Tea variety introduced from the Taiwan region thrives in Fujian

"The first time I brought Meiren tea to the tea expo in Malaysia, I hoped to sell it over four days. I didn’t expect it would be sold out in just a day and a half!” said Li Pengchun, head of a tea company in Datian county, Sanming city, southeast China’s Fujian Province.

Meiren tea, a tea variety originating from the Taiwan region, thrives in Datian, embodying the collaborative development occurring across the Taiwan Strait between Fujian and the Taiwan region.

Over the past decade, Li has been exploring opportunities to export the tea overseas, retracing the ancient Silk Road to promote the brand and expand its influence.

Pingshan township is a core tea producing area in Datian county, Sanming city, southeast China’s Fujian Province. It is also the first place in the county to start to grow Meiren tea. (People’s Daily Online/Li Weiyi)

In the early 1990s, Li’s father, Li Zhizhong, traveled in a tractor to Fujian’s Xiamen to sell his tea. There, he sold his locally produced tea to a businessman from a tea company in the Taiwan region.

Several years later, Peng Baofa, a shareholder of the Taiwanese tea company, came to Datian and leased 10,000 mu (about 666.67 hectares) of land to plant tea. He introduced Meiren tea to the local area, establishing the first Taiwanese-funded tea company in the county.

The craft of making Datian Meiren tea is very complicated and follows high standards. (People’s Daily Online/Chen Lanyan)

Today, Datian Meiren tea has reached markets in countries such as Malaysia and Singapore, becoming one of the most significant outcomes of the cross-strait integrated development of Fujian and the Taiwan region.

Over the past 20 plus years, Datian county has invited the Taiwan region to continue the tea connection by encouraging cross-strait training courses, tea planting and the opening of tea factories. This has resulted in mutual benefits and a win-win situation for tea farmers on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

With a permanent resident population of 296,000, Datian county has 100,000 individuals engaged in the tea industry and related businesses. The county accounts for more than 70 percent of the country’s Meiren tea production.

The county is also accelerating the integrated development of the tea and tourism industries, extending the tea industrial chain by combining it with leisure, entertainment, fitness and tourism.

The Daxianfeng Chameiren scenic spot, a national 4A-level scenic spot established in 2019 in Datian county, is the first scenic spot themed on high-mountain tea in the country that incorporates functions such as integrated cultural experiences, display of cultural and creative products, leisure and vacation tourism.

Photo shows the Daxianfeng Chameiren scenic spot, a national 4A-level scenic spot in Datian county, Sanming city, southeast China’s Fujian Province. (People’s Daily Online/Chen Lanyan)

Datian county aims to turn the Meiren tea industry into a pillar industry able to drive economic development and rural revitalization by 2032, according to Tu Cuilin, deputy director of the tea industry development and promotion center of the county. The county plans to raise the brand value of Meiren tea to 5 billion yuan (about $ 699 million) by that time.

Meiren tea will also continue to be a pillar of cross-strait development and friendship.

"Tea is a shared cultural beverage across the strait,” said Lin Zhongle, president of the Cross-Straits Tea Exchanges Association. An increasing number of tea professionals from both sides of the strait are promoting tea culture to strengthen their confidence in Chinese culture, becoming custodians, inheritors, and promoters of Chinese culture. “We look forward to tea professionals from both sides of the strait working together to safeguard this ‘fragrant tea aroma’,” added Lin.