The state of Sichuan’s tea industry

The history of Sichuan (四川) province goes back to the time it was called Shu (蜀). It always had a very distinct and strong identity within the realm of Chinese culture. To some extent Sichuan is also a smaller image of China itself: it is very populous; it is big (485 000 square kilometres); it comprises big urban as well as rural areas; etc.

Chengdu (成都), the provincial capital is well known for its tea culture and its many teahouses. The climate in some areas is ideal for the cultivation of tea, which explains why the region has one of the longest tea history. Given all this, the Sichuan tea industry is not doing as good as it could or should. It is not a quality problem; it is rather a profusion of brands and products that fail to make a name for themselves. According to this article, a province like Zhejiang (浙江) has about the same size of production as Sichuan province; but it exports about seven times more tea out of the province. The total output value of Sichuan’s tea production is also less than a half than that of Zhejiang or Fujian (福建).

The 24. November a conference was held in the city of Ya’an to discuss about improving the visibility of Sichuan’s tea. The measures taken were a change of mindset as well as organisational changes. Sichuan tea producers need to shift from an attitude where everybody does his own thing in his own corner to an attitude of cooperation. Translated into organisational terms, this means that the efforts will concentrate into developing three regional tea varieties: Mengding Ganlu (蒙顶甘露) in the region around Ya’an city (雅安市); Yibin Zaobaijian (宜宾早白尖) in the region around Yibin city (以宜市) and Fuxi Baojian (富硒保键) tea around Wanyuan city (万源市) city. Concentrating on these three varieties should help them emerge as leading trademarks and gain recognition outside of the province.

The challenges that Sichuan’s tea industry is facing, are not specific to this province. The contrary is true. The situation of Sichuan’s tea industry within China is a mirror of the situation of China’s tea industry globally: it has a very long tea history and tradition and produces great products; but it has a hard time when it comes to create universally recognised trademarks.  I explained, from my understanding, the reasons for this phenomenon in this blog post. The point is that it is not at all impossible for China to develop well respected trademarks; but it usually takes a governmental or para-governmental intervention to initiate and coordinate it. This is exactly what is happening in Sichuan since the Ya’an conference was organised by the Sichuan Agricultural Department.

Chinese sources: 川茶路径 从各自为政到整体出击; 四川将打造茶叶区域名牌