CHINA DAILY | HONG KONG EDITION Tuesday, May 5, 2020 | 11 TRAVEL TOURISTS FIND TEA AND MORE IN ANHUI Leaves must be harvested carefully by hand, but it’s the famous trace of orchid that connoisseurs crave, Zhu Lixin reports.
n the mountains of southern Anhui province, rain is refilling Although machines the creeks and bringing water can be applied in the falls back to life, with fresh flow ers adding color to the black and drying process, it is Iwhite residential architecture. Spring virtually impossible to has always been favored by tourists. replace human hands Many visitors are connoisseurs of tea, which is cultivated on about for picking the leaves. 167,000 hectares across the province. Most tourists choose the city of Huangshan to experience living tea culture partly thanks to the fame of of migrating to cities for work, as many Huangshan Mountain, or Yellow rural residents across the country have Mountain, which is listed as a UNES done. CO cultural and natural heritage, as As a result, the local culture in tea well as a World Geopark site. producing areas is often wellpre The city, known as Huizhou in served, from traditional snacks to the ancient times, is also famous for high craft of making bamboo baskets for use quality tea, such as Huangshan mao in tea picking. feng and Taiping houkui. Visitors who stay in the village will Nowadays, with the coronavirus get a close look at how farmers work to threat, visiting places with tourism earn a living. resources but few tourists is desirable — a sort of natural social distancing. ‘Ghost market’ One of the places worth a look is Farmers usually work during the Xuancheng city’s Jingxian county, daytime picking tea. They bring the which neighbors Huangshan. Tea pro harvest home for further processing at duction has been a pillar industry of night. the county, whose residents number The dried leaves are delivered to a about 300,000. There are around night market in the town. As the mar 50,000 tea farmers. ket is open from 1 am to 7 am, villagers Tingxi township governs nine villa call it the “ghost market”. ges and has been increasingly busy Traders include not only local peo since the beginning of April, as the tea ple, but also businesspeople from oth picking season kicked off. It is the core er parts of the country. Villagers production area for a local tea brand usually bargain for a good price at called Jingxian Lanxiang, or orchid Above: Pickers arrive at a multiple stalls before concluding a fragrance. farm to harvest tea leaves transaction. The name is fitting, as the county’s on April 12, 2020, in There are also villagers who have mountains are full of orchids. Tea con Jingxian county, Anhui established their own brands and save noisseurs can taste the delicate pres province. the products for sale by themselves. ence of orchid in the beverage. ZHU LIXIN / CHINA DAILY With a teagrowing history of centu Visitors to Tingxi arrive on a wind ries, communities in the mountainous ing road bounded by rustling bamboo Left: A craftsman works to region have largely relied on the tradi and a kind of tree crucial for the mak knit a basket, a tool used by tional crop to get out of poverty. Many ing of Xuan paper, the bestknown local tea pickers, on April of the villagers use the money to build handmade paper in China, which orig 19. LI CHI / FOR CHINA DAILY multiplestory houses. inated in Jingxian. When the tea harvest is nearly fin Some of the residents of Tingxi Below: A view of the ished — generally in early May — vil spend every day away on the moun mountains in Tingxi town lagers have more time to serve their tainside, picking tea leaves, while oth ship of Jingxian, Anhui homestay and restaurant guests. Nat ers are busy running more than 170 province. ural attractions include a hiking trail homestays and restaurants in their LI CHI / FOR CHINA DAILY through the forest that can take two or own villages, often located beside three hours to complete. Steep as the streams. trail is, safety is not a problem. The route has been taken by local people Handon experience since ancient times. The abundance of tea not only allows visitors to buy the freshest Handmade paper leaves at attractive prices but also pro The traditional technique for mak vides opportunities to learn the whole ing Xuan paper by hand has been a big process of tea production, from pick hit among the cultural attractions of ing to drying. Jingxian. The paper originated from Though few, some households allow the county, which is governed by tourists to experience the whole proc Xuancheng city, which is known for ess themselves. fine calligraphy and traditional Chi Other villagers don’t offer a hands nese painting. on experience, mainly because the har The paper is made in Jingxian from vest season is so short — only a month the bark of the blue sandalwood tree, a — so they have little time and no facili common species of elm, along with a ties for visitors. One skilled picker can special type of rice straw grown in gather about 2 kilograms of fresh tea sandy soil. leaves in a day’s work, and that will In 2009, the traditional method of yield a mere 500 grams of dried final making Xuan paper was included in product. No wonder tea prices contin UNESCO’s Representative List of the ue to climb. For the current harvest, Intangible Cultural Heritage of each picker will be paid at least 150 Humanity. yuan ($21) per day. Most come from Several local companies and work other areas for the temporary work. shops are recognized by quality super vision authorities as producing Traditional lifestyle authentic Xuan paper. China Xuan If a household doesn’t want to hire Paper Group is the largest manufac helpers, the family will be rather busy. turer, employing more than 1,300 Although machines can be applied in workers and producing about 600 the drying process, it is virtually metric tons annually — 80 percent of impossible to replace human hands Jingxian’s total. for picking the leaves. The company runs a large museum Despite the high cost of labor, pro devoted to the making of Xuan paper ducing tea is still more profitable than and invites visitors to its plant for growing a food staple, such as rice. close exploration. Tea’s requirement for intense manual labor and its high profitability help to Contact the writer at keep most of the villagers home instead [email protected]
Tourists watch a worker making paper at a plant in Jingxian county in A tourist stops on a bridge to enjoy the scenery in Jingxian county, Zhou Guoping, a craftsman from Tingxi township of Jingxian, July 2018. The company based in Jingxian, China Xuan Paper Group, is Anhui province on April 12. The bridge, built of steel and glass, is Anhui, knits baskets, which are still widely used by traditional China’s largest manufacturer of handmade paper. ZHU LIXIN / CHINA DAILY over a stream and leads to a mountain trail. ZHU LIXIN / CHINA DAILY local tea farmers, on April 19. LI CHI / FOR CHINA DAILY