News-Tea

I. Leaders and Distinguished Guests Gather to Kick Off the Skills Competition

Zhou Liangyuan, Chief Expert of Tea in Zhejiang Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, and Shen Lu, Deputy Mayor of Shengzhou City, introduced Shengzhou’s ‘Yue Xiang Longjing’ and sincerely invited people from all walks of life to Shengzhou to taste tea and enjoy the scenery. Deputy Mayor Shen Lu of Shengzhou City and Director Wang Meifang of Shengzhou City Agricultural and Rural Affairs Bureau delivered speeches. She stated that in recent years, Shengzhou has continuously made efforts in cultivating leading entities, innovating mechanisms, empowering with technology, and integrating tea and tourism, promoting high-quality development of the entire industry chain. Zhou Liangyuan, Deputy Director of Zhejiang Provincial Agricultural Technology Extension Center, announced the start of the competition.

With the wave of technological advancements, many tea-related institutions, research organizations, and companies have actively embraced change. They leverage technology to empower the entire tea industry’s value chain, continuously exploring innovations that infuse sustainable development into the tea industry. In a series of articles, we document the intelligentization explorations at various stages of tea cultivation in China.

The emergence of smart tea gardens has enabled precision and automation in tea garden management. By comprehensively sensing, managing, analyzing, and sharing data, these systems allow for the monitoring and management of tea plants throughout their entire growth cycle.

The Rise of a Visual Beverage Icon
Tiger Sugar (老虎堂), a Taiwanese beverage phenomenon, revolutionized the global drink scene in 2017 by introducing the world’s first “edible art” – the iconic black sugar tiger-striped cup. As the originator of this viral aesthetic, the brand quickly captivated Gen Z and young professionals with its Instagram-worthy drinks, positioning itself as a leader in the premium milk tea category.

Product Innovation: Beyond the Hype
Unlike generic bubble tea chains, Tiger Sugar leans into its Taiwanese roots with a “black-centric” menu divided into four distinct categories:

“Green color, mellow taste, rich aroma, and beautiful shape” is a textual summary of Longjing tea quality. However, this textual standard no longer meets the current needs. Developing a “visible” and “tangible” “National Standard Sample of Longjing Tea” has become a consensus among all parties.

On April 15, the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs released the “Sensory Grading Standard Samples of Longjing Tea,” which is the first national standard sample of Longjing tea and currently the only effective national standard sample of tea in Zhejiang Province. Its creation ends the history of Longjing tea lacking a national standard sample and marks the establishment of a unified Longjing tea product control mechanism based on textual and physical standards.