On November 29th of this year, it will be one year since the inscription of "traditional Chinese tea-making techniques and related practices" on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The cultural flavor of tea is reflected in the aroma of a tea leaf, as one tastes its flavor, knows its meaning, and enjoys its rhyme.
The fragrance of tender buds: a leaf spreads a thousand years.
"Tender buds are fragrant, so-called the elite of herbs." Tea culture reflects the long history of Chinese culture and the profoundness of Chinese civilization. The Chinese not only use knowledge and theory to excavate the profound tea culture, but also use emotion and spirit. Wherever there is tea, there are scenes that convey the philosophy of humility and respect in the world, a testament to the harmonious coexistence of the Chinese people with nature. The cultural genes that have been carried on from generation to generation have made the Chinese people the inheritors of the tea culture.
Since the successful bidding of "Chinese traditional tea-making techniques and related customs", the Ministry of Culture and Tourism has actively fostered the brand of "Tea for Harmony, Sharing Intangible Cultural Heritage", guided and participated in the main venue activities organized by 15 provinces for the project of "Chinese traditional tea-making techniques and related customs" on a rotating basis, and created a cultural atmosphere of knowledge, love and enjoyment of tea in the whole society. The "Tea for Harmony, Sharing Intangible Cultural Heritage" themed activity held in May this year, the main venue was set up in Fuzhou, Fujian Province, which brought together 44 representative national-level intangible cultural heritage projects from 15 provinces, with a total of 93 tea culture communicators participating in the exhibition and 75 tea enterprises publicizing and promoting various kinds of tea cultures and tea techniques. The event also created the mode of "Ancient Mansion + Tourism" for the first time, setting up 17 interactive areas for tea culture and intangible cultural heritage exhibitions in 11 courtyards along the streets of Fuzhou's historical and cultural districts, which brought a three-dimensional exhibition experience with indoor and outdoor interconnections, static and dynamic interplay, and traditional and modern fusion, and attracted 143,000 tourists.
Focusing on the theme of "Tea for Harmony, Sharing of Intangible Cultural Heritage", hundreds of tea culture popularization, education and publicity and promotion activities have been carried out across the country. Through forums, exhibitions, cultural tourism experiences, live broadcasts and other colorful on-line and off-line activities, the important achievements and excellent practices in the protection and inheritance of tea culture in recent years have been presented in a comprehensive and vivid manner to promote the awareness and understanding of tea culture among the public, especially young people, to recognize and understand tea culture, learn tea history, taste tea, know tea, watch tea technology, and appreciate tea sets.
In June this year, the exhibition "Tea for Harmony, Tea in the Ancient Books" held in the National Library was divided into five units, namely "The Origin of Tea", "The Drink of Tea", "The Way of Tea", "The Politics of Tea" and "The Road of Tea", and collects more than 60 pieces of precious books from the National Library, taking time as a clue, testifies that the tea originated in China and spread to the world from the perspective of the ancient times, and makes significant contributions for the exchanges of development of human society and the world civilization.
In addition, China Chengdu International Intangible Cultural Heritage Festival, 2023 "Xinjiang is a good place" counterpart Xinjiang 19 provinces and cities non-legacy exhibitions are also dedicated to tea culture related sections, expanding the situation of national linkage.
Send to tea lovers: tea industry benefits many people.
A good piece of tea, contains the natural gift of good mountains and water and generations of conservation, condensed the wisdom and spirit of China's tea growers, tea pickers, tea makers. Chinese tea originates from the production and life of the people, and is held and inherited by the people.
At present, China has established a national, provincial, municipal and county 4-level intangible cultural heritage representative project list system, and develop corresponding systematic protection measures. It was divided into green tea, yellow tea, black tea, black tea, white tea, Oolong tea six tea categories, as well as flower tea and other more than 2,000 kinds of reprocessed tea, to meet the needs of different consumer groups.
"There is no reason to hold a bowl and send it to tea lovers." Relying on the complete knowledge system, extensive social practices, mature traditional techniques and rich handmade products of traditional tea-making techniques, more than 30 million tea farmers in more than 1,000 counties in China become rich with one leaf.
In recent years, in order to promote the upgrading of the tea industry, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism support local governments to set traditional tea-making techniques and other intangible cultural heritage projects as the basis for the construction of intangible cultural heritage workshops; encourage intangible-hereditary bearers of traditional tea-making techniques, intangible-hereditary workshops and related enterprises using Internet platforms and the "intangible-hereditary shopping festival" and other brands to broaden the product sales channels, introduce more tea products to cater to the preferences of consumers; develop new forms of integration of tea tourism to create tea tourism lines, expand the space for the development of the tea industry, and promote the deep integration of tea and culture and tourism. This series of initiatives effectively help to build a more complete production and sales chain, and further strengthen the foundation of the tea industry, so that tea can benefit more people.
The success of the tea heritage provides an opportunity for working mechanism, personnel training, skills inheritance, product research and development, channel promotion, sharing platforms and other aspects of the construction to accelerate the "tea culture, tea science and technology, tea industry" integration and development, and promote the creative transformation and innovative development of intangible cultural heritage.
Zhejiang took the lead in establishing the Zhejiang Protection and Development Union of Traditional Chinese Tea-making Techniques and Related Customs, absorbing two batches of 158 member units and jointly carrying out capacity-enhancing training for the inherited population. Recently held the "intangible cultural heritage tea life" traditional crafts competition results exhibition in Zhejiang, jointly mobilize the province's tea-making techniques and tea customs, tea life related intangible cultural heritage projects, presenting Zhejiang tea related intangible cultural heritage projects overall appearance, and set "joint" as the main innovation concept, to encourage the province's intangible cultural heritage workshops, traditional craft workstations and alliance members to carry out projects and brand joint creation, the 459 works on display all have their unique highlights. "The focus should promote the construction of protection capacity, innovation and dissemination, so that the systematic protection achievements of Zhejiang tea intangible cultural heritage can have a deeper and more creative connection with the better life of Chinese people." Li Xinfang, member of the party group and deputy director of the Department of Culture and Tourism of Zhejiang Province, said.
In Xinyang, Henan Province, the skill of making Mao Jian provides 300,000 jobs, with more than 5,000 handmade tea makers and a per capita income of more than 5,500 yuan for tea farmers. Relying on more than 2 million acres of tea gardens and more than 1,000 tea enterprises, the city organizes annual handmade tea frying competitions, selects outstanding tea makers, and encourages the inheritance of handmade tea-making skills. In addition, Xinyang also give full play to the relevant intangible cultural inheritance base function, the development of "inheritance + study + tourism" and other multi-industry fusion products, has achieved a good response.
A few months ago, Jingdezhen city, Jiangxi province, Fuliang county organized Tea Buying Festival, successfully attracted investment and signed 2 billion yuan, the results are remarkable. Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, integrate tea culture into hotels and other cultural and tourism venues, and actively build tea tourism boutique lines, tea-themed estates and tea characteristics of leisure and health town, attracting a large number of tourists. Many areas also co-displayed tea customs, tea points and local intangible cultural heritage projects linked to the display, formed a set of sightseeing, vacation, health and other functions in one of the "tea culture +" industrial zone.
"This year, promoting consumption is a big issue for the whole society, as a consumer product, tea is equally affected. According to our data analysis of more than 400 fixed observation points, over the past year, tea consumption in general shows no reduction in revenue, there is a new cheerful characteristics. This is closely related to the confidence brought to the market by the success of the bid." Based on the national 16 main producing provinces of the tea trade, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences Tea Research Institute researcher Jiang Aiqin analysis, the new consumer growth point brought by the integration of culture and tourism resources expand the market, but also let the tea products continue to cross-border, greatly enhancing the cultural added value.
Tea as Wine When Guests Come: Tea for Meeting Friends and Harmony of the World.
The Silk Road, the Ancient Tea Horse Road, the Ten Thousand Mile Tea Route ...... Chinese tea, as an important part of the spiritual identity and cultural essence of Chinese civilization, has always been a friendly messenger of civilizational exchanges and mutual understanding. Chinese tea has continuously conveyed to the world the Chinese cultural concept of tolerance and harmony. According to statistics, more than 120 countries around the world import tea from China, and there are over 5 billion tea lovers.
Tea and the world is the spiritual core of the Chinese tea story. It is now the right time to use tea as a medium to make Chinese culture better known to the world. This year, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism organized the "Tea for Harmony" activity, which was held in 41 countries around the world, allowing overseas audiences to experience the rich and colorful Chinese tea culture in an immersive way through physical objects, pictures, images, intangible cultural heritage displays, cultural performances and other forms.
Over the past year, Guangdong has further strengthened collaboration with sister provinces and exchanges with Hong Kong and Macao by sending intangible-hereditary inheritors to participate in the "Tea for Harmony, Sharing Intangible Heritage" event and the Fifth China International Tea Expo, promoting the construction of a humanistic Bay Area with tea as a link. At the same time, actively participate in international humanities exchanges, the relevant inheritors to participate in the "Tea for Harmony" activities in Singapore, deepening the cultural and tourism cooperation between Guangdong and New Zealand, and promote friendly exchanges between the people of China and New Zealand.
Fu Duanfeng, the representative inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage Quanzhou puppet theater, has traveled to many countries with the puppet tea ceremony. "We train the inheritor not only to refine the skills, but also to cultivate their hearts, so that they can constantly polished skills, thick planted the love and respect for the excellent traditional Chinese culture in the process of making puppets and studying tea in-depth, so that we can convey a true Chinese style, tell a good new story of Chinese tea." Fu Duanfeng said, because this year there are many foreign friends who traveled to China to enjoy the puppet tea ceremony, her doorstep became the main stage, which increased her confidence and pride.
Six Fort Tea, tea opera and many other tea-related intangible heritage projects are vigorously expanding the international communication space, creating tea life experience products that suitable for the participation of international friends through cross-border cultural exchanges, and opening up a "cultural window" through the global recruitment of China's tea culture dissemination ambassadors and other ways.
"Over the past year, the prominent feature of tea culture going out is that it possesses higher attention, more solid theoretical research, and deeper and broader connotation resonance." In the view of Guan Jianping, professor of Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University College of Tea and Tea Culture, the success of the bid unfolds a new scroll of theoretical research and international expression of tea culture, making the government, academia, industry bet on tea culture with new expectations, so that the relevant results are better disseminated to the community, serving the modern life, and better lead the inheritance of skills, product design, and to promote Chinese tea as a representative of Chinese culture to gain greater international influence.