In pics: A glimpse of tea processing in China’s Hainan

Photo shows tea trees at the Jinjiang tea plantation in south China’s Hainan Province. (People’s Daily Online/Meng Fansheng)

Farmers have recently been harvesting tea leaves at the Jinjiang tea plantation located in the southern foothills of Wuzhishan Mountain in south China’s Hainan Province.

The tea leaves were then processed at the tea plantation’s workshop. The process for making tea involves various steps such as withering, baking, fermenting, rolling and drying. According to Wang Shumei, quality inspector at the Jinjiang tea plantation, tea leaves should be processed on the day they are harvested to ensure the quality of the tea. Wang has been working for the tea plantation for 30 years.

The predecessor of the Jinjiang tea plantation is the Tongshi tea plantation, which was established in the 1960s. The Jinjiang tea plantation is the first certified organic tea plantation in Hainan. In its heyday, the plantation covered an area of more than 8,400 mu (about 560 hectares) and produced 1,000 tonnes of dried tea leaves annually.

In the 1980s, the Jinjiang tea plantation’s brand name, Jinding Black Tea, became known around the world and its black tea was sold to 48 countries and regions, including Europe, the U.S. and Southeast Asia. During the peak period, Jinding Black Tea earned more than $1 million in foreign exchange annually through exports for Hainan.