he said.
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