The tea industry in Fu'an City, southeast China's Fujian Province, generated a comprehensive output value of 13.8 billion yuan (about 1.92 billion U.S. dollars) across its entire industrial chain in 2025, according to local authorities.
The city has a tea plantation area of 300,000 mu (about 20,000 hectares), with 60 percent of local farmers engaged in tea production and processing. Tea-related income accounts for 60 percent of farmers' per capita income. In 2025, the city's crude tea output reached 28,000 tonnes, grossing 2.3 billion yuan.
Fu'an is the birthplace of Tanyang Gongfu black tea. Tea cultivation in the city dates back more than 1,400 years to the Sui Dynasty (581-618). In 1851, local tea artisans created Tanyang Gongfu black tea using Tanyang Caicha, a local tea variety, as the raw material.
The tea won a gold medal at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. The craftsmanship of Tanyang Gongfu black tea production was listed as a national intangible cultural heritage item in 2021, and was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2022.
In 2025, the brand value of Tanyang Gongfu black tea reached 9.545 billion yuan, earning it a place among the top 10 regional public brands of Chinese black tea. It was also selected as the designated tea for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Tianjin Summit.
Between 2007 and 2023, Tanyang Gongfu black tea was successively designated as a national geographical indication (GI) protected product, a GI certification trademark and a China well-known trademark, and was included in the first batch of the China-EU agreement on geographical indications protection list.
The city has also promoted the construction of 5G smart tea plantations. A 5G-enabled smart tea plantation demonstration zone covers 1,800 mu, with measured savings of approximately 37 percent in water use and 20 percent in fertilizer use. This model has been rolled out at the local tea farms and bases.
(Edited by Tian Shenyoujia with Xinhua Silk Road, tianshenyoga0524@163.com)
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