HANGZHOU, April 24 (Xinhua) -- In a workshop nestled in a mountain village in Zhejiang Province, east China, the air is filled with the rich aroma of freshly processed tea as tea maker Lan Xiangping oversees the season's first batch of spring tea.
Lan, a master of Huiming tea-making, has devoted many late nights to the spring harvest. While tea processing once relied largely on manual labor, digital production lines now work alongside traditional methods, improving efficiency and helping increase incomes for tea farmers.
"The tea industry cannot rely on the old ways," said Lan, who also heads a local tea company. After the production line went online, he said trial batches of the new tea demonstrated consistent quality, helping bring in a wave of new orders.
Zhejiang, home to major technology companies including Alibaba and Unitree Robotics, is also a largely mountainous province. Locals often describe it as having "seven parts mountains, one part water, and two parts farmland," a phrase reflecting the province's geography and traditional farming conditions.
For years, farmers in many mountainous regions relied mainly on selling raw tea leaves, limiting their incomes. In recent years, however, integrated development models combining tea production with tourism, cultural experiences and services have emerged, becoming an important driver of rural revitalization.
The transformation is visible in Nengren Village of Yueqing, a coastal city in southeastern Zhejiang. In 2006, Lin Yichun joined more than 300 villagers to establish a tea cooperative. Through unified standards and branding, the cooperative helped bring scattered smallholders into a more organized production system.
The cooperative now generates annual output worth 48 million yuan, while average household incomes have risen by more than 20,000 yuan (about 2,913 U.S. dollars), according to Lin. It has also established training platforms, including a tea school program, and trained more than 500 local residents in tea-related skills.
Leveraging its proximity to Yandang Mountain, the cooperative has expanded beyond tea production by integrating tea gardens with tourism, cultural experiences and rural homestays, developing a broader rural tourism business, Lin added.
At the same time, market demand is reshaping the industry. West Lake Longjing tea, known for its flat leaves, fresh aroma and mellow taste, has become a key ingredient in new-style tea beverages targeting younger consumers.
Tea drink chains such as Naisnow have launched premium product lines incorporating its cultural branding and Longjing tea, one of China's most renowned tea varieties.
In the major tea-producing counties of the Longjing-growing region, the rapid growth of the new-style tea beverage industry has increased annual demand for raw tea leaves by more than 20 percent, supporting income growth in rural communities.
The tea industry offers a glimpse of the province's broader push to narrow income gaps and promote more balanced rural development. In 2025, its urban-rural income ratio stood at 1.81, down 0.02 from the previous year and 0.15 from the 2020 level.
This trend aligns with China's long-term development agenda. In the outline of China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030), China has pledged to make solid progress in "achieving common prosperity for all."
"Choosing locally suited, income-generating industries is key to rural revitalization," said Gu Yikang, chief expert of Zhejiang Zhijiang rural revitalization research institute. "High-quality development must ultimately serve better livelihoods and higher incomes, with improving people's well-being at the center of policymaking." ■
