Sichuan Tea's Comprehensive Output Value Registers 108 bln Yuan, Hitting New High
According to the Sichuan Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the province's tea industry saw its comprehensive output value register 108 billion yuan in 2022, hitting a new high and ranking third in China. This is the second consecutive year that the output value of Sichuan tea exceeded the 100-billion mark.
In 2022, Sichuan will catalyze tea garden expansion, quality and efficiency improvement, and product refinement while increasing sales channels, with the brand building of the province's Tianfu Bestea as the leading light and Mengding Mountain Tea, Mount Emei Tea, Micang Mountain Tea, and Yibin Early Spring Green Tea as the focus.
Last year, Sichuan had 403,566.7 hectares of tea gardens, an increase of about 4,666.7 hectares over the previous year, with the pickable area reaching 350,000 hectares. These tea gardens are mainly located in 120-plus tea-producing counties (county-level cities and districts), especially in 30 key tea-producing counties (county-level cities and districts).
In 2022, Sichuan witnessed the primary tea production amount to 389,000 tons, rising by 14% over 2021. The main reasons for the increase in pickable area and yield include that a huge chunk of new tea gardens established during the poverty alleviation period are now in the harvesting or high-yield stage and the quality and efficiency improvement of tea gardens brings about a rise in yield per unit area. Last year, the province expedited the construction of an industrial belt of famous, high-quality green tea in southwest Sichuan, an industrial belt of high-quality selenium-enriched tea and a cluster for the development of jasmine tea in northeast Sichuan, and a cluster for the development of Sichuan's congou in tea-producing counties.
Sichuan accelerated plant and equipment renovation and process innovation last year, with 11 national key leading tea-related enterprises in agricultural industrialization and 89 provincial leading tea-related enterprises as the spearhead. Based on that, it moved faster to shape a modern and professional tea product processing cluster dominated by famous and high-quality green tea and supplemented by congou, jasmine tea, and Tibetan tea. The year 2022 celebrated a total of 240,000 tons of famous and high-quality processed green tea in Sichuan, a record high over the years.
According to the Sichuan Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, next, Sichuan will keep speeding up the brand building and industrial transformation and upgrading of Sichuan tea, make every effort to ensure that the comprehensive output value of Sichuan tea will top 200 billion yuan by 2030, and build itself into a powerhouse in the modern tea industry at a faster pace.
