China's century-old Panyong Congou black tea has turned from a traditional cup of tea into a thriving industry by leveraging technological innovation to upgrade the industry and promoting the integrated development of tea-related sectors.
The tea, once winner of a gold medal at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, was first crafted by tea makers in Tanyang Village in Fu'an, southeast China's Fujian Province, with locally-grown tea leaves during the Qing Dynasty, and rose to global fame thanks to its rich flavor and mellow taste.
While preserving traditional tea-making techniques, Fu'an is embracing modern technologies to establish a digital industrial chain covering seed breeding, eco-friendly plantation and quality traceability. The adoption of technologies is continuing to drive quality improvement and local industrial upgrading.
Backed by the tea research institute of the Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Fu'an has made sustained efforts in seed breeding of superior tea varieties, preserving more than 4,000 tea genetic resources and developing dozens of premium varieties.
In 2020, China's first 5G smart tea plantation demonstration zone was established in Tanyang. Equipped with Internet of Things sensors, drone inspections and integrated irrigation and fertilization systems, the demonstration zone has enabled more precise and standardized plantation management, significantly improving tea quality and production efficiency.
In recent years, Fu'an has introduced a series of supportive measures to promote the high-quality development of the Panyong Congou tea industry. It invests more than 20 million yuan (about 2.95 million U.S. dollars) annually to facilitate industrial upgrading, while encouraging the integration of tea with tourism, consumption and technological innovation, transforming the industry from traditional tea production into a diversified industry.
Statistics show that Fu'an produced 28,000 tonnes of primarily processed tea in 2025, generating an output value of 2.3 billion yuan (about 339 million U.S. dollars). The tea industry's total value across the entire industrial chain reached 13.8 billion yuan (about 2 billion U.S. dollars), while the brand value of Panyong Congou rose to over 9.5 billion yuan (about 1.4 billion U.S. dollars).
From time-honored tea that scented the world to a tech-driven innovative specialty tea, and now to a tea that boosts rural prosperity, the century-long evolution of Panyong Congou offers a vivid example of the high-quality development of Fujian's distinctive tea industry. (Edited by Li Xueqing with Xinhua Silk Road, lixueqing@xinhua.org)
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