Meitan county becomes China's top tea-oriented county

Meitan has 40,000 hectares of tea gardens providing jobs to two-thirds of the county's population. [Photo/ddcpc website]

Meitan county in Zunyi, Southwest China's Guizhou province, has ranked first among China's top 100 tea-oriented counties for three years in a row, according to recent news.

Currently, the county has 40,000 hectares of tea gardens, and two-thirds of the county's population is engaged in the tea industry.

Since becoming a pillar industry in Meitan in 2002, the tea industry has been boosting the local development of agriculture, culture and tourism. In Meitan, 131 professional tea cooperatives provide tea garden management, agricultural material distribution, and technical training for farmers.

These cooperatives solve the problems of extensive management and low output, achieving a total annual output value of 5.55 billion yuan ($818.72 million).

Meitan is strictly controlling each procedure in tea production to guarantee quality. The county has 216 acquiring food production licenses, 5,555.55 hectares of tea gardens meeting European standards, and 2,933.33 hectares of tea gardens licensed by the Rainforest Alliance.

Meitan's tea export companies increased from one in 2019 to 14 in November 2022, and tea exports increased from $4.35 million to $47.59 million.

In the future, Meitan aims to become a provincial tea export cluster that sells Guizhou tea across the world.