Using Tea and Tourism to Brew up Success

6 | Tuesday, August 3, 2021 HONG KONG EDITION | CHINA DAILY CHINA First person I love this place by following the mountain’s contour lines. We started planting on Jan 20, 1997. After careful cultivation of only Hsieh Tung-ching, three or four months, I was sur- chairman of prised to find that the plants had Zhangping Yongfu sprouted. Taipin Tea The following autumn, we picked some leaves to brew tea and found was the first person to grow that it tasted very sweet. The result Taiwan oolong tea in Yongfu of that trial encouraged me to start town, Fujian province. large-scale planting. In recent decades, I have wit- I brought the tea back to Taiwan Inessed many farmers from Taiwan for professional evaluation and was cross the Straits to start tea gardens told that its quality was comparable and build careers in the sector. to leaves grown on the island. That Before, I was a furniture manu- made me even more confident of facturer in Nantou, Taiwan. In 1996, success. I relocated to Fujian to follow my I invested more to improve the dream of starting a tea business on infrastructure of the tea garden, the Chinese mainland. including constructing a reservoir, After traveling around with a installing sprinkler irrigation, map, I decided that Yongfu was the making drainage ditches and ideal place to grow high-mountain securing nets to prevent landslid- tea from Alishan Mountain in Tai- es and soil slippage. I also built a Paths featuring pink cherry blossoms wind through terraces at Hsieh Tung-ching’s tea garden in Yongfu town, Fujian province. PHOTOS wan as it boasts a similar climate boardwalk so tourists could walk PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY and landscape. around the garden safely. I quickly settled down in Yongfu. My tea farm has grown to 100 hec- With the support of local officials, I tares, and I have also built two pro- rented some land on the mountain cessing plants. and began laying roads, reclaiming Drawn by my success, a lot of tea wasteland and building my tea farmers from Taiwan have relocated ‘Newcomers’ using tea and garden. to Yongfu to reclaim the barren I encountered many difficulties. It slopes and grow tea. They have was a barren mountain, so there transformed the bare hills into were no roads, no water and no elec- beautiful farms. tricity. But for me, leaving my home- Gradually, Yongfu became a lucky town and coming to the mainland to place for investment by business- tourism to brew up success grow tea was fulfilling my dream. people from Taiwan and is now No pain, no gain. known as “the mainland’s Alishan Along with hundreds of local Mountain”. farmers, I camped in the wind and I love this place because the land, Farmers from Taiwan have helped bring prosperity to a formerly rundown frost, enduring the harsh condi- full of vitality and hope, has sup- town. Zhang Yi reports from Beijing, with Hu Meidong in Fuzhou. tions. We built roads, diverted water, ported my career in the mainland. cut grass and cultivated the land. To conserve water and soil, we Hsieh Tung-ching spoke with Zhang wo decades ago, a group mountains. Sometimes, my father decided to cut ridges for cultivation Yi. of tea farmers crossed the had to drive five or six hours to buy a Taiwan Straits in search of single component, such as a connec- opportunities on the Chi- tor for a water pipe.” Tnese mainland. Yang said he knew from a young They settled in the mountain- age that he would take over his Business blooming for ous town of Yongfu, Fujian prov- father’s business, so he studied tea sci- ince, where the geography and ence at a college in Fujian, where he climate are similar to those in the met his wife, a Guangdong province county’s orchid growers area around Alishan Mountain, a native who was studying tea culture. major oolong tea production area “We work well together. I am in By Hu Meidong and Zhang Yi similar to those in Taiwan, led him in Taiwan. charge of tea production, and she is to open a business in the county. After years of efforts opening up better at tea culture promotion. We For nearly two decades, Chang “Back then, all the houses were the barren hills, cultivating tea often travel countrywide to develop Ter-shi has run the orchid business made of earth, and it was hard to trees and building plants to process markets, and we invite many people his father founded in Nanjing coun- build greenhouses. The traffic infra- the leaves, the newcomers took root to visit our plantation,” he said. ty, Fujian province, known as the structure was poor, so it took about in the once backward town, which home of Chinese orchids. six hours to drive from the nearby is now dotted with green terraced Cross-Straits integration The 57-year-old not only grows developed city of Xiamen to the gardens. Yongfu has become a place of the exotic blooms, but also pro- county on the earth-and-stone Their success in growing oolong intensive investment by entrepre- motes awareness of and informa- roads,” the younger Chang said. tea means Yongfu is now known as neurs from Taiwan, and is the main- tion about them. He believes the “Now, this small county has a the “Alishan Mountain of the Chi- land’s biggest production base for development of the county’s orchid beautiful environment. The trans- nese mainland”. Now, the younger Taiwan high-mountain oolong tea. industry has been driven by portation facilities, such as bullet generation, many children of the In 2008, a Taiwan farmer entre- improvements in cross-Straits trains and expressways, have made pioneers, is gradually taking over the preneurship park was launched. It exchanges and cooperation. travel in the mainland so much local tea industry. is now home to over 70 Taiwan- The Chinese mainland’s growing easier.” Bolstered by central government funded tea companies. economic strength and the intro- Following his father’s death in policies to promote rural vitalization In March, the central government duction of policies to make it more 2004, Chang moved to the county and provide people from Taiwan rolled out measures to provide equal convenient for entrepreneurs from from Taiwan at the age of 40 and with the same status and treatment treatment for agricultural enterpris- Taiwan to enter the agricultural married a woman from Sichuan as the locals, the young people have es from Taiwan, including the use of sector have seen more people from province. created several tourism projects land and forests, and funding. The the island arriving to start business- He said he wanted to take care of around the tea gardens to drive a sec- moves are aimed at supporting their es, he said. the orchid garden that housed his toral upgrade. participation in the development of Nanjing, a major orchid produc- father’s dreams, and his assimila- “People like me, from the first gen- agriculture and forests on the main- tion base, is home to 86 businesses tion was helped by the many simi- eration, are now in their 60s, so we From above: Farmers pick tea leaves at a garden in Yongfu. An land and boosting rural vitalization. in the sector, including 20 that are larities in language, customs and are slowly making way for the next aerial view of Hsieh Tung-ching’s tea garden in the town. “Many policies have been tested in funded by investors in Taiwan. It living habits in Taiwan. generation, people generally in their Yongfu before being rolled out has annual output value of 1.55 bil- Under his leadership, the area 30s with a good level of education,” nationwide, because a large number lion yuan ($239 million), according covered by the orchid garden has said Hsieh Tung-ching, who was the “I was in my 40s when I first came of people have arrived from Taiwan,” to the county’s forestry bureau. expanded by about one-third. first entrepreneur to arrive in Yongfu to Yongfu, and I was the first one to Yang said. The March policy includes “Orchid companies from Taiwan Moreover, prices are rising as the from Taiwan and grow tea. try growing tea here. After I produced allowing people from the island to have provided support for the coun- flowers become better known, and “Their soil and infrastructure are tea as good as that grown in Taiwan, a obtain forest rights certificates on the ty in terms of scientific research, a pot of rare orchids can sell for as better than ours were, so they should Fujian lot of farmers from the island came mainland, which can be used as col- seed breeding and the introduction much as 50,000 yuan. carry on the older generation’s hard- Yongfu here, but that was 10 years after me,” lateral for bank loans. of new varieties and skills,” said “The orchid is a cultural symbol working, pioneering spirit.” Taiwan he said. “The tea grown here is sweet “The policy was piloted in Yong- Han Qingjiang, who oversees the of China, and more people are The young people have developed and fragrant.” fu in 2017, and I was the first to get local flower industry for the bureau. beginning to appreciate its ele- many new tourism projects, using Alishan The Taiwan farmers employed a certificate, which gave us a sense In 1993, the county, which is the gance,” Chang said, adding that as the internet to promote brands and traditional tea garden management of belonging,” Yang said.

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